Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same)

Looking for a job my how-to-get-a-job books recommend that I define what I want in a job. They don’t recommend vagaries. So, I’ve been thinking of what I’d like to do ideally/where I’d like to live and what reality might be able to provide.

When I was young I wanted to be an artist- sleep late, have people pay me to paint, travel to lands far from the staid but comfortable Midwest in which I grew up. I also wanted to live in a big city, with exciting things to do at night, which would be waiting for me after I rolled out of bed. There would be cultural events at my disposal. Ideally, it’d be a big creative city brimming with artistic people to chat with over coffee, watch good-not-boring foreign films with, and contemplate priceless works of art together. Also, ideally my dad's last name would be Trump, Rockefeller, or other titian of industry.

Some things remain the same- in a perfect world I’d prefer to sleep late, be paid to paint, and travel. But I know that nowadays it’s next to impossible to eke out, much less make a proper living as a painter. Therefore, I’ve realigned my sights for something more realistic. I’ve always wanted to have a job that would make a difference in the world. And as much as I believe in the power of art I don’t think that a painting will solve world hunger. Mona Lisa’s been around for about five hundred years and she has yet to put a dent in the issue of international famine.

I also think that problem-solving and liaison with multiple parties is something that I’d like to do and would be great at. Ideally, I’d work in an education or sustainability-emphasis capacity. And I’d definitely like to have new challenges every once in a while. I did go/am at planning school. But I am 95% confident in the hiring potential probabilities in the planning realm. All I hear about are people being laid off. However, I get most of my planning news in California. Now is definitely time to start expanding my horizons, especially those that could provide an optimistic boost.

Regardless of where I end up, being in a big city is still very important to me, and especially one that has creative areas. Again, with the utopianism, I’d like to stay in LA. The weather is perfect about 360 days out of the year, there’s always something interesting to do, and we have a vibrant, active creative community. Even if some of them pay too much for clothes that they could pick up at Good Will for 200 dollars less, same look.

However, I have a mental list of places that I’d like to live in before I settle down somewhere for a really long time and Texas is one of them. I’ve lived technically in the four parts of the US. They’re not the true cardinal points. But it is definitely the four major regions of the US= the Northeast (Connecticut), the Southeast (Savannah), the West Coast (California), and the Midwest (Chicago, Wisconsin). But I haven’t lived in Texas, which I consider a country unto itself. It’s certainly big enough to be. And guys that say ma'am like George Eads of CSI fame make me weak in the knees. Granted, that wasn't terribly professional, but it's true. I also visited Charlotte, North Carolina over spring break last year and I loved it there. It reminds me of Savannah, where I went to undergrad, but there is more to do.

I’m open to moving anywhere, that is the perk of moving around a lot as a kid. Just nowhere with wretched amounts of humidity and within reasonable driving distance of a major metropolitan area.

I'll keep you posted on what unfolds! And where I end up. :)

If I Ever Leave This World Alive -Flogging Molly

I thought it appropriate to use a Los Angeles-based band, and one of my favorites, as the title for my latest posting.

Grad school is soon upon me, and I like to have everything nailed down as much as possible. So, I thought that I had a place all lined up. It was cute, private, and close to school.

Then I called the property manager to check on whether the owner was agreeable to my lease terms and he thought that I had found another place and found another tenant! This is despite my pronouncement that I loved it and that I would take it. In the City of Angels where you can't throw a Variety newspaper without hitting a waitress-actress hyperbole is just bole.

This is not something you want to hear during the middle of your work day. I raced home and immediately hit Craig's List.

I've lined up a few prospects in a variety of situations: a thirty-something married couple, a grad school film student, a professor, and a recent grad whose parents own the house- all different, but all potentially good fits.

I enjoy variety including my living situations. I've mainly lived with one another person, but in may different places: the ghetto of Chicago, a nicer section of Chicago, an island off Savannah, Georgia, the Central Valley of California, and even alone in the suburb of Chicago.

