Isn't It Ironic, Don't You Think? A Little Too Ironic

I had some free time and was reading Los Angeles author, Sandra Tsing Loh's book, Mother on Fire when I came across this passage,

"I am a person who believes that in Los Angeles, people's innermost personalities, their philosophies even, are revealed in the driving routes they choose, the trail of bread crumbs they make as they weave their way through the city" (Tsing Loh, 58).

One of the funniest points in the animated movie Madagascar was when the menagerie of animals asks an NYPD horse how to get to point X. The horse starts telling them, with great authority in his voice when another NYPD horse butts in and gives an alternate sense of directions. The two horses begin to argue over whose directions are superior while the other animals grow agitated. Unfortunately, I was one of the few people who actually thought that Madagascar was funny. It was aimed at a NYC-centric audience, or at least an audience who would pick up on jokes such as New Yorkers priding themselves on possessing the best set of directions to anywhere in their city, or surrounding burroughs.

Meanwhile, I am often clueless where I am until 6 months after I have left a city and adhere religiously to set ways to get places until after I have moved away. (NYC is the exception- I'm an excellent navigator there, but you'd have to be a cross-eyed monkey not to know where you are)

I was thinking about getting from point A via various routes as I have been navigating the street network of my parents' latest residential town. This year it is Windsor Heights, Iowa, a suburb, if such a word can be utilized to describe, of Des Moines. Last year it was a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, ie Shoreview, Minnesota. Next year it'll probably be the moon.

As I drive down Hickman, one of the main streets, I keep looking for White Bear Lake Road, which will take me to Target. Yes, if the Target I was looking for was in Shoreview. Or I keep craning my neck for Culver's, which is by my mom's work and the proffer of treats both hot and cold- frozen custard and Butter Burgers. (the hamburger bun is buttered, it's not some French fusion take on the American classic). But my mom does not work at an accounting firm anymore. She works as a payroll specialist at a bowling alley. Which is not near a Culver's. Or at least not to my knowledge.

I have come to realize that I am an excellent navigator. In places that I have been. Not in places that I current am. (the same is also true for my foreign language skills- while in Italian all of my sub-par French came rushing back.)

Meanwhile, in LA, I blissfully take in the city while my friends drive, or while I take public transportation ignoring most major streets and intersections. I have a gift for describing the feel of a place. But the cross-streets, um, why don't you ask him over there?

This is a constant bone of contention between my friend Derek (my go-to driver/ride) and myself. Derek grew up in Orange County, which is a stone's throw away from LA. And if I had been an OC kid I would have been hightailing it up to LA every chance I could get the keys. Incidentally, people from Orange County do NOT call it the "OC," just as true San Franciscans do not call it Frisco. Therefore, I assume that Derek has a sixth sense of the streets of LA. Especially when we are going some place unfamiliar to me. More often than not he doesn't know how to get there either but assumes that I have squirreled away a set of directions or possess a sense of navigation I have yet to procure.

I have come to realize this when our drive starts to take five, ten, fifteen minutes longer than Mapquest (despite its fallible glory) predicted. Usually it boils down to me asking if he knows where the place is, he replying that he thought that I did, I saying no, him asking if I had printed out directions, and my response as being I thought that he would know the general area so, no. People say that we act like brother and sister. A lot. I have yet to dispute their claims successfully.

My friend Eddie, however, who was more reliant on public transportation than I until his car arrived from Rhode Island, is an excellent navigator, despite being an LA transplant himself. Eddie is also more technically-oriented than I am and can write an amazing paper in about two hours, no prior prep while I academically crucify myself for about three weeks straight before the turn-in date.

If I stay in LA I'll pay more attention to the streets' names. Until then, despite the great irony that I am getting my masters in urban planning, I don't know where a lot of the major streets intersect- does Santa Monica run parallel or perpendicular to Vermont? Will Olympic and Normandie ever intersect? Uh, I don't think so, but don't quote me, etc.,

Ask me in ten years, when, maybe, I won't be in LA, the best way to get to the Glendale Galleria from Little Tokyo (ie downtown LA) during rush hour. I'll probably have excellent directions. Have me describe the feel of Weller Court in Little Tokyo- well, you got a pen?

