I’ve thought in the past that I might enjoy being a bicycle courier in a large city. New Amsterdam Project is taking two-wheeled couriering to the next level.

This is a good idea regardless of gas prices. An NPR story on the company says they aren’t turning a profit yet, but I hope they manage to stick around in the long run.

This post elaborates on the link I posted two days ago to a CNN.com story titled Is America’s suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare? I’m going to look in particular at how the article relates to little Siloam Springs.

Change is knocking down the door and it’s for the best. According to Brookings Institution fellow Christopher Leinberger, “35% of the nation’s wealth has been invested in constructing this drivable suburban landscape.” I’d like to know how and where he gets this information (I’m always very skeptical about statistics), but it’s easy for me to believe.

The article goes on to cite “recent market research” that indicates 40% of households in metropolitan areas want to live in walkable places. Real estate in such areas is 40-200% higher than traditional suburban neighborhoods.

In my mind these trends come back to — whether this is collectively conscious or subconscious — two things. One relates to the unsustainability of the suburban landscape in its present form, the other to lack of community between the two environments.

Suburbia was created around the idea of the personal automobile. As I’ve said already this year, cars aren’t in and of themselves a bad thing; over-reliance on them is. Building cities to accommodate cars instead of people is a bad thing. Our car-culture contributes to laziness and health problems that previous generations weren’t familiar with. An auto-slash-petroleum based suburbia just isn’t sustainable.

Nor is it desirable. It’s just too easy to pull into your attached garage after a long, mostly sedentary day at the bureaucracy, pick up the battery operated hand and finger exercise machine (aka “remote”) and hunker down like a recluse. And even if we do go outside, we hide behind our privacy fences. I know this is an oversimplification, but it’s partly true. This isolation is a bad thing.

Siloam Springs isn’t exactly the stereotypical vision of American suburbia. There are some newer subdivisions on the outskirts of the community that look like typical suburban neighborhoods, but most of the 14,000 people live near enough to the center of town, to historical areas, that it’s hard to think of it in such terms.

The problem is that the center of town doesn’t function like the center of town anymore. I live in a very central location, but basic services are just a little outside of walking distance. To the south. The center is east of my house. The post office and two grocers (to the south) are just beyond a ten minute stroll, but they themselves are another ten minutes apart. They should be next to each other. And for anyone who lives farther north in Siloam Springs than I do — which is a lot of people — walking to any grocery store or the post office could end up taking a quarter of a day. Most of the city’s services are located, in typical suburban fashion, along the highway which runs through town.

I’m not certain of how many years Siloam has officially employed a city planner. Right now they have two. I’m guessing the city planning commission is an older institution in the community, which is made up of interested citizens, none of whom (as far as I know) possess any education in how to guide a city in its growth (or shrinkage). Regardless, the past officeholders would have done best to plan into the future, setting aside certain spaces for commercial and retail use to be surrounded by residential areas — and parks. For a ville like Siloam Springs, of 14,000 people at current density levels, I’m guessing three such nodes would suffice.

That’s if the planning commission had wooed development into a well-structured pattern. It’s much more difficult and expensive to change a city’s landscape after it’s been built, but what would it look like if Siloam Springs wanted to redesign itself, turn itself into a walkable, less car-dependent and more beautiful, therefore, community?

Making Siloam’s residential population more compact is probably not a realistic option at this point. An easier idea, it seems to me, would be moving existing businesses into newly designed nodes. Under present circumstances, four or five such commercial/retail spaces should suffice, each located in a different sector of town. Each such district should include a number of basic services. Were I to, off-hand, follow this line of thinking, I might center three nodes around existing grocers: Wal-Mart on the east side, IGA in the middle and Price Cutter on the west side. This still leaves a large part of the population on the north side unserviced, however. A decent place for a new hub on this side of town might be at Hico and Cheri Whitlock.

All of this wrangling over nodes and hubs is useless, though, if there aren’t sidewalks and trails leading to them. Siloam Springs has dropped the ball in the sidewalk department. I have friends within three blocks of the IGA who are scared to walk over there with their young children in tow because there are no sidewalks, and the roads are narrow besides. What an insane waste to drive three blocks when you don’t have to!

Even if ideas like the one I’ve just proposed are easier than complete upheaval in a community (i.e. residential rearrangement), they are still complicated, drawn out and expensive. People in town become very defensive when these kinds of proposals start flying around. I’m convinced, though, that changes like the ones I’ve brainstormed here will only improve the community.

