New and Old #133
Friday roundup and commentary
Congress stopped adjourning once the summer heat arrived. Historically, lawmakers were loath to stay in Washington beyond the first six months or so of the year as the dew point climbed. But as their portfolio expanded and the wonders of air conditioning made the D.C. heat less oppressive by the 1930s, Congress stuck around longer….
The rise of A/C happened to arrive alongside the massive expansion of the federal government under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and with the creation of dozens of programs — and agencies to administer them — came the need for new offices in and around D.C.
A really neat politics/technology/history story. Though the shutdown was averted in late September, for now.
And they are, in fact, desperate to get it together. Carmakers have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment on the line, and they are embracing Tesla's technology and teaming up with rivals to try to tackle the charging problem. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is pouring billions into a nationwide network of electric chargers, trying to fix the very problem Granholm was encountering.
Some people will tell you electric cars will never be feasible for more than a commute or errand run, because the charging will take too long or the charger network will be too spotty. You’ll even occasionally hear this quasi-conspiracy theory that this is intentional, and that electric cars are part of an effort to limit Americans’ freedom of movement. Meanwhile, industry and government are aware of this limitation and trying to remedy it.
Now, that doesn’t mean electric cars are great. A lot of environmentalists don’t like them, because they reinforce car-dependent land use and their environmental benefits may not be all they’re cracked up to be. It’s expected, though I’m not sure it’s certain, they they’ll eventually completely replace internal-combustion-engine cars. If they get good enough to compete and win in the market, I won’t complain.
The Battle for a Prince Edward Island Beach, Maclean’s, Sarah Treleaven, August 16, 2023
Within days, TV crews from Charlottetown were flocking to the site, curious locals were flying drones overhead and the massive, mysterious structure had become the talk of the island. It seemed impossible that anyone could get permission to build what appeared to be a monster-home-in-the-making on one of P.E.I.’s delicate—and legally protected—public beaches. As the backlash intensified, a strong suspicion arose that whoever was responsible for the under-construction behemoth must somehow have skirted the rules. And even if they hadn’t, they’d violated a deeply held cultural norm in P.E.I.: you don’t block the beach.
Being a housing advocate will train you to dismiss anything that sounds like NIMBYism. it would be easy to say something like, “These super-rich people living on a fancy island are upset that another super-rich guy wants to live there. So what? Good for him.” I mean, this sounds like the NIMBYs you hear in any development battle:
As in many small places, that pride can sometimes tip into gatekeeping—there are even different rules for locals and outsiders who want to build next to the beach. In 1982, the province passed the Lands Protection Act, restricting the amount of land a non-resident can own to five acres (Islanders get 1,000 acres) and 165 feet of shoreline frontage.
And yet the other side of it is this question of whether any place can just be kept as it is? This is a long piece that’s very interesting because it sort of but doesn’t quite fit into the same pattern as the kind of development disputes I write about a lot. Read it and think about it.
Allegations that the fires are a deliberate policy to clear areas for urban redesign deploy screenshots of government websites or headlines about everything from traffic monitoring to conferences about new technology.
“So what are the odds that we have two fires in two places within a week’s time, and both of these places have initiatives to become smart-intelligent cities?” says a woman in a TikTok video, pointing to Lahaina, Hawaii and West Kelowna, British Columbia — both of which were ravaged by wildfires in August.
This sounds a bit out-there even for this kind of thing, but I know it’s not made up by the left because I remember Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene speculating (before she was elected to the House) that some California wildfires had been orchestrated to clear the way for a proposed high-speed rail.
I really don’t know where these ideas come from, but my best guess is that it’s a lack of trust. It’s sort of semi-serious trolling. You bureaucrats do and say all kinds of crazy things. You shut down the economy over the flu. You think men can turn into women. Why *shouldn’t* we believe that you want to imprison us in cities? I’m exaggerating a little, but not a lot.
This all makes me think of this question of the elites. I did get the sense, during the pandemic, that American elites (broadly understood) do have a tendency to politicize crises or drag other issues in. We don’t seem to have a staid, practical focus. That breeds a feeling of disconnect and distrust. That’s the best gloss I can put on believing that urbanism is a plot against America. But I’ve had too many conversations to completely dismiss people who have these feelings of distrust, skepticism, or paranoia.
Related Reading:
Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only piece, plus full access to the archive: over 800 pieces and growing. And you’ll help ensure more like this!
I don’t know if it’s changed significantly since I was last there but Prince Edward Island is far from being a playground of the ultra rich like Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons. Much more culturally and economically akin to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.