You Make My Heart Go Pitter-Pat, My Love of Urban Design

I am taking an excellent class, which focuses on urban design, a subject that we haven't focused on to date in any of my other classes. My professor is an urban designer and architect, working for one of the most prolific, and one of the original new urbanist design firms, Moule + Polyzoides of Pasadena. Elizabeth Moule and Stephanos Polyzoides, are both founding members of the Congress for New Urbanism.

Urban design is what made me fall in love with urban planning to begin with. I was studying abroad in Italy and my undergrad professor took us around the streets of Florence, or fine Firenze, and showed us how one could interpret a city's history based on its layout, its building materials, how close the buildings were to one another, how tall were they, etc., This made the inner history nerd in me rise up and squeak with glee.

Ever since then I've had a keener awareness of buildings and open space, the types of materials used, the layouts of cities. I'm not as much a designer, who, I maintain are more technical than creative in their objectives, therefore I didn't go to urban design school. But as an artist, I look for visual harmony in the built environment- places where people want to be, buildings that are in harmony and scale, points of interest, either natural or manmade.

My current professor teaches with the same passion as the first professor who sparked my interest. He wants us to see the world the way he does, as pieces put together that can be beautiful with enough forethought and planning. We can create places that are welcoming, energizing, and inspiring, not slapped together and without much of a purpose or focus. I hope to have an opportunity to share such insights with others in the future too.

Today I Don't Care About the Planet (Because It's Too Darn Hot Outside)

Today was definitely a day that I wished that I had a car- this wish had popped up a few days ago too when I was accidentally locked out of my apartment due to fault of my own.

We reached a record scorcher and even tonight at ten to eleven PM it's still pretty hot outside.

And I craved the 2010 Honda Insight that I've been researching in my spare time the past few days. It appears to be a better deal than the Toyota Prius and as a secretly neurotic energy nerd I am concerned about the potential for peak oil, and the increased demand (ahh more econ!) from other countries that will increase the price we have to pay here in the States. I wished, even if I was/am still living in my current place, that I could get into my personal chariot, crank the A/C and grab hold of my American right to drive myself down to the end of the block if desired.

Alas, I sweltered under the heat, wondering at what degree does rubber melt as I was wearing my favorite flip flops.

I know that I'm getting that itch to get up and go, which rears its head every two years. And one of the best ways to get away is to take yourself in a personal automobile, an option I currently do not possess. Though I am seriously considering signing up for a Zip car membership.

But this car fever made me think about how does one reach the person who has a car, loves their car and has no desire to give up their car? Especially to drive it to the corner grocery to pick up their 24-pack of unnecessary bottled water. Seriously?! We all lived without bottled water for millennia. Now I have people ask me if I want a bottle like do I want to know the cure for cancer?

I have also come to realize that looking at a lot of this through the lens of economics (admittedly often in its idealized form- there are no needs, only demands as there are substitutes everywhere kind of thinking) is very helpful.

What incentives will people respond to?

For example, no one buys those spiral CFL light bulbs because they're "cool"-the purchaser or the lightbulb. They do it because buying them will shave a few cents off their electric bill over the long haul.

Some of us may claim more altruistic reasons "I love the planet!" Yeah, but you love money more. We all do. Economists want us to put our money where our mouth is (that which we are willing to sacrifice in order to obtain something that we perceive has greater personal value than what we currently possess- oh my gosh it sunk in and stayed!)

I've been very thinking a lot about how to foster and encourage permanent social change. There is a very interesting group based in England called Futerra that deals with this concept. http://www.futerra.co.uk/

And while they have an office in New York I'd love to spread the gospel around the U.S. To quote the immortal Clash, "London calling from the underground!"

How Much Is Too Much? The Question of Government Intervention, Posed for the Second Time (to me)

I have noticed a trend in my readings for school lately- the issue of public vs. private, or public-private partnerships, and how much of a role should government take in daily affairs of its citizens?

This last question is incredibly loaded and I no way intend to make this into a Tea Party soap box other household objects noun noun mop mop broom broom?