Siloam Springs just released their 2030 plan in March. I haven’t looked over it yet, and even though I have faith in our long-term planner, Ben Rhodes, I’m not sure I’ll like what I see in the plan. A lot of planning is taking into account what those pesky residents suggest, or deter. Ben and I might want something very different from a lot of people in town. And a lot of the more powerful people in town are more likely to be “established,” and “established” citizens are stereotypically against change of most any kind.

And then there are the politics of such things.

Hypermilers miss the point. Some do it for environmental reasons, others to protect the pocketbook. Regardless, if they are really worried about either of these things they will seriously consider — and if at all possible apply — lifestyle changes. That is, they will move closer to work, walk, bike or even buy a scooter. They don’t have to get rid of their cars altogether, but the extremes they are going to, some of them, merely dance around the issues.

The Vatican is looking for new artists. The Roman Catholic church is trying to recruit new artists “In an attempt to ‘lead by example.’” Their Council for Culture is setting up a committee “to find ‘world-famous’ contemporary artists it can commission to produce new religious and spiritual works.” Via Iconia.

Save yourself from MySpace. A new Firefox add-on warns you if you’re about to navigate onto a MySpace page. Too funny. Via TechCrunch.

The price of gas seems to have become reasonable filler for news reports. The following are a few observations from these reports.

* Ridership on public transit is going up, up, up.
* Sales of scooters are on the rise.
* A California man decided to bike 42 miles one way to work for a month — partly because he’d always wanted to, but in the process he’s saving about $400.
* One investigative story found that the price of fuel is artificially high. Yes, there is more demand than ever worldwide, but what Americans are paying now is more a function of other bureaucratic and speculative nuances than simple supply and demand.
* GM is closing four manufacturing facilities, all ones that produce large vehicles. And, heaven forbid, they may also discontinue the conspicuous Hummer.

In April I asked “Will the financial strain actually change the way we live?” So it seems the painful price of petrol is forcing people to make adjustments, positive adjustments. My next question is, then, will this change be long-lasting? If the price of gas returns to the low *cough* neighborhood of $2.00/gallon, will Americans stick with the changes they made when costs were high? Will those who moved closer to work move back to the burbs? Will trains and buses have empty seats again? Will General Motors bring back the big cars?

The prices don’t effect my wife and I quite as much as some. I already bike to work whenever I can — because I like to — and the drive from home to office is barely a mile as it is. This whole ordeal interests me, instead, because of its relationship to how we live and design/build our communities in the United States. I would love to see a cultural shift take place. If the cost of gas is the impetus for this change, great. I’m convinced that a pedestrian/transit oriented culture is better for community and also better for the visual environment. I don’t expect cars to go away; they are a useful technology. But they are also overused in our culture, so much so that they have, in essence, taken over.

A few past posts on petrol pain from The Aesthetic Elevator:

Will costs really force a change?
Gas prices cause Dallasite to move
Ethanol a Symptom: Get to the root cause

If only we had need for something like this in the states.

The price of gas is higher than it’s ever been.

The cost of rice went up 141% last year.

The cost of wheat went up 77% last year.

The ABC World News spot that prompted this post, not the first of its kind on this blog, played interview footage of a Texas man who is now using the bus. He used to put gas in his automobile seven or eight times a month — which is unimaginable for myself — and is now down to three fill-ups. I try and bike to the office as much as I can, although I’m not forced into this mode of transportation as much as I have been in the past. In truth I prefer to bike; the car is just too convenient.

My wife tagged along to Wal-Mart with me last night and couldn’t believe the tiny amount of food we got for $70. I usually do the shopping in our household. Most all of what we bought fit in the child seat of the cart. $20 of the bill went towards meat and cheese from the deli, and I don’t buy the most inexpensive of the turkey. Further, local sales tax — yes, we pay sales tax on food — is quite high. Our checkbook is feeling the pain.

Will the financial strain actually change the way we live? Will we be, if I can put it this way, a more reasonable culture? Will we forgo the debt and consumerism that enslave so many of us? Will we adopt a more sustainable way of life all around?

Adding: A couple snippets from a book review by David Taylor:

The enemy to this vision is Suburban Sprawl. Call it the Anti-Urban Experience. Bess reckons it a manifestation of fallen modernity: a functionally secular, therapeutic, individualist, technologically enamored vision driven by an oppressive demand for novelty and the “bottom line.”

