What used to be a fire hydrant on the city's east side.

Detroit’s infrastructure is crumbling. We see the apparent, visible signs such as neighborhoods where fire hydrants no longer work, traffic lights that may or may not work, cracked streets with overgrown greenery, etc. But what is not as obvious is what is going on under the streets and above our heads: the power lines, the sewer system, the gas lines, the water mains and everything else. What we have to realize as citizens is that what we see is not just surface damage or the first parts of a system that are eroding, we have to realize that this is about as literal as a “tip of the iceberg” comparison as one can make. It is literally that what we see is a small portion of the problems that we cannot see.

With the population all over the place and a small tax base from which to draw funds for neighborhood upkeep, it’s going to be only a matter of time before something breaks that will be very hard to fix. A gas line in Brightmoor? A water main break in Elmwood Park or Gratiot Woods? What happens? Do you fix the problem over and over again to service neighborhoods in the decline? Or do you just let the services go.

Either way, the city suffers. And realistically we have 2 choices: Relocate people now, through eminent domain or let the neighborhoods fall under complete ruin and have people struggle to find a way out.

Just letting things go.

If we do this, then the situation I described above will become a reality. If we allow a broken services in dilapidated neighborhoods to stay broken, then what happens? You have residents without basic services. How will they survive without an essential such as water, heat, or electricity? There would be realistically no way out. It’s hard enough to move as is, let alone in the cold or the dark. On the other hand, if we raise taxes to provide these services, we penalize the rest of the city. Which isn’t fair either, and certainly discourages more people from moving into Detroit. The 2% personal income tax is a deterrent enough.

Why we relocate.

But if we are able to relocate people before this happens, everybody wins. Nobody will have to wake up one day to find a vital utility cut off and stuck in a terrible situation. And let us not forget that it’s almost impossible to sell a home in Detroit right now, especially in a hard hit area. This will centralize the population so that all utilities can be provided, there will be better police and fire protection, better property values in the long run and most importantly, stable, safe, and secure neighborhoods. Something that any city cannot thrive without.

By relocating now, it works out best for every one.

Are you a visual learner? Ok then this is for you.

If you are still struggling to see the significance look at this. It is a representation of how bad the power system is distributed. I did this last fall for a report on Urban Villages in Detroit.

Current Power distribution system

Let’s pretend these are all utility lines. See how some of them have lots of green branches? These are representative of customers. Some do quite well, being completely full, while others are almost bare. You really don’t want to be one of those people living on an almost bare branches when a utility line fails and you wonder if it will be worthwhile to repair it.

By contrast, this is what we need to move to. Now it’s a more Utopian model than anything, we will never be able to achieve this in full, but you get the idea.

Distributed Utlity System

Better lines, better reliability, better services, and a better quality of life for the people. It’s as simple as that.

Eliminating the neighborhoods from hell.

Another upside is that we can finally be rid of all the awful “zoning” that has created neighborhoods or pocket neighborhoods in areas that nobody should ever live in. And I’m not just talking about the most crime-ridden places either, although they certainly could stand to go.

For example, take Oakwood Heights in South Detroit.

The worst part of this place can’t be explained in a picture. The stench from the Ford factory, the river, the Oil Refinery and especially the Asphalt Factory is overbearing. It’s awful. The neighborhood looks like it’s falling apart, and the only thing that separates the Salt Co. from the residents is a giant awful rusting wall. The kids play with their Tonka trucks in piles of dirt left by people that have leveled nearby buildings. Guard dogs from local industrial establishments walk the streets freely. It shocks me that anybody can live here without suffering from a terminal disease.

By relocating people to more centralized areas, we can eliminate this kind of hell.

Eminent Domain Stuff

The government often makes really awful use of their sovereign eminent domain. In particular, people have brought up the Kelo v. New London case as an example where land was taken unjustly. Fair enough. However, this is vastly different. This is a rare example where the seizing of land through eminent domain will help the property owners out of a situation they are stuck in. I understand that many people have the “I’ve lived here my whole life, this is my home and I’m not leaving” attitude. And many people have put in countless hours in to community groups trying to make their neighborhoods better and safer. But it’s time to be realistic. And if you love something, like your dilapidated neighborhood, then maybe the best thing you can do is to let it go.

This is the only way many of these people will ever be able to move. Not to mention, that in numerous cases that have gone before the supreme court over the years, the courts have consistently ruled in favor of eminent domain seizure.

The situation we have here is similar to the case of Berman v. Parker, a 1954 case that ruled that the constitutional clause in eminent domain of “public use” also meant “public purpose”. It’s also worth mentioning that this was an 8-0 decision on the court’s part and there was no question as to weather or not this was an appropriate use of police power in eminent domain. This time it is a little different, in that it is being done out of necessity, not just for the sake of clearing out slums to improve conditions or blight issues. This is essential to the rebirth of the city, and all the constitutional previsions are in place for it to happen.

In Closing…

It seems obvious to me in my time of study that this is the best option we can take to ensure that the city moves forward in a positive way that respect all the rights of property owners. The bottom line is that people will have to relocate eventually, and it can either happen now while the resources and compensation are in place, or they can do it when DTE turns off the lights and posts a note on the door saying that they will not be coming back on. Which option would you choose?

