Nice. I may pick up my tickets today.

The clip on google video seems to require alot of bandwidth. The Kunstler clip on u-Tube is easier to play.

so yeah stick that rss feed (above) into your miro player and get yourself pumped for the JHK. You’ll be thanking yourself for taking my advice.

It may be similar to the Pink Floyd Experience

Broadway Centers website is updated.

I did have to check another site though… Sure enough, they still have Laser Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon after all these years. I guess this means I can catch Kunstler on Wednesday and get my Floyd fix on Friday with all the kids.

Nevertheless, if his presentation is about what Tacomans can do to make Tacoma a better city, then sign me up!

I think the strength of the TED presentation is how successful public space are located and designed and the public rhelm.

Or maybe I should have watched the entire video.

You might. Then give us your impression.

RR, I think we may be on similar pages(I think). My premise is that in a free-market capitalist system only market pressures can affectively reallocate resources and capital the way in which Kunstler wishes. You call it “The people will be moving for survival in their best self interest.” But I think we mean almost the same thing. When fuel and energy become super-expensive, and our populations start to decrease(birth rates throughout the developed and developing world are decreasing) only then will market conditions influence people to move back to the cities.

But dude, I thought the Toyota Prius was gonna save us.

that’s just what the marketers over at toyota want you to believe.

don’t buy it! Think with your feet man.

“…[the] physical arrangement of life in our nation, in particular suburban sprawl, [is] the most destructive development pattern the world has ever seen, and perhaps the greatest misallocation of resources the world has ever known.

The tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work [is] … a land full of places that are not worth caring about [and] will soon be a nation and a way of life that is not worth defending.

The things that will help us the most will be finding a new scale of living and a new way to rebuild local, cohesive communities and cottage industries around them. We will need a new infrastructure for daily life, a new place for the human spirit to dwell and rest in for a while.
James Howard Kunstler

Many would say market conditions have already begun creating the conditions believed to be multiple decades away.

From a novice perspective it appears that the value of places that design for local cohesive communities are growing in value while the suburbs are having some serious trouble.

The question is: how much needless suffering will we have to endure because we did not discern preemptively what the market would do, but chose to react after the case?

Here is a few lines from OFHEO’s House Price Index end of they year analysis based on data from Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac from more than 30 million repeat transactions over the past 30 years.

11/29/07
“U.S housing prices dipped into negative territory in the third quarter for the first time in 13 years… Of 287 metro areas, however…over a five-year period, only one metro area – Detroit – shows a decrease in prices.”

I don’t know that we have to ask “how do we empty out the suburbs” so much as: How do we recreate our places and our lifestyles for a more local and sustainable way of living?

for the record i’ve already replaced my internal combustion engine. My car runs on the blood of virgins

Even so, we’re all about self correcting here. Someday our dollar will be self-corrected into fancy toilet paper.

This is a pretty interesting part of a speech on Suburbia Kunstler gave to the Florida Chapter of the American Institute of Architects August 2008

*What was it that we were looking for in Suburbia? The antidote to life in the industrial town or city! Which is country life!* That’s the whole idea behind suburbia. The trouble is that it was no longer really country life in any meaningful sense. It had become a cartoon of life in the country. Just as the average suburban house became a lame cartoon of a ranch house or a farmhouse — the little wagon wheel out front, the fake shutters, and so forth.

*And this, of course, has been the great tragedy of the suburbs. It’s a fake. It’s a fake version of country living. It’s so far from being the real thing that it’s literally sickening to be there,* to be a part of the fraud. Everybody senses it, but nobody knows how to describe it.

Suburbia has all the spread-outness of the country, but none of the rural amenities — nature comes only in the form of the lawn, the juniper shrub in the bark-mulch bed, and the berm between the K-mart and the housing development. Suburbia is the country de-natured.

*Suburbia has all the congestion of the city and none of the social excitement*, none of the cultural amenity. Suburbia has luxurious family rooms with wall-sized TVs and plenty of bathrooms per inhabitant. But the public space is impoverished — nowhere for teenagers to hang out except the parking lot in front of the Dunkin Donuts.

Ouch.

I’ve been trying to come to terms with Kunstler’s prophesies of energy depletion and an impending collapse of the technology canopy.

Therefore in a attempt to prepare for the not inevitable future I am drawing up plans for a transportation company that has a tried and true history.

INTRODUCING:

Tacoma Stagecoach

The initial plans call for one or more horse-drawn stagecoaches to connect the city’s neighborhood business districts.