Suburban sprawl, Bess contends, dissociates daily communal life from physical place. It is environmentally unsustainable and unjust; it makes people slaves to their cars. Usually it is also ugly; useful and mostly durable, yes, but architecturally unbearably dull.

I might contest the “usually durable” comment, but that depends on the exact part of automobile-slash-suburban culture we’re talking about.

James Kunslter, author and critic of suburbia and proponent of New Urbanism, said something very interesting and important in a podcast referred to me by a friend:

“Please, please stop referring to yourselves as consumers, OK. Consumers are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, responsibilities and duties to their fellow human beings.”

He goes on to suggest that by referring to ourselves — I might add that even by subconsciously thinking of ourselves — as consumers we are “degrading the conversation.” More than degrading any conversation about the future of America, we’re degrading ourselves. Are we to be defined by how big businesses and billion dollar corporations look at us? Should we continue to pay so much, if any, attention to things like the Consumer Confidence Index? How important is it, really, to a successful and happy life that the economy be always heading up, up, up?

We’re naive to think that the American economy is foolproof. This is especially true in light of the insane amount of federal and individual debt that owns us. Credit card and mortgage companies in their greed possessed no more foresight, it seems, than the automobile makers of 80 years ago, unless their intent involved the possible ruination of the most prosperous economy on the planet.

Kunstler’s premise in the 20 minute lecture is that the future of America, sans big oil, will be forced to look more like the America of yesteryear: We’ll have to live closer to each other, to our work, to our food supplies.

I’m probably not as militant in my thinking as he is, but his suggestion needs to be considered very carefully by all of us. It may not be that far from the truth depending on how willing we are to press for change today.

From a CNN article on rising gas prices:

“Travis Grim, of Dallas, Texas, said he moved so that he could be closer to work. “Now I’m in walking distance. I’m sure towns and businesses will see a surge as people leave the suburbs for relief,” he wrote. Other readers said they changed jobs, or sold their homes so they could have a shorter commute.”

Finally. I think this is the first time I’ve heard in the media of someone realizing that this is such a good idea.

“Corbusier” wrote an interesting post over at Architecture + Morality “in defense of car-based urbanism.” It’s a long blog entry I found worthy of excerpting and responding too.

” . . . I believe people will never willingly leave their cars en masse to walk exclusively. Despite all the added problems imposed by car use and the strains on the massive amount of required infrastructure, the enhancements cars have made [on] average people’s daily life have been dramatic as the fast-growing rate of car ownership throughout the world can attest.”

I wonder, though, if part of the reason for the rest of the world adopting the automobile isn’t related to its affiliation with wealthier culture. It seems like it’s the “in thing” for cultures looking up to Westernized locales and their economic success.

I’m not convinced (at all) that my own life is better because of the automobile — at least not at this point in my life. I’m glad for the invention of the technology in the past, but I often lament the beasts as necessary evils, particularly in smaller communities where there are no public transit options and city planners can’t seem to facilitate better community development. I’m convinced that my own quality of life suffers because of our vehicular vice; the felt need to own a car strains my finances, makes me lazy and generally uglyfies the built environment (even though it doesn’t necessarily need to be this way).

My second cousin in Denmark has never owned a car; in fact, she’s never driven, never had a driver’s license. She walks, bikes and uses public transit to get around. A few years back she injured her heel, and her first concern was that she wouldn’t be able to get around without a car in the future. Money that she uses for vacations throughout the year would need to be diverted to pay for a motor vehicle. To my knowledge, her heel healed and she has not had to throw her money into the rapidly depreciating money pit that is an automobile.

According to the blogger, author William Bogart suggests that

” . . . the monocentric view no longer applies to the reality imposed by the automobile, and suggests that rather than to urge a strict return to the traditional monocentric city, we should try to better understand and improve the dynamic nature of our contemporary polycentric cities.”

This is an important point, but not necessarily just in relationship to how cars impact culture. There is always a limit to the size of a city that is focused around a singular central node. You can only build up so far, and the natural progression of a large metropolitan area would seem to dictate the birth of new city centers as parts of the city are developed beyond a certain serviceable point.