I would also suggest that anybody with the time check out the study on potential Urban Villages in Detroit that my group worked on last semester for an Urban Planning grad course at Wayne State. While it’s not exactly the same as what Bing is proposing, the rational and reasoning are similar. You can download it here.

A ward system, for those who don’t know, is where the city is divided up into parts, and each part is represented in government by an elected individual. If there are parts A, B, C, and D then people from Ward A can only vote for a candidate who lives in ward A, and so fourth. This is exactly what activist and former mayoral candidate Gloria Haller is proposing, thus far it has gotten public support from former school board member Joe Rheker and sitting board member Larry Humphrey, while getting opposition from Mayor Barb Dempsey.

Much of this is the fault of the people themselves. If you don’t vote, then you are held prisoner by those that do (of course, not voting because you have no candidate you want to vote for is completely different). And there are even less people who are willing to step up to the plate and run for political office.

This issue borderlines cronyism, where a section of the city breeds all the people who will run it. How bad is it? There is only one elected official in Mount Clemens who lives north of Cass Avenue: School Board President Earl Rickman.

This map shows where the Mayor, the City Commission, and the School Board members live.

The southern 2 neighborhoods control the whole city of Mount Clemens

This map is taken directly from the new Master Plan of Mount Clemens. This is the neighborhood map, and from what I can tell by itself, is very accurate. Neighborhoods 7 and 10 (which also correspond with current voting precincts 2 and 9) run the entire show.

Driving through these areas, it’s not hard to see where this is different from the rest of the city. These are the nicest neighborhoods in town, and the people that live there are likely to be the most successful, college educated and have a little extra cash in the bank. Others who live in these neighborhoods include long time Mount Clemens High School Principal Nelson Jackson, Charter Commission President Jake Femmineneo, and former Congressional Democratic Whip David Bonior.

Due to the nature of these ares, it’s not surprising that these people are more likely to vote and more likely to run for office themselves. Voter data all across the country will give similar stories: higher income and better education almost always lead to higher voter turnout.

Due to the small voter turnout in Commission and School Board elections, there is absolutely no need to run a city-wide campaign if you are seeking office. If you win precincts 2 and 9 (on election day and the absentee), you’ve just won the election. I know this first hand, I won 14 of 17 precincts last year when I ran for school board and still lost the election, having lost precincts 2 and 9 and tied in precinct 1. This means that when you run a campaign, knocking on doors all over the city means nothing.

We have a culture where only 2 neighborhoods elect the officials. With all these politicians in the same area, it’s no wonder that they breed more politicians from the same neighborhoods. And when your friends and neighbors are all running for something, you get to know them pretty well, even if you already didn’t.

When election time rolls around, someone from neighborhood 7 will see a name on the ballot he recognizes. Maybe it’s his friend or long-time neighbor. Maybe he’s knocked on your door to talk to you about the campaign or you’ve gotten something in the mail from his committee. Over the years you might have seen this candidate washing their car or doing their own landscaping, maybe even playing ball with the kids and the family dog on the front lawn.Maybe your kids are friends with theirs, and they walked to school together, or even dated! Either way, it’s a community within a community. And this is someone you know either through reputation or just because you’ve seen them out and about and know they’re a “good person”.

That same person in neighborhood 7 might also see another name on the ballot. Someone who knocked on their door once or twice during the campaign. You’ve never met them beforehand, and you don’t know what kind of person they are. They seem very nice and very well intentioned, but aside from a quick conversation and a little reading, you know nothing about this candidate’s character, how he conducts his life, or anything else other than what he wants you to know.

When election day comes, guess who is going to get the vote?

Meanwhile, why would someone from neighborhood 9 even consider voting on election day? They may see a handful of names on the ballot, where none of which have knocked on their door or given them any information. If they are an informed voter they may have read their profile in the C&G paper or Macomb Daily and seen their website if they have one, but that’s it. And odds are, they are someone from the other side of town, who lives in a very different part of Mount Clemens than you do. So different in fact, that if you were shown pictures of the different neighborhoods side by side, you would never know that it’s the same city. It’s easy for people to not vote when they don’t feel represented, and that’s exactly what happens.

For someone who wants to make a difference, running an election is difficult if you don’t live in the right neighborhood. The people that statistically always vote will be harder to win over when they don’t already know you. Especially when one of their neighbors in on the ballot. And when you see all of your neighbors putting up yard signs for the local guy, you start to think “well these guys are all like me, and this is who they like, so this candidate must be my kind of guy”.

The machine just generates more cogs. The candidates ignore the rest of the city, as they don’t have to answer to them. It matters not what they do as long as they appease their neighbors.

By putting the city into a ward system, we eliminate this. This will allow people from different neighborhoods to elect someone who they know, who they may have known for a long time. This will allow the candidate to take their message right to the people, instead of trying to impress folks from the “rich side of town” into voting for them over one of their neighbors. This will entice more people to run for commission as the campaigns will be easier to manage with a smaller geographical area and less expensive to run with a smaller voter base to work with.

At meetings, this will bring new, fresh perspectives to the table. Mount Clemens, despite being small, is not small the way that Armada, Romeo, or Oxford is small. We are one of the most diverse cities in Macomb County, with different ethnic groups, races, ages, incomes, lifestyles and viewpoints. Because of this, we are underrepresented across the board. And as the old saying goes, “No Taxation without Representation”.