And I've met a variety of people living in these different places: a vegetarian interior designer, a Scientologist "chiropractor", a fencing enthusiast/part-time nudist, a sociologist/music moron twin (I can say that I'm her "sister"), a graphic designer whose never met a rainbow she doesn't love, a landscape designer/ VW enthusiast, etc.,

As unnerving as it is trying to find a new place in a strange city, I've enjoyed meeting all kinds of different people as prospective housemates, or even potential friends? :) "Cold calling" prospective housemates feels a little like going on a blind date- putting your best foot forward, inflating your good qualities, etc., But sometimes things work out! I'll keep you posted. Happy 4th y'all!

Overthinking

I haven't posted anything in a while, which, ironically, has given me great cause for anxiety. I hold my blog in somewhat high regard and don't feel that the world is exactly chomping at the bit to know what I had for lunch or what music I'm listening to at any given point. For those who are curious it was spaghetti and Franz Ferdinand's You Could Have It So Much Better :-) I prefer to blog solely about topics that are related to urban planning, but lately the muse has been fleeting.

For whatever reason there hasn't been much on my mind that I felt like blogging about. And the more I thought about what I wanted to blog about, the less and less came to mind.

For a while I even despaired, thinking, incorrectly, that I had covered every topic worth writing about within the realm of urban planning! Ah, hubris, you are a seductive, though misleading siren.

Have no fear faithful reader, whomever you may be, I do have some topics floating around in my (slightly dented) cranium- the role of architecture in our society, skate punks, etc., But like a good red wine, they require a little aging before being savored.

However, I have been thinking about what compels us to stay or go in a place. I had remarked a little bit on this in my January 4th, 2009 posting, Home is Where the Heart Is?

But the thoughts continued during a conversation with my friend, who I had mentioned in the aforementioned post, had moved up to Boston after abruptly leaving Savannah. Although she still is enraptured by the (forgotten) possibilities that come with a big city, she sometimes feels a pang for the little conveniences that Savannah afforded her. Minute, little, inconsequential details like the fact that her Best Buy was open until 11 PM. The one closest to her in Boston closes at 9 PM. Or that she used to be within walking distance of her local grocery store- the big kind, not the little get-n-go corner store. Now it is a train ride away, which makes loading up a challenge. She wondered when these thoughts would go away.

I, all too keenly, know what she meant. I graduated from college in Savannah, kicked around town for a few months while eagerly sending out resumes and waiting for responses. When I did not receive any replies at the companies I hoped to work at, my parents decided that it would cheaper for me to live at their house in Wisconsin then continue to pay my rent in Savannah, where there are not a lot of opportunities within the fine art insurance field, my chosen field. So, I moved back in with my parents, while pining for my college town.

Ironically, at the same time, when I left Savannah I had grown slightly tired of the city. Don't get me wrong, I love Savannah itself. It is beautiful, it has heartbreakingly gorgeous architecture, the city's Jewel Plan, with its unique squares, each with their own little park, a microcosm unto itself is fantastic. But everything kindof grinds to a halt at 6 PM. Not 9, not 11, 6. There are bars, good bars, heck, great bars to be enjoyed. However, that's about it.

If one is a student at SCAD, you often spends your evening's crouched on the floor of your apartment or dorm feverishly gluing together scraps of toothpicks and Bristol board for some lame project that you will probably trash as soon as the class is over. But in that moment it means the world to you and Heaven help anyone that stands in your way or tries to persuade you otherwise.

This actually applies to all majors at SCAD, even the fashion and historic preservation majors as we are all subjected to the horrors of 3-D design class, which, regardless of the professor, make us construct bizarre little sculpture-like projects in order to understand form, volume, etc., This lesson plan in itself is not bad. It's just the materials that they make you use has one question the validity of such an expenditure. That which separates us from the kindergartners who build birdcages from Popsicle sticks is a $2,000 price tag per class. To their credit, SCAD does make us use more classically traditional 3-D materials as well, but lugging around a 20 lb. block of aerated concrete in the Southern heat does not exactly inspire visions worthy of Michelangelo.

As I was an art history major I had relatively few classes that were studio-based, which afforded me exorbitant amounts of free time in the evenings, much to my roommate, the interior design major's chagrin. So, like many red-blooded college co-ed's I spent my meager paycheck at B&B, or watching movies in our apartment, while pretending that White Chicks was for my History of Film class or something equally erudite, as my roommate tried not to cut off her finger cutting endless sheets of foam-core with her xacto knife.

