You Can't Go Home Again, and Yet You Can

Having spent almost an entire month under my parents' roof, despite being a full-fledged adult- with my health (thank you God) intact, has been surreal at best.

With the exception of a short-term return to the nest after I graduated from undergrad with an oh-so-useful (not) but passionately prized degree in art history I have been living entirely on my own.

But with graduation from graduate school looming on the horizon I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to spend some "quality time," a phrase I've never really understood, with my parents before I plunge back into the work world.

It's been fantastic doing free laundry, not having to scrounge for meals or gas money, and all of the other cliche (but very much appreciated) perks one has staying at Mom and Dad's.

It's also been a time of reflection. Regardless of how famous or how smart or how anything you are today, your past makes up a part of who you are. Even the hypothetical self-made millionaire who went from rags to riches is keenly aware of where s/he is- or isn't- from time to time. The uber-hipster from Missouri who's living the bo-ho glam life in Silverlake may still feel a tug at the holidays as s/he isn't having a white Christmas. And the hard-bitten but non-native New Yorker from Kentucky, who fled the rural countryside, may wish, in fleeting moments, that one didn't have to visit Central Park to see green space.

I'm a self-confessed city snob. But I also love the countryside, especially down South. And every once in a while I feel the tug of the suburbs and its single family houses- the bane of planners' desire for utopia. It's a symbol of my childhood and of my concept of home. As I never lived in an apartment as a child, the Playskool/Fisher-Price house is a part of my memory make-up.

One of my primary interests in planning is seeing where my generation winds up living- even on a semi-permanent basis.

We all know that the cities have been usurped by the safe appeal of the suburbs yadda yadda- territory I've tread many times in my blog and won't rehash for you.

And there have been many attempts to try to "reinvent," "rebrand" the city- to highlight its cultural sophistication, to glamorize the bohemian appeal of it, even to try to turn it into a hipper version of the suburbs. Some attempts have worked in some parts of the country. Others are embarrassing attempts.

Joel Kotkin has an interesting take on this in his article for "the New Geography"-

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001657-the-myth-back-city-migration

And Christopher Leinberger has an equally provocative rebuttal-

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0709_walkable_spaces_leinberger.aspx?rssid=transportation&utm_source=feedburner&utm_mediu

Here are the Vimeo links-

http://vimeo.com/16431631

http://vimeo.com/16431824

http://vimeo.com/16432364

FYI- if you walk around the halls of my school, USC's School of Policy, Planning, and Development- you'll see the same thing physically. For the most part the urban planning people are the equivalent of the Steve Jobs computer geeks- not unattractive, but a little scruffy around the edges. While the real estate folks look so youthfully preserved you wonder if they bathe in the blood of virgin unicorns. Though if anyone asks, my school has the best looking faculty, period. :) (Except for UPenn's Witold Rybczynski, who I wish taught at my school. But I have Bill Fulton so ehhhhh)

One of the most interesting things about twenty-somethings that I've observed, especially those desperate to throw off the shackles of their bourgeois suburban upbringing, is that they move to a city either during or after college. But once they have kids, they move back to the suburbs. Understandably a child's education is much better in the suburbs where the tax base is higher so the quality of education is proportionate to taxpayer income, an unfortunate but nevertheless true real-life ratio. But it doesn't make it any less amusing for those of us who don't have to get in our SUVs to "return" to the city on the weekend. Cuz we're already there. Observing the hordes of yuppies drive in through our hipper-than-thou oversized sunglasses from the 80s with a barely concealed look of derision and scorn.

Even Arcade Fire wrote their latest (as of this writing) album about the suburbs. They even called it "the Suburbs." You can take a kid out of the suburbs, but you can't take the suburbs out of the kid?

I've noticed that a lot of people in my generation, who I personally count from 1983-1988, have gotten married young and some have even started families young. Many more so than our predecessors, Gen X, who bore more of the brunt of their parents' freedom from the stigma of divorce, but didn't escape the effects divorce has on the children. Some Gen X'ers have gotten married, but others have opted for live-in situations, sometimes proceeding with legal formalities later on.