This will also make sure that there is no cronyism in board appointments or replacements: people will be elected by their neighbors come special election or anything else. For example, take a look at the map again. Towards the bottom there are 2 shapes that overlap, one of those is a newly appointed school board member and the other is a siting elected board member. I am not making accusations against the qualifications of newly appointed school board member Laura Kropp. But I will say that it surprises me not one bit that despite being the voter’s 2nd choice to sit on the board last May, I was passed up for appointment that was given to a sitting board member. And while I have no evidence to support this theory, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit of she was “asked” by her neighbor to apply for the appointment, so the board could use the opportunity to pass me over.

Opponents of the Ward plan say that it will force the new commissioners to only serve their neighborhoods, as opposed to the city at large. This point is downright laughable. If the current commissioners are doing their best to work for Mount Clemens as a whole then the system needs obvious reform. Because right now, it isn’t working.

Let me say that again: the current system is NOT working. Businesses are closing up left and right, neighborhoods are in decline, and people are moving out. The current elected officials have failed us.

The more realistic story is that they are not serving the community at large, but their own little community within a community: Seminole Hills and the Wilson School Area. Precincts 2 and 9. Neighborhoods 7 and 10. Whatever you want to call it, it’s the southwest end of town and it runs the show.

Because of this, there is no accountability. All you have to do to win is be from that area and show your neighbors that you’re like they are. No matter what way you want to look at it, the city is suffering, the people are underrepresented, and the people have little say in anything that happens. Their cries at board meetings can be ignored, because the commissioners know that if the angry person behind the mic gets everyone he knows to vote against you, you still have a strong base.

The one thing about the Haller Ward Plan that I do not like is the raising of pay for the elected officials. People are driven to public service for things other than the pay, and the better campaign platforms that can be developed as well as the chance of knowing that they can win an election will be more than enough to get more people to seek public office. The other small thing would be that the school board should be included in this as well.

With that being said, it’s time for a change. A Ward system would give better accountability, different viewpoints at the table, and allow government to be what it was meant to be: of the people, by the people, and for the people. Instead of a few elite neighborhoods that have power over the rest of the city with no accountability overall for their actions.

Let’s take this step to save our city and bring responsible government to Mount Clemens.

I haven’t hunted down all of the EXIF data for all the photos yet, so there’s still some gaps as far as what is what. But with that aside, I’m glad I can stop using CM has a place to display images and I can focus more on writing, where this sill give me an outlet for my creative behind the lens.

You can check it out at MisplacedFocus.com, and of course, you can become a fan via Facebook’s Networked Blogs by Clicking here.

Thank you all for your continued support in everything that I do, it really means a great deal to me.

As always I welcome any criticisms on my work, a shot, the site, or anything else.

Here’s to 2010!

Down the Tracks

So just for kicks, I decided to submit my photo “Down the Tracks” to the Bing.com (picture on the left) facebook contest to see what will be featured on Bing.com (yes, the background of the search area).

Well, to my surprise, I got an email from Microsoft today saying that my picture is one of the finalists! I’m all kinds of excited to be able to get a photo from Mount Clemens shown to  worldwide audience.

But I need your help! If you’re on Facebook then you can vote for my picture. Just click here to become a fan on Bing and it will let you vote in the contest.

To show my appreciation for helping me out and being such great supporters I’ll be giving away a couple s 8 x 10 prints of this shot  (which I usually sell for $25). Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post (either at http://www.cruzweb.net/2009/12/15/i-need-your-help-down-the-tracks-is-a-finalist-for-bing-com or on the Facebook note) and I’ll draw a couple random names (yes, they will be random) and if you win I’ll send you an email or Facebook message asking for your information.

So pretty please; vote and pass this along to your friends and help me win the Home Sweet Homepage Photo Contest.

I’ve been quite humbled by the encouragement that people have given me, and it has pushed me to keep pushing myself. I have a lot to learn, but am having a blast doing it.

With that in mind, I’ve found myself in more of a “take pictures” kind of creative mood instead of a “write stuff down” creative mood. So, I realized that before too long I’d end up turning this into a photoblog, which I don’t want to do. So I’m going to launch one sometime in the coming weeks at the start of the new year. The site is currently being developed and it will be a more complete actual place to showcase pictures and allow for comments instead of this place, which really is better for writing than pictures. I’ll have a fully integrated store to order prints, better than the one I’m currently using, and will look great.

More info later. And thanks for your support everyone

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Click here to download the report.

Here’s why I can’t wait for the month to end and will be welcoming 2010 with open arms.

The Music of the 00’s

It all started off with this and has just gone downhill.

Linkin Park: Pure awful on a disc

In 2000 the #1 album was “The Beatles: 1″, and by 2005 it was a 50 Cent album. That’s how fast things went downhill. The rest is history. Year after year we are treated to another piece of repetitive trash, a new Britney comeback album, or something else that just makes you dumber every time you hear it. It’s gotten so bad that we now consider a song who’se only lyrics are “Tonight’s gunna be a good night” to be perfectly acceptable. Excuse me while I go barf.

It’s ridiculous how much 90’s music I listen to now just because today’s “artists” have driven me in another direction so rapidly.

The music industry as a whole became something we all hated. Nothing like hearing record labels cry poor from piracy only to find out now that they use unauthorized recordings in compilations all the time.