“To many, auto-centric urban development has yielded dismal changes that have prompted a call for a return to pedestrian-centric development, with little interest to more skillfully integrate parking infrasture as part of a desired solution. They do not intend to improve the experience or the practicality of parking, they wish rather to eliminate it entirely.”

Personally, I think the best solution would be to strive for both. Cars are probably here to stay in some form or another. As I’ve already mentioned, I believe there is a genuine quality of life concern herein, something I’m expressing from personal experience at this point more than academic understanding. My advocating for better-designed, more pedestrian/transit centric communities isn’t in the slightest related to some kind of sentimental desire to return to “the good old days.” It is instead a hopeful response to observations of our present caraholic culture.

Let’s not forget the social implications of the car either. People are more easily isolated and independent — the freedom or independence the automobile offers is largely the thesis of Corbusier’s post, though I’d counter by suggesting the resulting isolation is detrimental — , vehicular aesthetics are often questionable at best and patience seems to be in more limited supply (in my mind) in a culture where the automobile has helped foster a mindset of instant gratification.

I’ve been thinking recently on how a successful shift in our culture would look, a shift that sees what I perceive to be a more balanced community where cars are viewed as tools and not as necessities. Of course, for this to happen a radical rearrangement of our personal and community priorities would need to take place, as I suggested in this post last week. I don’t have any answers yet, but it’s fun to ponder — actually, it’s important to ponder.

Another story pertaining to ethanol on the news tonight prompts me to write this. The report, on ABC World News, explained that a recent exponential increase in the cost of wheat — thus an increase of cost for bread, pasta and so forth — is the result of more farmers planting corn instead of wheat to take advantage of the increased production of ethanol.

Although I don’t really know much about the process or how it compares to other options, ethanol has been a household term for me for years — probably years before most people in the country on account of growing up in Nebraska (Cornhuskers, anyone?).

What I keep hearing, though, are the detractors. A few weeks ago an NPR story talked about how the production of the fuel actually leaves a larger carbon footprint than regular gasoline (granted, corn still has the advantage of being renewable). That same article said that one of the best plant sources for ethanol production is illegal in the states: Hemp. I’ve also heard that sugar cane is a much more efficient replacement for corn. And when my wife worked at the newspaper a few years back, a man claimed to have found a way to turn chicken crap into fuel (but couldn’t carry out his plan for lack of funds).

Where is all of this going though? The local news warned of higher gas prices again tonight and suggested people take drastic measures in response, such as selling their SUV. I’m all for more efficient vehicles, but my wife rightly guffawed when the commentator referred to this measure as “drastic.”

It seems to me a much more fundamental change is needed. In essence, things like ethanol or hybrids treat a symptom and ignore the cause. The cause in this case is an over-reliance on the automobile and subsequent lack of or plain ignorant city planning which allowed for an unmitigated proliferation of a car culture. People really concerned with changing the way Americans use energy should consider advocating lifestyle changes much more significant than purchasing a lower MPG. What about redesigning our lives and our communities in order to foster a dramatic lessening of our auto addiction so that we can walk to work, walk to the grocer, walk to the post office — and even if not walking or biking (which would also speak to the sloth and gluttony issues in America, i.e. obesity) to allow for shorter drives or possibly the use of scooters? What about installing and advocating efficient mass transit?

Yes, things like that will cost a lot of money, but isn’t the government subsidizing ethanol as it is? And isn’t energy independence for the U.S. worth a lot of money?

The great little book The Geography of Nowhere contained an anecdote I’ve always remembered. Author James Kunstler relays how people visiting a historical main street type museum all suggested their experience there was very positive, peaceful if I remember rightly. However, none of them were able to put two and two together in order to realize that what made this environment different was its lack of cars. Kunstler attributes the positive response of the museum visitors, at least in part, to the absence of automobiles.

Motor vehicles are so ingrained in our culture we can’t imagine life without them, which frankly I find more than a little sad. Isn’t the United States supposed to be full of innovators, people — including capitalists — thinking outside of the box to solve problems (preferably before they become problems) and improve our quality of life? Instead we live in a culture where the only thing the innovators (read “capitalists”) are interested in is the bottom line and keeping their shareholders happy (read “sticking with the status quo”), and the rabble behind the steering wheels are primarily concerned with preserving or improving their own comfort level in the near future while disregarding a possibly perilous more distant scenario.

Indeed, a more fundamental rearrangement of values seems like the better solution.