If pressed, the general consensus between myself and my peers my age (27-28 years old, again, as of this writing) is that there is a new generation every year. iPods and cell phones have a different frame of reference for myself compared to my brother who is four years younger than me and bought both items well before me. Another, more historic example- I vaguely remember the Persian Gulf War, I don't think my brother does at all.

Beloit College puts out its yearly "mindset" list citing pop culture touchstones that the incoming class has always known or has no idea what you are talking about.

In the spirit of democracy, I am also including this link from the WSJ critiquing said list. Though points are subtracted for journalists showing off their smarts and citing "Hecuba" for no good reason at all.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704868604575433783887009678.html

I also thought that this was an interesting complement to the concept-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/beloit-college-mindset-li_0_n_684308.html

I officially feel old now, but my closing point is that people will go where they want to go. And I'm curious as to who goes where and for how long. Time will tell. Until then, wristwatch? What's that? ;)

More Things I Have Learned From the Road

*The original draft was written at the 7th Street L.A. Greyhound station- right across the street from the American Apparel factory/non-sweatshop. But as I am too cheap to add an Internet option to my phone I am publishing it now. Enjoy*

I consider myself a pretty experienced traveller. I have literally been flying in airplanes ever since I was 4 months old- how else do you think they transport infant adoptees? FedEx?! I've survived cross-country trips with my family and trans-Atlantic flights with strangers. I enjoy trains and deal with buses because they're cheap and are the only mass transit vehicles that traverse the Grapevine- the foothills/mountain range that separate central from southern California.

But today (6-22-09) I learned something new. Greyhound will not print you a second ticket should you lose or misplace your original.

This came as quite a shock to me especially as I thought that I was all set to board my 2 PM trip without any hassles. (Another note- just like airplanes ALWAYS come at least an hour early!) Nope, what the person behind the counter at my departure location had failed to advise me was not to throw away my ticket because, unlike the airlines, but like life, this is the only one you get.

Usually, I don't throw away any of my travel stubs until I get home, or to my final destination- kind of a one-stop garbage purging if you will. However, this time, this ONE time! I threw away what I thought was just my Greyhound receipt and the little folder it came in, not even bothering to check if there was anything else important in there. O the folly of my ways! Think very expensive signed check in the pocket of your jeans, going through the wash.

I wound up spending the next twenty minutes frantically texting and calling my friend who was by this time en route to Santa Monica, while I was in downtown, making her also nowhere near her house in Mar Vista, where my ticket sat in her kitchen garbage can.

I was also wrestling with two medium sized bags, whose straps kept falling off my shoulder, rubbing down my arm and crating marks in their wake. I have very sensitive skin, and I bring this up not to sound like a wuss, but because the marks the falling straps left on my arm turned red and angry looking- like a cat had scratched me, or that I had pursued an unsuccessful half-hearted suicide attempt, entirely untrue but superficially embarrassing. Red, "cutter"-like marks on my arms did not exactly enhance my already frazzled appearance or contribute to anyone's assurance of the general condition of my mental health. Great.

It is ironic that this was definitely a case of be careful what you wish for- as I had said earlier in the weekend- OK, lamented, having to go back to my deliberately non-air-conditioned place, walking to work in the oppressive heat versus the rather balmy L.A. weather, and a job that is a means to an end. My friend had said that I could stay with her until it was time for grad school, but alas, money is my mortal master, and bills must be paid. Not something that happens while one slurps down lemon basil gelato in Silver Lake. Highly recommended place right on Sunset Strip. Exact name unknown at this particular moment. Will report back later.

I can't wait until I don't have to do this 4 hour schlep back and forth anymore. It's hard to be an environmentalist! Although I applaud Greyhound for not wasting paper, but I do find this occurrence of not printing out a new ticket for one that is most definitely lost, a tad arbitrary.

This blog doesn't have much at all to do with planning, at least the urban kind, but I thought that someone out there might find this vaguely amusing. And if it has, then my pain had a purpose. You have been warned people of Earth!

Gentrification

Gentrification is a seemingly benign word, but it has insidious connotations like yuppie and Barnes and Noble- about the latter I am totally kidding. I probably love the Noble Barn more than life itself.