Cars and The Auto Industry

Car companies gave us piece of shit after piece of shit after piece of shit. Ugly cars like the Ponitac Aztek, Cadillacs that look like they were rendered with an N64 instead of AutoCad, and where do we end up? The strongest domestic car company today produces a car that looks like a mini cooper on steroids. Only more box-like.

It’s no wonder that the auto industry tanked and took Michigan down with it. Especially Detroit, with everyone now scrambling to find a solution for what to do with a one-horse city when the horse dies out.

The Movies

We watched the Matrix get ruined. We watched 45% of all film produced go to movies about hobbits. We saw way too much crap, and more remakes that just had us asking “Why…?”

The saddest part is that the movie-making technology has gotten better, and the movie watching technology has gotten substantially better. And what do we do with all of this new found technology hiding in 1080p and Blu-Ray?

From Wikipedia: "Jesus' modern-day struggle to protect the lesbians of Ottawa, Canada, from vampires with the help of Mexican wrestler El Santo"

Certainly no 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Abundant Rape of the Constitution by multiple people

This was a rape, bukkake, and hog tie all in one with our country as the bitch. Our government decided Habeus Corpus was suspended, it was cool to wire-tap citizens, blatantly ignore the 4th amendment, pass a bunch of unconstitutional provisions, and nationalize numerous industries. All while running the national debt up through the roof. The saddest part is that all the presidents are guilty, each for their own reasons. But there’s no denying it, it’s at the point where one has to wonder if the country’s founding principles can ever be restored.

People attempted to scare us about everything at every turn

First it was Clinton’s dealings with the Chinese. Then it was “Bush Stole the ELECTION! The system is flawed”. Then it was a whole series of nonsense meant to scare the hell out of everyone. Terrorism. Anthrax. Global Warming. Crashing Economy (actually frightening) Avian Flu. Swine Flu. And all that other jazz.

Nothing sums it up as well as the argument that the government made saying that swine flu is more rampant than we thought…because so many people had it and didn’t realize it. What an absurd amount of stupid.

We were taught to live in a constant state of fear from assorted randomness that could kill us at any time or place. No, I’m not amused. And much of this fear led to…

War. Lots of it.

Since 2001 we have been engulfed in a new gulf war that has ridiculously expensive. Afghanistan, Iraq, and who knows what is best. It started with terrorism and has come full circle to a president who is awarded a Nobel peace prize only days after he escalates these wars. If you’re saying “what the hell?” you’re not alone.

We constantly lost the battle against nature

Between the great Tsunami, hurricanes all the way up to Katrina, earthquakes, and more. All that’s missing is for a volcano to blow up sometime soon and we can call it all complete.

The stock market went boom. Hard.

Unemployment runs rampant and the best we can come up with is bail out the banks with money we don’t have, buy up the car companies and put the whole damn country under construction at once. From Bernie Madoff to Ben Bernake to Kenneth Lay, corporate greed and a broken federal reserve system destroyed the notion of “American Prosperity”. Two market crashes?!? It’s a miracle we’re doing as well as we are.

I’ll be looking forward to the end of 2009. Not to turn another year older, but to put behind the decade of broken dreams and hope to start new. Cheers to 2010 and what is to come!

But I digress, I found myself there recently. Apparently, they’ve pulled out all the stops to cater to their customers (since nothing else really works) and have decided to have a wall section dedicated to movies to watch while you’re high. No doubt a large percentage of movie renters here come stumbling in grabbing random comedies and popcorn, sour patch kids, etc.

The word “High” got half cut off, but you can still make it out.

Livin the High Life at Hollywood Video

Livin the High Life at Hollywood Video

So props to Hollywood Video, even if it is the direct result of stoned customers not being able to find the movies they’re looking for and the staff being completely sick of helping them. Good stuff.

On to the review…

Book Review of Last Harvest, How a Cornfield Became New Daleville

John Carlos Cruz

Wayne State University, MUP Graduate Program

October 22^nd, 2009

New urbanism is an interesting thing in many regards. Some enjoy the idea, while others continue to remain skeptical about the development strategy. Last Harvest takes a look at a new urbanist development called New Daleville, located in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The idea of taking existing agricultural farmland and turning it into such a development is uncharted territory for this part of southeastern Pennsylvania, and we get a front row seat to see how it all went down. Not long after the reader gets into the book, they can not help but to wonder: “will this actually work”? Of course, we keep reading in order to find out.

The author, Witold Rybczynski, takes us on a journey through all stages of development. We see all the successes and challenges that are encountered along the way, including insights into the development, local politics, planning obstacles, back stories of the key players in the process, and how to deal with members of the public. Rybczynski gives a very clear picture of what the process is like. While narrated from his viewpoint, it is done without a detectable personal bias or political slant to speak of.

The book itself is non-fiction; this is the real story of a real development. Rybczynski wrote the book from 2002-2006 (Rybczynski, 2007, 284) during the duration of the New Daleville project, even before it was known as New Daleville. It was published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster out of New York on hardcover, and later on paperback.

While any journalist who was along for the ride could have told the mere facts of how the development progressed to us, it is Rybczynski professional insight that makes the book a worthwhile read. This is Rybczynski’s 14^th book in a career that includes titles such as “City Life”, “Home”, and “The Look of Architecture”.  In addition to his books, he has written countless articles and contributes to numerous periodicals on the subjects of urbanism and architecture. Rybczynski was appointed by president Bush in 2005 to the Commission of Fine Arts to oversee buildings, parks, and memorials in Washington DC in 2005 and teaches Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design (NBM, 2007). This background in urban study takes the book from a factual account of events to a living story about what the real world of land development is all about.

