Thanks for the article on this. I saw the discourse on twitter and it looks like I made the correct choice by refusing to give Current Affairs clicks.
I have criticized Marohn in the past for not mentioning issues that clearly have a racial bias (the article he wrote about Detroit) but what you wrote makes me think I was not giving him the proper benefit of the doubt I should have. This is especially after I've heard him mention multiple times on Strongtowns podcasts that old inner city houses with either no parking or minimal parking subsidize the car-centric land use that caters to suburbanites that come into the city at the cost of the home owners who live there.
Also, you nearly made me spit out my coffee at this "this is bad because a guy doesn’t use the meaningless value words I cherish"
"These truths are expunged from Strong Towns’ storyline of the strong, villainous state, in which the evils of parking minimum mandates and postwar suburban sprawl stem from “socialism” and "'incredible levels of centralized coordination.'"
According to the author "they worked inside FHA," whose policies drove suburban sprawl. That sounds like big governments captured by private interests, implemented at a centralized level. This is really making Marohn's point. If big, centralized government is captured by private interests, that is a failure of big, centralized government. A pretty common flaw of progressive thinking is the magic government. By definition, government cannot fail, so when it does fail, some external force is blamed.
Unfortunately, dunking on a writer/creator with a bigger audience than oneself is a shortcut to attention. It’s hard to say in these kinds of situations how deeply the writer has even considered what they’re saying. They just know that after the time they’ve sunk into consuming this popular book/blog/documentary/etc., that a million people have already written pieces singing it’s praises, so they’ll get more clicks for writing a take-down.
Maybe some people in the general audience of Urbanist content will love this piece and start to follow Dean more closely as a writer. From here, she’ll have more penetration into the larger urbanist audience, the algorithms will recommend more of her stuff to us, we’ll all forget about this piece entirely, we’ll enjoy something she writes in 6 months, and her audience will continue to grow.
"I don’t know how to interpret this any other way than as an argument that rhetorical framings are more important than the ends those framings are designed to achieve."
That's because there is no other way to interpret it. Sadly that is today's American progressivism in a nutshell, and it is a change. The progressives I grew up admiring and learning from (I'm "of a certain age") understood that the point was for the society as a whole to progress. Over the past quarter-century or so it has increasing seemed as if our actual point, what we genuinely deeply care about, is feeling and sounding righteous.
Strong Towns basically is saying “let’s raise more tax revenue.”
"
And there's the rub. It's not right-libertarianism so much as government-should-be-ran-like-a-corporation-ism. It's merely populism a la Peronism, not left nor right.
It's a constant regurgitation that the government's job is to maximize it's profits. And for decades Chuck's messaging has implied that while land is privately owned, it's to be subservient to the government it's maximizing of it's profits.
And before one defends Chuck as somehow not meaning what he's chosen to state repeatedly for decades, keep in mind this is a guy who can't be bothered walking to the church a handful of blocks from his house while constantly bemoaning car traffic.
...But as evidenced by observing one south bound turn lane M-F from a front row seat in a local McDonalds on Route One in Prince William County, Va’s the Route One improvements have created a monster. Between those using the turn lane legally to go across 4 lanes to get into the shopping center and and those (illegally) U-turning between 6:30 and 8 AM at least one accident a week occurs at that spot. North bound traffic speeds if and when possible so someone is getting hit regularly.
Planning to increase traffic flow through by adding lanes and restricting turns between lights in a commercial corridor gets you what you want. But has added cost in less safe alternate uses of the road, for example the crossing of the opposing lane to enter a shopping center, reduction in pedestrian traffic. Even in road at a cost and at a cost in livability. traffic through a
Spot on. I am a very pragmatic person - I want to get things done. I am all about using framing/story-telling that works for others while getting my goals achieved. That's usually called marketing.
As someone who is to the left of Charles Marohn politically, but still agree with a lot of what he has to say, the idea that he is some kind of faux-leftist seems strange to me. I feel like he is pretty open about being a small-c conservative.
I think there is a leftist/progressive argument to be made against Strong Towns, but the Current Affairs piece does not do a good job of making that argument. I would argue tearing down a big box store in a desirable urban area and replacing it with mixed use apartment buildings is good because it provides needed homes, makes the neighborhood more walkable and can reduce local car trips. That it also will probably increase tax revenue is a nice side effect. I worry that focusing too much on the economic aspect could lead to supporting policies that are purported to increase tax revenue at the expense of building livable communities.
The dig at multi-generational housing also stood out to me, as someone who lives in a multi-generational household by choice (I make enough that I could afford my own condo or apartment if that's what I wanted). There are definitely trade offs to this living arrangement, and it's not for everyone, but there are also upsides, including that we get significantly more house than we could afford if living separately.
Thanks for the article on this. I saw the discourse on twitter and it looks like I made the correct choice by refusing to give Current Affairs clicks.