But gentrification can be like a cancer. At first you don't notice it until you realize its sweeping effect and the prospect of returning to life as you knew it is pretty bleak.

I won't bore you with the details of the history of gentrification. But Wikipedia has a well-written article on the subject.

Suffice to say, gentrification is everywhere. Clearly, its symptoms are most manifest in major cities where there are more areas that fall into economic decline stranding the economically-challenged, making it unable for them to leave, then poor students/starving artists, who prefer cheap rent over a cool zip code move in, then the bohemians and (ugh) hipsters follow their lead, making the place all boho-chic with their restaurants and galleries. And soon Parker and Ashleigh have caught the whiff of la boheme and are snapping up condos and causing the rents to skyrocket. Meanwhile, the students and all the bohemians who are still slinging coffee at Starbucks and not able to cash in on all these nouveau money are priced out of the very areas they, unintentionally, helped revive. To say nothing of the financially poor people who were undoubtedly forced out as the beatniks were moving in with their bongos.

(a sidenote- there is an interesting book on the students and bohemians who help lend an air of bonhomie to the gentrified areas, yet are priced out of living in the areas whose atmospheres they cultivate. It's called Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City by: Richard Lloyd. I admit I haven't read it yet and the guy himself didn't actually live in Wicker Park, he was just a visiting sociologist, but he does make valid points. Available at amazon.com)

It's weird, even disorienting for people who've lived in an area long enough to remember when it wasn't advisable to be in Lincoln Park or Silver Lake after dark, and now it's the place to be seen after hours.

But this is happening in cities that frankly aren't as hip as say, Chicago or New York. In Milwaukee, for example, the downtown, slight as it may be, and frankly charming, has experienced an economic revival thanks to the reclaiming of the Historic Third Ward, which has ushered in many a chic cafe and boutique along with warehouses-turned-artists' lofts, a thought that was definitely foreign in 1970. Recommended dining: go to the Ale House on the river front. Their food and micro-brews are awesome and situated on the river makes for excellent summer dining. I also should point out that the East Side, Walker's Point, and Bay View are also all experiencing a revitalization according to local sources.

And if you're there check out Milwaukee's Art Museum, or MAM, which boasts the honor of being Santiago Calatrava's first American commission. If you're feeling especially intrepid, be there when the museum opens and the "wings" of the Calatrava addition "open."

Every time one seems new evidence of gentrification one assumes that it will go on and on ad infinitium. But I have enclosed a link to a fascinating article called, "the Embers of Gentrification" by Adam Stenbergh, from New York Magazine, 11-12-2007, which postulates that this may not be carved in granite (countertops).

This article in an extremely well written format examines the dying out of a former hot-spot. I haven't been to Red Hook recently, so I can't attest to its current state. But it is interesting to consider that the phenomenon of gentrification may not self-perpetuating forever and ever? There may be light at the end of the Pottery Barn J. Crew yuppie tunnel? The knob on the door is probably from Restoration Hardware, but if it stops the vicious cycle, I'll do whatever it takes to knock that sucker down!

Gentrification is particularly disheartening to the people who have lived in an area and enjoy its scruffy non-homogenized charm. San Francisco, one of my spiritual homes in the US, has fallen victim to gentrification thanks to the tech boom that caused rents to reach the stratosphere and caused the literal mass exodus of hundreds of artists.

Another recommended book is Hollow City: the Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism by: Rebecca Solnit and Susan Schwartzenberg.

Even though we are currently facing a recession, prices for real estate in San Francisco remain astronomically high. Again, this is an example of gentrification's cancerous-like effect. I have family friends where the father commutes two hours each way (!) every day to work in the city. And it's not due to lack of good schooling, if you can afford to send your kids to school in San Francisco proper, they'll be getting some of the best education in the nation.

Chicago is another example. Gentrification has swept through at a wildfire-like pace. Only one example is Lincoln Park, which used to be a rougher section of town. Now you'd never know that walking down North Ave. (which actually runs east-west, but whatever) One is flocked by Crate and Barrel, J. Crew, Pottery Barn, Whole Foods, Victoria's Secret, etc.,- a yuppie's nirvana.