Instead, I'd like to gripe that this information would have been very helpful to me last year when I was sitting through a rather painful and sortof unnecessary class that is required called Intersectoral Leadership.

Back then I was a snot-nosed planning punk and I didn't understand what policy had to do with planning (answer = everything!) I kind of understood that policy lets planners do "stuff," but I didn't see why I had to spend two- eight-hour weekends (Saturday and Sunday) sitting in a classroom listening to an NPO (non-profit organization) guy tell me that government has gotten so big *cue the voice you use when gesturing with a baby* SO BIG! that it has to delegate some of its functions. Woot. Couldn't one have just put that on say, a memo and I'd promise to read it (and subsequently never would.)

However, this theme has come up again to haunt me. It is getting close to Halloween, or as the Misfits say "every day is Halloween."

This time the subject is coming up in my transportation class. The question was posed, what if there were no governmental role in transportation? It's an interesting question for a planner, admittedly less so for Joe Schmoe. But it does pose an interesting parallel universe, where corporations, or savvy entrepreneurs could charge sky-high rates to utilize their roads, which may, or may not be in serviceable condition. There wouldn't be synchronizing of traffic lights, would there even be traffic lights? This is of course jumping off from the world as we know it and Big Brother just walking away, saying "Have at it, kids" not some world where traffic lights were never invented.

Also, the theme is cropping up in my economics class under the guise of markets and the government.

I suppose that this is good as I have to write a paper for my econ class about some topic that relates to economics, and yes, deep down, like Kevin Bacon, there are six degrees or less to anything in the universe and economics. I may be able to expound on bus deregulation- I'll spare you the details, but in a nutshell in the era of Reagan and Thatcher, bus routes were sold off to the private sector, leaving those who used under-utilized routes, aka often the rural routes, in the lurch. (And one wonders why London had to introduce congestion pricing.) But now I'm just nerding out.

I guess what goes around comes around. And maybe one'll like it a little better the second time. Maybe.

Falling out of love with an old love, falling back in love with an old love

So, as you can see from my last post I am suffering from "planning fatigue." I want to get off the policy-politics merry-go-round, but know that graduation fast approacheth and I better have a game plan.

And while I wouldn't say outright no to a city planning job, especially at the City of Los Angeles, where I currently intern, as everyone is friends with everyone, there isn't a stringent hierarchy, and everyone has a sense of humor about wanting to do good, but knowing that the plans of mice and men aft go stray, I'm not 100% confident that there will be a city job waiting for me anywhere anytime soon.

Therefore, I am diversifying.

I have been in love with the publishing field ever since I discovered that books do not magically appear on bookshelves. I didn't become an English major because they're a bigger (or at least a more well-known punchline than an art history major, though  a close second behind a general liberal arts major) The punchline being, sooooo, what do you do with a degree like that!? I also am not thatttttt interested in diagraming sentences or remembering what a preposition is. 

However, I love the concept of being an acquisitions editor. Someone who can see the potential in a manuscript that will inspire others and bring delight to a reader's soul.

I can name my favorite art book publishers off the top of my head (having considered going into art book publishing as an alternative to fine art insurance)- Phaidon, Harry N. Abrams, Watson-Guptil, and Taschen, in that order, unless I am applying to a job.  Then it's whoever it is that I am applying to.

But when it comes to urban planning books it is more of a scattergun approach when it comes to favorite titles, especially as my interests are so varied- a quick list of favorites would be Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development by Joan Fitzgerald (Oxford), Next Stop Reloville: Inside America's New Rootless Professional Class by: Peter T. Kilborn (Times Books), Fostering Sustainable Behavior: an Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing by: Doug Mckenzie-Mohr and William Smith (New Society Publishers), the American City: What Works, What Doesn't by: Alexander Garvin (McGraw-Hill Professional), Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What It Says About Us by Tom Vanderbilt (Vintage), and anything by Witold Rybczynski (who is published under Viking, Oxford, and other publishers' imprints) and most of these aren't urban planning books, per se, but deal with aspects of the built environment.

