Beautiful Mont Belvieu

I am surprised on occasion when people who have been here for a long time don't realize how beautiful it is here. This is an incredibly beautiful place.

Case in point: last Thursday I was driving to work. The road I drive on takes me over Cotton Bayou. The morning air was cool, and the water in the bottom of the ravine was warm, creating a layer of mist that hung in the gully. The sun was just rising above the horizon and sparkling through the trees onto the mist as it floated and moved in the slight breeze. All of this was framed by the dewy dark grassy green of the sides of the bayou and the dark depths of the trees behind. It was sublime, and the sublimity of the moment was heightened by the transient nature of the scene. Ah, Moment, thou art indeed wonderful! Stay, thou fleeting Moment!

But like all such Faustian moments, they must move on. The promise lies in the future of such moments to come.

In the meantime, it's time to get to work.

I have had a couple of people write comments about some of the things I have written. I would like to respond:

Libraries are the repository of learning and knowledge for a community. They reflect the highest values of the community, and show that we are interested in more than just sports. The introduction of public libraries has taken a varied path in the United States, from one-room schoolhouses to the great Carnegie Libraries that instituted libraries all over the country. And the commentator rightly points out that libraries can be much more - internet research, english language classes, remedial reading, adult contimuing education, and other public functions are all ancillary uses to which libraries may and should be used. As I focus on creating a new comprehensive plan for the City, a City Library will be one of the top priorities I have. It is good to hear from people who share this priority.

Sidewalks, paths, and trails are also very important to our community. As I have written in previous posts, transportation options should be varied. It is frustrating to me that I have to drive my children to school when the schools are within walking distance. In an age where obesity is an affliction for all, and an ever-increasing health risk (especially for those who are least prepared to pay the high price of health care) it makes sense for communities to look for ways to increase physical activity. Not everyone is well-suited to competitive, team-based sports or activities (opportunities for which abound in this community). Many people would just like to go for a walk. Right now, our community is not well suited to provide opportunities for this. Rest assured, I am working on it. The park that is being planned right now will include miles of paths and trails. I am requiring the potential for connectivity between neighborhoods as a main design feature of the park's trail system. Further, there are miles and miles of pipeline easements and CWA (Houston's water canals) easements that could easily be interconnected to create a system of trails and paths that make it easy for people to get anywhere in the City without having to even get on a road. These need not be expensive, concrete covered paths per se, but should be organized and planned such that interconnectivity is heightened.

PS - I would like to respond to the commentators directly, but I don't know how without an email address. Shoot me an email at bcobabe@montbelvieu.net and we'll talk. Or stop on by my office - I am here all the time!

Pruitt-Igoe, Cabrini Green, Robert Moses, Le Corbusier, and the beat goes on...

Pruitt Igoe happened 40 years ago.

Cabrini Green is still around, but is in the process of being removed.

We are still cleaning up the messes of Robert Moses. Some things may never return.

le Corbusier wrote his revolutionary ideas in the early last century.

What have they done for you lately?

In a word, the automobile.

These conveyances have been lovingly referred to as "non-point source emitters." All that means is that so many of us are dependent on cars to get around that the problem is nearly ubiquitous. Think about it - when was the last time you walked to the store? To work? Rode a bike? Or even a horse?

People mistakenly think that the CAR IS HERE TO STAY! It is not the case. In the millenia of modern human recordable history, the car is a relative newcomer. We got along great without cars for thousands of years, and someday we will do fine without them again. Maybe we will all go back to riding horses...

OK, that was more of a joke than a real suggestion.

But with more and more of our discretionary income going to getting around, and with the state of our built environment being geared solely towards the automobile, we are in for trouble. What happens when an immovable object (the bureaucracy) meets an irresistible force (rising fuel costs)?

Well, we'll see. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Where have all the flowers gone?

There was some initial interest in the blog, but people have become less interested lately. I don't know why. I think I am still as interesting as ever...:-) Most of you will never know how utterly fascinating I am because you only spend a nanosecond on the blog before moving on to something else.

Your loss.

Last week I attended a land use law conference in Austin. Many people were excited for me to go to Austin because it is the happening place in Texas. But I had a rather boring trip that way. I am honestly quite possibly the world's most boring human. Perhaps THAT'S why people don't read more of my blog...