I have criticized Marohn in the past for not mentioning issues that clearly have a racial bias (the article he wrote about Detroit) but what you wrote makes me think I was not giving him the proper benefit of the doubt I should have. This is especially after I've heard him mention multiple times on Strongtowns podcasts that old inner city houses with either no parking or minimal parking subsidize the car-centric land use that caters to suburbanites that come into the city at the cost of the home owners who live there.
Also, you nearly made me spit out my coffee at this "this is bad because a guy doesn’t use the meaningless value words I cherish"
Dean writes:
"These truths are expunged from Strong Towns’ storyline of the strong, villainous state, in which the evils of parking minimum mandates and postwar suburban sprawl stem from “socialism” and "'incredible levels of centralized coordination.'"
According to the author "they worked inside FHA," whose policies drove suburban sprawl. That sounds like big governments captured by private interests, implemented at a centralized level. This is really making Marohn's point. If big, centralized government is captured by private interests, that is a failure of big, centralized government. A pretty common flaw of progressive thinking is the magic government. By definition, government cannot fail, so when it does fail, some external force is blamed.
Unfortunately, dunking on a writer/creator with a bigger audience than oneself is a shortcut to attention. It’s hard to say in these kinds of situations how deeply the writer has even considered what they’re saying. They just know that after the time they’ve sunk into consuming this popular book/blog/documentary/etc., that a million people have already written pieces singing it’s praises, so they’ll get more clicks for writing a take-down.
Maybe some people in the general audience of Urbanist content will love this piece and start to follow Dean more closely as a writer. From here, she’ll have more penetration into the larger urbanist audience, the algorithms will recommend more of her stuff to us, we’ll all forget about this piece entirely, we’ll enjoy something she writes in 6 months, and her audience will continue to grow.
It’s all for the algo, baby 🙄
"I don’t know how to interpret this any other way than as an argument that rhetorical framings are more important than the ends those framings are designed to achieve."
That's because there is no other way to interpret it. Sadly that is today's American progressivism in a nutshell, and it is a change. The progressives I grew up admiring and learning from (I'm "of a certain age") understood that the point was for the society as a whole to progress. Over the past quarter-century or so it has increasing seemed as if our actual point, what we genuinely deeply care about, is feeling and sounding righteous.
"
Strong Towns basically is saying “let’s raise more tax revenue.”
"
And there's the rub. It's not right-libertarianism so much as government-should-be-ran-like-a-corporation-ism. It's merely populism a la Peronism, not left nor right.
It's a constant regurgitation that the government's job is to maximize it's profits. And for decades Chuck's messaging has implied that while land is privately owned, it's to be subservient to the government it's maximizing of it's profits.
And before one defends Chuck as somehow not meaning what he's chosen to state repeatedly for decades, keep in mind this is a guy who can't be bothered walking to the church a handful of blocks from his house while constantly bemoaning car traffic.
...But as evidenced by observing one south bound turn lane M-F from a front row seat in a local McDonalds on Route One in Prince William County, Va’s the Route One improvements have created a monster. Between those using the turn lane legally to go across 4 lanes to get into the shopping center and and those (illegally) U-turning between 6:30 and 8 AM at least one accident a week occurs at that spot. North bound traffic speeds if and when possible so someone is getting hit regularly.
Planning to increase traffic flow through by adding lanes and restricting turns between lights in a commercial corridor gets you what you want. But has added cost in less safe alternate uses of the road, for example the crossing of the opposing lane to enter a shopping center, reduction in pedestrian traffic. Even in road at a cost and at a cost in livability. traffic through a
The temptation is too great. 6 lane divided highway with left turn lanes are rha move traffic in the AM and PM
Spot on. I am a very pragmatic person - I want to get things done. I am all about using framing/story-telling that works for others while getting my goals achieved. That's usually called marketing.
As someone who is to the left of Charles Marohn politically, but still agree with a lot of what he has to say, the idea that he is some kind of faux-leftist seems strange to me. I feel like he is pretty open about being a small-c conservative.
I think there is a leftist/progressive argument to be made against Strong Towns, but the Current Affairs piece does not do a good job of making that argument. I would argue tearing down a big box store in a desirable urban area and replacing it with mixed use apartment buildings is good because it provides needed homes, makes the neighborhood more walkable and can reduce local car trips. That it also will probably increase tax revenue is a nice side effect. I worry that focusing too much on the economic aspect could lead to supporting policies that are purported to increase tax revenue at the expense of building livable communities.
The dig at multi-generational housing also stood out to me, as someone who lives in a multi-generational household by choice (I make enough that I could afford my own condo or apartment if that's what I wanted). There are definitely trade offs to this living arrangement, and it's not for everyone, but there are also upsides, including that we get significantly more house than we could afford if living separately.
"
. I would argue tearing down a big box store......That it also will probably increase tax revenue is a nice side effect.
"
Commercial pays several times more than residential. Unless it's sitting empty, replacing commercial with residential reduces tax revenues.
Not sure about Strong Towns, but how about New Country Towns? https://lukelea.substack.com/