But I pined for those nights at B&B and days sitting in the squares, soaking up the Southern sun, as I sat in my room in New Berlin, WI, a modest suburb of Milwaukee, as I drafted yet another sincere cover letter to a farway company in New York City. I missed stupid stuff like the throngs of tourists that flocked to the Riverwalk. I missed homeless people that sat in Forsyth Park and the over-privileged, entitled freshman who strutted around like they were going to be the next Picasso or Miuccia Prada.

Time wore on, and eventually I moved to Chicago and forgot about the specifics of Savannah that made my heart yearn.

The character, Lillith on the season finale of Frasier astutely observed that "with one hand the past holds us back and with the other it pulls us forward." I have found that very true.

We are all the end product of the sum of our parts, be they good, be they bad, regrettable, or vindicating. And as we settle into new chapters in our lives, we often experience a longing for what we have just left, even if it did not always give us pleasure. Sometimes the fact that it just was, and could be counted on to be, creates an unexpected ache. I suspect that we are creatures of habit, and within familiarity lies comfort. Then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Therefore, there is no shame in looking back, as long as you do not lose sight of what lies ahead of you as well.

Home is Where the Heart Is?

I try to keep my postings academic in nature, but I've been thinking about what is "home" and where is home a lot lately, a subject that is more personal than professional. Permit me, if you will, a rumination.

I recently returned from Minnesota, where my parents' current home is, land of ice, snow, and inhumane temperatures. It is not "my" home as my parents only moved there a year and I'm not sure they'd enthusiastically declare it as their home either.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting I've lived in 11 places in 25 years. The majority of the time was spent growing up in Wisconsin, a short stint was in the central valley of California- between Fresno and Bakersfield, you know the (soon-to-be-voluntarily-retired) actor Joaquin Phoenix? I'm in/was in the San Joaquin Valley. I graduated from high school in Connecticuit, went to art school in Savannah, Georgia and flew to Milwaukee when school wasn't in session. I've lived in Chicago proper and Naperville, IL, a white collar suburb of Chicago. I've got my sights set on L.A. for more schooling and hopefully an eventual career. Hello Santa Monica, do you foresee an entry-level planning position in two years?

There is a saying that says home is where the heart is. I'm not sure where my heart is.

I was thinking specifically of this metaphorical heart because one of my dearest friends, after an incredibly long and drama-filled 5 year relationship decided that her heart was no longer in Savannah, GA, where we had gone to school together. She is originally from San Francisco and had considered moving to Philadelphia, but had stayed because her boyfriend was in Savannah and he was unenthusiastic about leaving for greener pastures. But then things reached an impass in their relationship and she realized that nothing was anchoring her to Savannah. So, she packed up and legged it to Boston to stay with a friend while she sorts things out.

As I was talking to her it was 23 degrees in Boston, but she sounded exhilirated. She had forgotten that so many cities have more than two movie theaters that show more than just the latest offering from Disney, diversity and culture around every corner, and there are street vendors- sorry no roach coaches in Savannah, though they'd probably make a killing with all of the hungry and harried college students rushing about on Broughton and Bull Streets.

My friend is literally one of the smartest and cultured people that I will ever meet and I'm not implying that Savannah made her stupid. But living in one place for a long time can procur a certain kind of amnesia. One can forget what the rest of the world looks like, which is a shame because there is so much that this world has to offer.

I used to consider it some sort of cosmic injustice that I constantly had to move, but now I see it as a blessing. I've had the opportunity to live in some parts of the U.S. some other people may never even get to visit in their lifetimes

But during the holidays, driving through the cozy-and-a-little-dowdy Midwest brought about a pang for me as I looked upon the rather plain but familiar ranch, Cape Cod, and salt box houses in white or beige with brown, black or green trim that populated the streets and the memories of my childhood. There were a few forlorn Spanish revival houses on my parents' block, looking like displaced transplants from California, but mainly there were small houses of modest proportions with equally modest trim.

And for a moment I wondered what I was doing on the West Coast hundreds of miles from family, a question numerous strangers have asked me. Why shouldn't I move back to these familiar sights and just, I don't know?! teach elementary art as I had considered doing in high school.