Rybczynski’s one clear bias is that he favors the idea of the new urbanist walkable, friendly community.  Much of the prologue is a detailed description of a place called Chestnut Hill, a community inside of Philadelphia where Rybczynski and his wife reside. Setting us up with how they decided to go on walks together 20 years ago, he takes us for a walk around his neighborhood. We hear about the local culture and how different people behave, such as how people new to the neighborhood will work on long-needed repairs or pay special attention to their gardens for a certain period of time before completely settling into Chestnut Hill life (Rybczynski, 2007, 4).

While there is no explicit stating of “this is what the book is about”, the author’s well speaking Chestnut Hill tells us in so many words that communities like this are a good. Places were people walk safely and experience “old American” kinds of charm make for good places to live. In order to achieve this goal, you need well-planned communities. The reason for this book seems to be, in essence, the point that “…pastoral Chestnut Hill is no happy accident… it was designed to look the way it does”, and Last Harvest tells us the story of how places like this come to be (Rybczynski, 2007, 4). As the reader, you see what Rybczynski is getting at, and you start the book with the idea that new urbanist communities are, at the very least, interesting and worth learning more about. The walk around town gets the reader thinking “this sounds like a place I might want to live”, and proceeds to set the stage for how it is accomplished.

The place that Rybczynski sets us up to see is not his fabled Chestnut Hill, but a new development: a residential development in a rural area. Aside from the agriculture side of rural life, most people will move to the countryside to avoid more development. Rybczynski quickly introduces us to long time friend of his, Joe Duckworth, who has been asked by township planning consultant Tom Comitta to put together a plan for what to do with the land that is to be developed, called by Comitta the “Wrigley tract”. Londonderry Township had been looking for something new to do with the 90 acres of land they have to work with, and this was Comitta’s approach to making it work.

Comitta had introduced the township to neotraditional development, getting them on board with a trip to a planned community. Luckily for him, people were interested in seeing what the alternatives were to the tired layout plans that they had seen. Rybczynski tells us that Comitta had gotten such people on board as three township supervisors, the township engineer, as well as members of the planning commission (Rybczynski, 2007, 14). The way Rybczynski created the positive feel of the new urbanist setting for us as readers, Comitta brought it to life for Londonderry Township. By creating a positive impression and winning over the Londonderry officials, the initial steps are laid in creating a neotraditional development.

The resort community of Seaside, Florida is credited with it’s own chapter in Last Harvest, stressing the importance of being able to combine the modern town with the old fashioned features people enjoy in small towns. The Seaside example is important for a number of reasons. It shows how the new urbanist model can come to life: walkable neighborhoods, close-knit communities, well designed streets, aesthetically pleasing architecture, and small lots combined with open public space. They were new towns and developments that could keep the values of small rural towns. Rybczynski claims that the old towns carry the ideal of “neighborly democracy, self sufficiency, and independence” (Rybczynski, 2007, 20), and it is easy to see where you could agree with that. With supporting arguments from others and data suggesting that people prefer to live in small towns, it is a point that the reader would struggle to argue with. While at this stage in my life I very much prefer living right outside of a downtown area as I do now, I gained perspective on why people liked living in smaller towns, and it made me curious enough to put a note under my hat that would remind me to checkout Seaside, if I was ever in the neighborhood.

Rybczynski also points out places like Disney’s own Celebration, Florida and the Chester County development Weatherstone as other neotraditional places. Celebration is hailed for the well-planned neotraditional development that it is, and Weatherstone is criticized for not having enough variation in the development. As Rybczynski states, “…the development, design, and construction are done by the same company, so even the attempts at variety have a sense of sameness” (Rybczynski, 2007, 147).

We are provided with interesting insight into the way that houses are built, and why they are built to the design standards that they are. I’ve been a creative person for as long as I can remember, so for much of my life I have wondered why houses are built in a certain way. In most cases, we do not see strikingly different or unusual architectural styles, layouts, or even walls painted a color other than something vaguely resembling white (especially in newer developments). There is a certain allure to the common denominator of housing design, and that is the resale value. Despite my fondness of creative and unusual design, Rybczynski notes that people want homes they can resell, which the reader can safely assume is a reason as to why there aren’t many custom built or designed homes. Even in New Daleville, new homeowners were only given options on the homes being built, nothing that would be built from the ground up as a custom development.

New construction ideas are risky, so builders tend to stick with what works. Rybczynski talks about how split-level homes were popular with the public in the 1950s, but once Americans fell out of love with the idea the houses stopped selling. As such, “no one builds ranch houses or split-levels anymore” (Rybczynski, 2007, 210). If you drive around any new development, you can see that he is exactly correct. Rybczynski points out that (large) builders will build houses that are designed to work best with the production system developed by the builder. This allows for a standard “design” of the homes as well as ease of adding extras if the new homeowner desires it.

If we examine this point of view, we are able to learn something about not just the home-buying process, but about people in general. They want a safe bet, something that will work. This is one instance where both the builders and the homeowners are on the same page: give the world something that will sell. I personally found it interesting the risks that they were willing to take as opposed to the ones that they were not. After all, this village-style new urbanist development in itself is quite a risk. A developer does not want to build something nobody wants to buy, and the new homeowner does not want to be one of only 5 people living in the entire development due to bad sales. Nonetheless, the issue of people wanting the safe bet is larger than the book makes it out to be, as it touches on every single part of the development. From the location, to the architecture, to the layout of the house and everything that will be a part of it.