However, there is one publisher, whose work I unfailingly enjoy, and would enjoy more if their average retail price wasn't about $60- yikes! They're called Wiley Publishers for short, long version is John Wiley & Sons, Inc., You may be familiar with their "For Dummies" series. Yeah, I thought it was a different publisher too, like Random House. Guess not.

The reason they are the focus of this post is because they have an office in Ames, Iowa, of all places. Ames-?! which is 45 minutes away from where my parents live! Ames, not exactly a hotbed of cultural activity. The Iowa Writers Workshop, which I thought was more like one of those weekend affairs that Erica Jong, bookended by Jonathan Saffron Foer and Jonathan Franzen attend and self-congratulate one another on their earnings and how they're going to spend their latest million, is in Iowa City (and is also a grad program- oops.)

Wiley's headquarters is in Hoboken, New Jersey, land of super thick New Joizee accents, if the stars of TLC's Cake Boss, are any indicator. Neither are cities that I would pick as my number one destination spot. But I love me some publishing. Yes, I do acknowledge the irony of that incredibly grammatically poor sentence. And driving 45 minutes up the freeway to get my foot in the door is a lot cheaper than flying across the country. Or worse, moving back in with one's parents, yes Dad, haha it would be "worse" for you- ha ha, than living in Iowa.

Hello Wiley- I have publicly declared my love for you! What are you going to do about it?! I would like to say that I can't wait to snap up Water Centric Sustainable Communities: Planning, Retrofitting, and Building the Next Urban Environment. But at $130 I'm going to have to wait for my employee discount ;-) 

The 3 P's- planning, politics, and policy- good luck untangling them!

In an effort to streamline my look today I inadvertently locked myself out of my place. Let me explain.

I possess an army green messenger bag given to me by my school as a hey thanks for coming here. However, I never use it because I don't like how it distributes its weight.

But today I was going to my internship and I was going to be carrying a few items, but not a lot. Therefore, I decided that I didn't want to bring my backpack that makes me look like I'm going hiking up K2. But I had more stuff than my purse would carry. Hence, the messenger bag.

Unfortunately, I always stuff my keys into a side pocket of my ever-present backpack, a fact I forgot as I was rushing out the door today. I partially blame the earliness of the hour. Those who know me know that I don't function very well before 10 AM. Today was no exception.

In a twist of fate all of my work that needed to be done for class tomorrow was a group effort and was done early- not before I dragged a classmate to my place to do our work as I thought that it would be a more comfortable environment, not realizing that it would also be inaccessible.

Therefore, not having any pressing work at the moment- OK I could read for a few of my classes in advance of next week, but where is the fun in that? I have decided to seize this opportunity to reflect a little bit on my future.

Every couple of months I write down what my interests are in urban planning and see if they change. For the past few sessions they have remained the same.

But as of late, I don't know if it can be attributed to an overwhelming amount of work, being so close to school for the past two weeks, without time to go somewhere else, or not getting to connect and check in with my friends as much as I did last year, or just second year blues, but I am growing fatigued of how intrinsically- and how untangleable- planning is to politics and policy.

To the uninitiated this would seem like a good thing on a cursory glance. If politicians support planning then you can always find someone to back you, right? I wish. When I say politics sometimes this can apply that, at least in L.A., to the fact that owing to its size, we have 13 districts, which include 13 council people, each of who is gunning for their share of the pie, for themselves and their constituents. Or again, to cite LA, and California in general, due to the way our legislation, citizens can vote on anything that goes through the legislature, which means that a "good" concept, can be killed, if there is enough weight behind the opposing side, and their lobbyists. And in LA almost everything gets voted on, even in planning. Here City Council has the final say.

Contrary to what some people would like to believe, planning does not occur in a vacuum. City Council passes ordinances, Zoning Administrators, who are politically appointed, approve or deny variances regarding commercial and residential properties. This does provide a check-and-balance system, but also can stymy some innovative ideas just because someone doesn't like it.

And planning is also tied to policy. Planners rarely, if ever, get to stand up and declare "we should abolish Euclidian zoning!" I'll spare you the boring details of what that is. Suffice to say it is why we have residential areas, commercial areas, and industrial areas. No, everything has to go through a process, which almost always involves research and data and politics.

Eh. I've had enough.