Then, after a sub-zero wind chill hit me and almost sucked the air out of my lungs I realized why. Because I dreamed of moving (back) to California. I wanted to go to grad school in L.A. and see what urban planning is like down there and now I am on my way to accomplishing this.

It may not be home, but it's definitely a place I want to get to know better, on my terms. The last time we were here I was in the 4th grade and we had come because my dad's company was attempting to start up another branch in the town we lived in.

I will probably never move back to the East Coast, above the Mason-Dixon line. The outlook and lifestyle aren't in sync with mine. Yet many people can't imagine living anywhere else. But if my friend settles into a life in Boston I will gladly visit her and the new life she may carve out there. She has too many memories of San Francisco and feels that she's experienced all that she wants to experience in the City By the Bay.

A few years ago I had considered moving back to Savannah as it was safe and familiar and frankly life after college is usually anything but. However, my friend was the last person from school that lived there and with her gone there is nothing left except the bars we frequented.

I'd lived in Milwaukee twice, in two different suburbs, but the first time I was so little I don't remember many specifics and the second time as a displaced college student, having moved there two days after high school graduation (from CT- keep up people!), it never felt like home. And the frigid temperatures didn't encourage that I stay.

Given the right mix of opportunities I may move back to Chicago some day, but over my dead body will you find me in Naperville again. Though I highly recommend it for the people looking to raise their kids in a safe town with excellent schools, at the time I was there I was single and childless, not exactly a hotbed of action for a twentysomething.

I've come to learn, there is very few things that are truly certain in life. It is not certain that I will get married, it is not certain that I will have children. There are no guarantees that I will leave this planet without a cancer cell ever marring my body or even depart with all of the limbs that I came into this world with. But that's OK.

A wise person once observed that "life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived." So even if I had a pair of ruby-red slippers to click and whisper, "there's no place like home" it's unlikely I'd wind up in one specific place. And I think I'm learning to be OK with that.

John Steinbeck once said, "I have homes everywhere, many of which I have not seen yet. That is perhaps why I am restless. I haven't seen all my homes."

Perhaps that is why I too am restless.

ps- the girl in the picture is neither me nor my friend from Savannah. But she is my bestest friend.

Parks Are Good, Right?

By now everyone has come to accept that green is good. Unfortunately, green can also be expensive. I am speaking specifically of parks.

For some urban planners, one can never have enough parks. New urbanists like to design nieghborhoods around a park or community center that is centrally located. We have all seen the success of great parks such as Chicago's Millennium Park and Savannah's Forsyth Park and the most famous park, Central Park in New York City.

I say that there is nothing wrong with parks. I loved eating my lunch at Millennium Park in Chicago when I worked at the Art Institute, which is right across the street in the heart of the Loop. Exeter, CA has the most adorable recreational park across the street from a school and it is also flocked on all sides by pre-war homes that would make a new urbanist swoon. And I can recall many a picnic spent at the local park in my former hometown in central Wisconsin.

Parks provide greenery, vegetation, a change of scenery and a place for people to gather and relax. Parks often are the only source of nature in some sections of cities. Although I love New York City with a passion, there is very limited green space in the Big Apple. When I think of New York I think of a vibrant city, but one that is composed of miles and miles of cement and very little greenery with the exception of the trees that line the sidewalks.

Other cities, like Savannah, GA have lots of greenery. Savannah is known for their "Jewel Plan" and in the heart of the city every square has a small park at its center. Each is unique, but you can often find centuries-old oak trees strewn with the ever-present Spanish moss, myrtle, azalea bushes, etc.,

But when it comes to parks, a few problems arise. For the sake of objective arguments, let me play devil's advocate for a moment. For one, who pays for a park's upkeep? Sure, most everyone likes them, but does everyone want to pay to make sure that the park remains pristine? Park maintenance costs can sneakily be written into city budgets, but if people really knew how much it costs to keep their parks nice they would probably balk.

For those penny pushers I point out that park maintenance provides employment to people and beautifies our cities.

Another question is who has the right to the park? The obvious answer would be everyone, but at the same time does this blanket term of everyone come with restrictions? Just about everybody likes a picnic, but what about the homeless person who is slumped under the nearby tree? You and your significant other are enjoying a quiet romantic picnic in a secluded area and suddenly a slew of kids sets up shop and shows no signs of leaving. Whose park is it now?