The builders know what people want in their homes, and as such there are sacrifices in design, architecture and other aspects of the house. While Rybczynski tells us that the builders have a lot of lead-way in their designs, as the land company “doesn’t know how to specify good design” and “…builders…understand what sells houses, and we don’t want to tell them what to do” (Rybczynski, 2007, 124-125). Rybczynski makes note of how the development is going to use a lot of vinyl siding, which is not uncommon for any new development. At this point in the book, you begin to wonder how much of a factor is aesthetics and how much is cost.

Ryan Homes’ Mike Linthicum addresses that later, saying that brick adds about fifteen thousand dollars into the cost, and that people usually opt for interior upgrades over exterior upgrades. He also mentions that they will in all likelihood price brick lower just to bait some customers into adding more variety to the development (Rybczynski, 2007, 216). No other kinds of siding are mentioned, nor do we see much variety of this in new developments that are going up all over the country.

While interior developments add more to the creature comforts of a home, it is exterior architecture that initially draws me to a building personally. I would reason that this is why we see more external architectural liberties taken with commercial buildings than with residential homes. In the residential world, people want to feel at home, in the commercial world, the business has a certain image to project to the world.

When dealing with a radically new development can bring a lot of resistance from the public. After all, they moved out to Chester County to get away from things like small lot sizes. So in trying to get a development such as New Daleville off the ground, the land company and the developers have to make a very strong selling point. The reader is introduced into a world of politics and people, both on the levels of township and (mostly overlooked in the real world) county government as well as how to deal with people individually. These inclusions make the book a lot more versatile than it would be otherwise. In addition to being a good introduction to the planning process, we are also given insight into the building process and political process as well. Rybczynski paints a full spectrum picture from the commercial side of the development. But how does a land company win over people to take on a new development such as this?

The first step in this process is getting land zoning changed from industrial to residential. Depending on how married the town is to their master plan, this could vary from a cakewalk to an uphill battle depending on the community. To get the public on board, Joe Duckworth and the Arcadia Land Company decide to show the town what this idea of “neotraditional design” is all about and sets up a bus trip to a similar development. Pictures and video are all well and good, but Duckworth has certainly done the right thing in going the extra mile. When you know you are facing a struggle, you have to get creative. The addition of the movie on the bus for sincerity is also a nice touch, so that the Londonderry residents can hear first hand what people love about these new developments. The trip turns out well, and going the extra mile is proven to work for the developers.

The township meeting described in chapter eight is a fantastic example of any and everything that someone might encounter at a board meeting. Numerous questions are addressed; almost all are about the quality of life and the cost. More people means more traffic, more need for police, fire, etc. The development may potentially change the value of existing homes in the community, and it may in fact increase school taxes if more school children move into the area. While the citizens are obviously very concerned about their community, Joe Duckworth takes everything in stride. He even sports casual dress for the meeting. Although Rybczynski does not outright say it, the message here is clear: “business attire” is not an across the board solution for how to present yourself. You have to tailor your message, and yourself, to the audience.

Rybczynski gives us an example of the type of person who would be at such a meeting. It would appear from the examples that they are people in the community or surrounding areas with either personal pet issues or a genuine interest in the overall progress of their town, yet they are not experts in the field.  It shows that you must know every facet of the development in order to have answers for any question that comes your way. We are given the example of a resident who has “obviously taken the time to read the document (ordinance)” and has concerns about the open land use, but does not know what kind of building would be able to occupy that space and is worried about something like a Wal-Mart setting up shop there (Rybczynski, 2007, 75). Duckworth, swift on his notion, is able to immediately put the concerns at ease. Even if he fails to completely win over his audience, we as readers get to see how the whole process is done.

Upon finishing Last Harvest, I immediately had my impression of development and planning changed from what I had previously envisioned (which in all reality was based on pre-conceived notions without much factual basis). I began thinking long and hard about what it was I was getting into with my enrollment in a planning program, and while it was a lot to take in, I found personally that I enjoy challenges and the book shows that challenges are something you will find at every facet of this process.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and was pleasantly surprised that something so new to me would be so interesting (although I suspect that my own curiosity may have had a strong role in that). What has stuck with me the most after reading and re-reading the book was not the development itself but the process that you go through to get something built. To be in this business, you have to know what you want and how to get it. That means being able to foresee every possible obstacle and have a plan in place for when you arrive at that point.

From Rybczynski’s viewpoint, he created a good view of why people enjoy these kinds of developments and how they come about. Much of the book, while it is about New Daleville in particular, is just as much about selling the reader on the idea of new urbanism. As such, it is anything but an objective viewpoint. The only real opposing arguments that we get are from the local residents or the occasional remark from a developer about how something does not always work, or that there is no solution for a problem just yet, so they keep on trying new things.