There were a couple of things that stood out to me as I listened to the various speakers:

1. Planners are pretty arrogant. How is it that the people who are doing the planning fail to consider those they are planning for? The ends may be good, but the means corrupt. So what? Who cares? We are going to hide behind the banners of "New Urbanism" and "Smart Growth" and "SUSTAINABILITY" and use that to foist our agendas on the unsuspecting public. Developers will cower in fear of our ordinances requiring them to make all kinds of concessions to our mighty will. Resistance is futile. Besides, don't you want to leave the world a better place? You will hold hands and sing. Now. Do it.
2. As I have said before, New Urbanism works. Smart Growth works. But it begins the process of gentrification, leaving poor folks with no ability to fend for themselves. The poor have been so disenfranchised for so long that it seems like we can just forget them. They are not the ones making the decisions. They are not doing the developments. They are not even going to be able to live in the places they develop.

I don't know what to do about it. I listened to the others at the conference who, sheep-like, nodded and lapped up the bile that was being spewed. Why don't others see these issues? Don't they care? What is being done to help the poor? Has anyone even asked them?

Architectural Standards and the Cookie Cutter

I have recently been involved with a revamp of the zoning and subdivision ordinances for the City. There is a lot to do. It's been overwhelming at times.

One of the things that has come up, however, is the need for some architectural standards.

In order to understand the need for these standards, it may be helpful to look at the history of modern residential construction in the United States.

One of the songs I grew up hearing was Herman's Hermits Silhouettes on the Shade, wherein a young man feels jilted when he sees two silhouettes on the shade of the house he thinks belongs to his lover. He is told that he is actually on the wrong block and runs to the correct block to find his girl waiting for him and all is well.

One may well ask - how is this song even possible? After World War II, there was a severe housing shortage (which actually began in the Great Depression) and young people returning from service found that they needed a place to stay. VA loans made home ownership possible for many of these veterans, and the boom was on. People with an eye for business, if not variety and creativity, began building homes and subdivisions in great numbers. These new homes were built not on the "one off" model which had been largely followed up to that point and turned to a new "mass-produced" model, with an eye to efficiency. The highlight became quantity over quality. Levittown is born.

The Levits made a pile of money, and land development suddenly looks like a real way to make a lot of money. Developers became the people who were satisfying a basic human need - housing - while making the economy grow. These subdivisions were installed with no thought to the natural environment. They are explicitly dependent on the automobile. And because they worked so well, the model was expanded all over the country.

Now we needed commercial structures to support all of these new folks living in old potato fields miles away from any services. Again, developers rushed in to fill basic needs - clothing and food - and packaged it all in a motorist-friendly package that related to the degree that these areas had been designed to depend on the automobile. Restaurants, dry cleaners, drugstores, and many other places of traditional social interaction and employment were altered forever.

Fast forward 50 years. The model that the Levits perfected is still going strong. Even so-called new urbanism falls victim to the continuing dependence on the automobile, and the architecture of these places becomes mundane and common. Cities, despondent over the loss of character and distinction, are looking around for new ideas with which they can promote their communities values and make their communities stand out. Urban sprawl has already filled in many of the physical spaces that used to delineate one place from another. When it comes to these places, how would you know you had ever even been anywhere different?

There are many strategies to combat this problem:

1. Preserve historical buildings and spaces to provide guidelines. Steps should be taken to ensure the viability of these buildings and spaces.
   
2. New buildings in these areas should take visual cues from the older buildings. New buildings do not need to copy exactly the styles, but should compliment existing historically valuable buildings.
   
3. Older neighborhoods should be preserved.
   
4. Newer neighborhoods should take advantage of the existing infrastructure and housing stock in the downtown areas rather than mowing down more farmland to sprawl.
   
5. City officials should familiarize themselves with options that make neighborhoods attractive and viable, including transfers of development rights, mass-transit inter-modal transfer points, access to transportation alternatives, housing alternatives (density, type, live-work spaces, etc.), and other planning and architectural related ideas that help places stay viable and livable.

Architectural standards are something that are usually not very appealing to anyone. Developers fear additional expense. City officials fear litigation. And citizens fear a continuation of poor development seen everywhere. So what to do?

The answer is that a wide-reflective architecture that speaks to the values of the community. The inspiration for this kind of could come from vernacular architecture, architecture of indigenous people, environmentally friendly architecture, and/or architecture that reflects a sense of what makes the community unique. Developers need to understand that while the initial costs to them may be larger, the long-term pay off is much greater. People will appreciate the building, tenants will be attracted to nice looking architecture and lower energy costs, and city officials will appreciate the distinction this kind of building lends to the community.