In Phase Two the extension of the line will serve Tacoma commuters who work in the outlying counties of Kitsap and Pierce—-A ten year projection. King County toward inner Seattle is part of a twenty-five year projection.

Service to the State Capitol and Sea-Tac Airport are a high priority.

TACOMA STAGECOACH!

homies! the bitter, cantankerous “mad profit” motif is part of the charm. If he didn’t have that he’d just be another pro-urban weenie.

Shouldn’t take it personal. Just have fun with it.

we must do everything in our power to keep this from happening in Tacoma.

NEVER AGAIN

if by ‘wow factor’ you mean a building that looks like it was coughed up by a sea cucumber (read E.M.P.), then you can keep it.

I prefer buildings that are functional to human beings, and not some sadomasochist freak-job architect’s wet dream.

Why I could carve a better seattle public library out of a banana. The only difference is you’d want to clad my banana in titanium for no reason.

sooner or later we’ve got to stop the madness

Allowing a renowned architect to design something unique-extraordinary-eye-catching-outstanding …Would you rather all buildings be cliche’ glass high rises or boxes made of brick and stucco?

I think one of the problems lately in building construction is to try to make a designer type building which looks great from a quarter mile above it.

Unfortunately, these buildings end up being monuments to themselves and no concerns of how they integrate with the rest of the area and end up creating dead zones all around them.

I certainly think there are some good modern designs of buildings though. UWT’s new building on Pacific is “modern” but will work well as designed.

RR, do you hate all great architecture? Maybe you should just stop commenting.

Unfortunately, critically “great architecture” is often equated with embracing and expanding on new building technologies of the period. This is not always what the users or community may consider great architecture even if it achieves the programmatic goals.

I am all for greatness and art. I just want to see some god damn craftsmanship .

when your design inspiration for a building is a terrorist attack or a smashed guitar (viz rubbish) your end result building is going to look like a pile of crap and or terrorist attack.

READERS: These architects are inhuman monsters who hate you and your children.

Paul, I agree that public space can (perhaps should) be shaped by the collective wisdom of neighborhood shareholders with the caveat of with the help of experts. What I disagree with is the idea that, specifically, a “wow-factor” building destroys a community.

An architecturally daring building is often judged as “goofy,” as “madness” or “a joke” by the general public—especially by the outspoken demographic with little or no knowledge of the art of architecture. The Eiffel tower is a perfect example of architecture that was, at the time, decried by the public and is now an international treasure.

One or two Starchitect buildings will usually add to the public landscape creating more opportunities for culture, commerce and social interaction. Of course a city comprised soley of Starchitect buildings would be void of life. I agree with Kunstler when he says that big box retailers with high cement walls and football field parking lots do not encourage community. Urban sprawl, strip malls and massive parking lots are the enemy of communities, not a few Starchitect buildings. I haven’t heard his beef with “wow-factor” buildings but based on what I understand from this discussion I would probably have a differing opinion than his.

As for the aesthetic appreciation of the higher forms of any particular art it is usually the case that the learned among that field will more fully appreciate and be able to critique the specific art form in question. I may have an opinion about a steel workers weld or a webmasters code but because neither are in my area of expertise my opinion counts less than a student of that specialty. No matter how loud I talk, or blog, that fact does not change.

Lastly, from a practical standpoint: I think the idea of public space being shaped by the collective wisdom of neighborhood shareholders is a good one although it seems a bit too idealistic. How is this shaping possible when there are people who exist in communities that don’t give a damn or are only interested in number one? How is what’s best for the community determined? And how does it not get democratized and socialized into something that just makes everyone happy—but really no one?

What I disagree with is the idea that, specifically, a “wow-factor” building destroys a community.

Good looking buildings can be built with good urban design. Of the above buildings mentioned, the MOG seems to do pretty well.

Tacoma’s biggest problems with urban design over the last 50 years has not been with “Starchitects,” it has been with buildings built downtown which have systematically killed any potential of life block after block.

Consequently, Tacoma has almost no “commerce” on Commerce or any markets on Market Street. These streets have blank walls and parking garages on the first floor often spanning an entire block making any kind of pedestrian life impossible.

As for the aesthetic appreciation of the higher forms of any particular art it is usually the case that the learned among that field will more fully appreciate and be able to critique the specific art form in question.

I wish we could defer completely to the architectural community for good urban design.

Unfortunately, they have designed some of the worst buildings in downtown Tacoma including the North Park Plaza Parking garage.

However, I don’t blame the architects. They are a needed skilled professionals who have the expertise to design good urban design. They implement the desire of their clients.

Without the public will to implement good urban design, they are going to have little choice but to continue to build one strip mall after another.