While I agree with Rybczynski on many areas, I felt that the pushing of the new urbanist ideas go too far. The planning and design communities still have the jury out on this, and it is yet to be seen if this is the way to go, and if we are doing it right. The people who speak out against the new urbanism in Last Harvest are locals with their own interests in mind, who fail to present a well-educated view. Or if they do, it only applies to the New Daleville development in particular. Rybczynski presents us with entire chapters on the successes of these kinds of developments in other parts of the world. In doing so, he shows obvious bias by not even giving rebuttal to the ideas. I see no reason why could not have devoted a small section to the reasons that people do not care for developments such as New Daleville.

Where the book truly shines is how it ties the entire process together. We are introduced to large planning issues, such as drainage and septic problems, dealing with neighboring communities, etc and how they are dealt with in order to make the process work. The residual message seems to implicitly be that in order to make developments like this come to life, you have to be more crafty and creative than your obstacles.

Overall, the book was a pleasure to read. It not only kept me interested in what was going on, but there was an interesting element of suspense whenever a new issue was brought up. I found myself asking questions such as “how are they going to pull that off”, and was usually surprised by the answer as I searched for alternatives myself. By writing the book in a casual and conversational tone, Rybczynski makes the story easy to read and follow, and your mind can focus on your own personal questions and get your mind working instead of trying to decipher a particular writing style.  With the exception of not including an opposite view of New Urbanism, I found that most material was covered very well and the contents of the text were well covered.

The book has great value in planning and policy. With the overall coverage from numerous angles of the process, there is a great lot that anyone interested in planning, development, building, construction, or local government would be able to get from it. Rybczynski did a fine job of accomplishing his goals of introducing us to both new urbanism and the building process in general, as well as the smaller residual messages about how to get things done that are touched on throughout the book.

Being a college professor, Rybczynski shows that he is good at stimulating the mind of his students by getting the readers of Last Harvest thinking from the moment they pick up the book. You wonder what would have happened during different phases of the development had one thing gone a different way, or if the first ideas tried did not work as well as planned. This is not a book that you stop thinking about once you have finished it. I even found myself driving by new developments and wondering how the local township was sold on this particular idea. So not only was the book provocative during the process, but it has proven to raise questions on development and challenge my thinking long after I have finished it. It was a great pleasure to read and I’m sure will be sitting on my bookshelf for years to come.

References

Rybczynski, W. (2007). Last Harvest: How a cornfield became New Daleville: Real      Estate Development in American from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-first Century and Why We Live in Houses Anyway.

National Building Museum NBM (January 17, 2007)
Witold Rybczynski. Retrieved from http://www.nbm.org/support-us/awards__honors/scully-prize/witold-rybczynski.html

Macomb County

All citizens in Macomb will be faced with a vote for a county charter. This document, like pretty much anything in government has it’s good points and it’s bad points. However, the Wayne County style of government is not what we need in Macomb. The proposed charter will:

• Create Tax increases. There are going to be millage increases as a result of this charter. Maybe not right away, but they will hit with the allowable taxable millage increasing.
• Give the County Executive Power. A lot of power. Too much power. This will make county government, a mostly invisible layer of government, the ones with all the power. It will shift away from your municipalities to a county. While regional solutions are good, more unnecessary power is not good.
• No term limits for the executive. Prior to being elected executive, Ficano held county-wide office for around 20 years, it’s not hard to imagine he’ll be in charge of Wayne for a long time. In Oakland County, Brooks Patterson has been in charge for what seems like forever. This isn’t a county executive, this is for a king of Macomb county.
• “Accountability”? I don’t think so. People who push the charter are claiming that it will create more accountability and transparency in government, but it makes little difference. We already have a leader of the county commission, so there’s already someone to blame or praise. The difference is, as it stands now, they are easily replaceable. It doesn’t matter if the county exec is held accountable, the odds of getting them out of office over anything short of a scandal is next to impossible.

I could go on an on about why it’s no good. But the facts speak for themselves: Vote No on the Macomb County Charter

City of Mount Clemens

I could make an endorsement for the office of Mayor, but realistically, there’s no point. While a lot of people like Steve Ferdig, he hasn’t run much of a campaign. But if you take a look at talking points and what they want to accomplish apples to apples, here’s what we get:

There’s little question that Candidate A has a better vision for the city, focusing on direction and building a community, while the other has some pet issues and simple fixes. While I’m not going to make an endorsement, I’ll say simply that Barb Dempsey is going to wipe the floor with Steve Ferdig. I don’t expect the election to be anything close.

For City Council on the other hand, I have 2 candidates that I want to support. The first is Roger Bunton, a man who has very much impressed me with his attitude. He has two things that I feel are very important for civic leadership: a desire to build communities and a focus on education. He is a very bright man and easily the most worthy of a council seat. The other endorsement goes to Mike Simmons. Simmons understands the need to get those storefronts on main street filled with businesses and making Mount Clemens an economic center again. Interestingly for Simmons, he’s receiving a lot of across the board support: supporters of the old guard (Hill, Dredger) and the challengers (Blash, Bunton) are throwing in Simmons as their third choice (as there are three seats available), so I fully expect him to win a seat on Tuesday.

The City of Detroit

For ballot proposals, I support them both. The current city-wide structure for council elections needs to change, and neighborhoods need to be represented. Vote Yes on Proposal D. And for the love of God, if you have any common sense, please please vote for proposal S. Give Robert Bobb the chance to succeed with his vision and allow the schools to flourish.

For Mayor, I have no reservations whatsoever endorsing Dave Bing for re-election. The man has the testicular fortitude to stand up for what he feels is right even if it isn’t popular and even if it involves going up against some of the most powerful people in Detroit. Give the man a chance to succeed.