Just like any other part of the city, parks belong to everyone, regardless of race, creed, religion, etc., The police and other law enforcement may say that the parks shouldn't serve as an outdoor sleeping quarters for the homeless and other destitute members of society, and for the safety of all parties involved I do agree. Being homeless puts a person at much higher risk for being attacked and no one should have to sleep under the stars unless they're deliberately camping.

But this points to a bigger issue, how to help the homeless?

a little slice of me part II: the more things change, the less they stay the same

Every little kid is vaguely cognisant of his or her surroundings growing up, but I have come to realize that I took true delight in seeing other cities and what made them different from where I lived even as a kid-o. And being keenly aware of this intangible "sense of space" I was deeply affected by the changes that were made in my city, be they for good or bad, even when I no longer lived there.

When I was in the third grade I went on my first trip (that I could remember) to a big city. I remember being enamoured with the city that is Minneapolis and being in awe of their skywalks, an ingenious invention in a city that is colder than it has any right to be in winter.

My passion for cities grew when I visited New York City for the first time as a high schooler when we moved out to CT. I had always wanted to visit New York and to be swept up into the hustle and bustle of the pre-holidays season was fantastic. But I loved it that much more when I visited in college on my own, for a job interview, and was able to navigate it based on its simple, and frankly intuitive, grid plan. This is coming from someone who can get lost in her own town with just two missed turns and no idea how to "just retrace her steps."

My interest in downtown revitalization, another key focus of mine, was sparked when my dad took me to the Historic Third Ward in Milwaukee. I've mentioned this before ("Gentrification," Tuesday, August 12, 2008)and Milwaukee is definitely the sweet, but dowdy cousin of chic, sophisticated Chicago, but that didn't stop them from creating a Historic Third Ward, which has created its own little flair in a charming city.

Another turn of events that affected my understanding of cities was when the city of Wausau, home of the majority of my childhood, location of the the beloved Franklin Street, and the "eh" library tore out a huge section of the downtown to make a downtown park (see John Michlig's blog, "Sprawled Out: the Search for Community in the American Suburb) for a picture of what it looks like now). I won't be back there until Christmas and when I do it'll be covered in snow, so, please enjoy his pictures (and hard work).

My dad, I think, is a latent, amateur architecture buff too and certainly a lover of beautiful things and we would go "downtown" on Saturdays and have coffee and donuts and look at the old pre-war buildings that have stood the test of time- and frankly had been immune to the need for historic preservation as rarely did anyone ever want to demo a building. And if so it'd be like wanting to send grandma out into the cold world with nothing but the clothes on her back- you just don't do it 'cause why would you?!

Even for the people of Wausau who have no idea what urban planning is, this was a change and a shock. We had moved away by the time this restructuring of the downtown occurred, but upon coming back it was a sliver of what it must be like to come home to one's house having burned to the ground or waking up after a car accident and seeing that you have lost a limb. I, in no way wish to diminish the unspeakable tragedy that such circumstances are to those who have experienced them personally. But I will say that seeing the downtown looking everything and nothing like how it used to is like losing a part of yourself. It did drive home the point that every place has a "sense of place" and if you change one thing, you change everything, no matter how subtlely.

I won't even go into detail about how my beloved high school was turned into apartments/condos. It was an ingenious move on the city developers' part, but it literally meant that one can't go home, or back to school, again. I'd be less affected if I'd attended Wausau West, an ugly relic of 1970's architecture- grey masonry globbed together in a vaguely circular form with little to no windows. But I attended a beautiful pre-war building that even served as a city bomb shelter owing to the fact that the walls were three feet thick! I haven't seen the new apartment complex so I have no aesthetic judgment regarding the renovation. Suffice to say I hope that the people who live there now enjoy living in a part of history.

I attended college in Savannah, GA, which constantly harps on its "Jewel Plan" to anyone within shouting distance. And while it was aurally fatiguing to hear, it is a beautiful city that I highly recommend to anyone. Each square is unique and beautiful, ugh, like a jewel. But it was previous events, experienced much earlier, that really made me aware of a city and its impact on a person, no matter how small the change, or the person that is affected by it.