For City Council, I’m only going to make two endorsements. First is Lisa Howze, who has so much of what Detroit needs right now: common sense, financial sense, and the ability to get things done. Second is James Tate, a lifelong Detroiter should help to strengthen communities and bring stability with his background in Law Enforcement. Do Detroit a favor and vote for them both.

Other Municipalities

Here’s who I like in other places around the area. If I could vote for them, I would.

• Pete Rubino for St. Clair Shores City Council
• David Magliulo for Mayor of Sterling Heights.
• David Poulton for Royal Oak City Commission
• Jeff Lamarand for Mayor of Taylor
• Andy LeCureaux for Hazel Park City Council

Do more research for your own conclusions, and don’t forget to vote on Tuesday.

However the other day, I finally hit my breaking point The Macomb Daily is not news. It is fluff, bullshit, and the most half-assed reporting I have ever seen in my life. It’s amazing the things that this paper considers to be the most important news items of the day.

For example, take a look at the coverage from the other day. This was the front page of their website. :

Seriously? How in the hell is it that the single most important story to be featured on the front page is something about a movie theater at the zoo? A zoo which isn’t even in Macomb County. While important stuff like the status of a missing girl, a local murder conviction and budget discussions regarding COUNTY finances are barely noticeable.

Why do the editors think that this is acceptable? At what point do you l look at all the news stories available for that day and decide that the most important one is the one that starts off “A leopard hisses onscreen and movie viewers feel its breath…“. That’s not news. That’s not even journalism. That’s the kind of thing that maybe belongs in an arts & entertainment section.

If you’ll notice, above the Zoo article are numbers 1, 2, and 3. The papers scrolls through these featured articles. So what were the 3 most important articles of that day?

1. The Zoo Article
2. The Red Wings win 5-2
3. A feature on a local piece of community theater and whatever is playing at Macomb Community College

None of which are what any rational, sane, or otherwise literate human being would not consider this the most important stuff going on. Even the usually ignorant, short-sighted, bored, insulting, ignorant, arrogant, and usually racist people who regularly comment on the Macomb Daily articles (seriously, if you’re in need of how far humanity still has to go, just click around the site. If the articles don’t do it for you, the comments most certainly will) can tell that.

But what’s that at the top? A breaking news bulletin! Looks like someone over there is actually doing their jobs…lets just not mention that they were the last ones to cover it. Let’s see what kind of information they have dug up on the missing girl.

…well ok then. Short, sweet, and to the point. This article must have taken dozens of seconds to write and involves absolutely no actual “journalism” on anybody’s part. This is the summary of a 30 second radio blurb.

Newsflash, Daily. Someone gets it right.This is what a real article looks like:

As you can see, the Detroit Free Press actually wrote an article on the event that is informative, original, and more or less answers any questions a person may have regarding the incident. As did most other media outlets.

This may not be as bad, except there is quite literally no excuse to not have the best news coverage for a story that takes place in your own back yard. You are the closest source to the story, you should be first on the scene and with the damn best coverage out there.

The girl was found just on the other side of town from Daily HQ. 2.1 miles away.

There is no excuse as to why people from the tri-county area got the scoop over you when you are this close. No excuse whatsoever.

Sadly, it would appear that real news at The Daily resides in finding out what kind of entertainment we will have, and apparently a lost black girl is just not entertaining enough. And neither is anything else real, that actually affects our daily lives.

Thank God there are people like Sarah Cormier over at the C&G Paper The Journal, otherwise we would have not a single decent news outlet. It’s well past time that the Macomb Daily went the way of the Ann Arbor News.

And it’ll be good riddance when it happens.

Anyways, we were in the Opera House for a tour and a panel discussion on the Arts, and while in the lobby I snapped this shot of a chandelier in the lobby. It really shows how amazingly colorful the place is, and standing there is an experience in itself.

A Chandelier at the Detroit Opera House

In case you don’t recognize the name Levi Johnston, he’s the fine and upstanding young man who Sarah Palin’s baby’s baby’s daddy. A move that one could only assume would usually would result in a lot of screaming, name calling, and the throwing of blunt objects before a long weekend of cooking up meth.

Despite all of this, Levi has turned this into something positive for himself. Instead of being stuck as the grandfather of a dingbat, Levi has gained:

• National Media Attention, with interviews on many tv shows.
• A trip to the 2008 Republican National Convention
• His own issue of Vanity Fair.

And now, the coup de gras of the whole thing: An endorsement deal, with a commercial, for Wonderful Pistachios. And it is glorious. It seems that the mockery of Palin continues to polymorph and evolve into new fantastic ways.

Check out the video.

Brian Johnson, the executive director of Americans for Worker Freedom, explains the Employee Free Choice Act and touches on some other things. From the Defending the American Dream Conference, 2009 in Arlington, VA. He does a great job of explaining things in clear, easy to understand, common sense terms.

People boarding the busses to the capital from the hotel:

A Wheelchair-bound patroit

The Press. Didn’t catch what station he was with. Fox? MSNBC?

People at an AFP Table

Home-made political cartoons

Random People

Political Cartoons Disney Style

Some “Radicals” give an interview

Freedom Sign

Signs in the Crowd

Intervention

Scott Hagerstrom and Jack Hoogendyke, Leading Michigan