The new blog begins at: http://nakedcityblog.blogspot.com.
Author: Mary Newsom
The invisible city, and the visible journalism artifacts on my desk
I’ve written my farewell column for the Charlotte Observer, “My not-so-secret addition to news” and I’m packing up artifacts from a lengthy career in newspapers (the recycled paper bin is overflowing). But in a nostalgic way I’m enjoying finding some quotations and other snippets that remind me of why the job matters – or that make me chuckle.
For instance, I’ve always loved this quotation from Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities,” sent to me courtesy of artist Linda Luise Brown:
“The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.”
This inspirational quote from artist Georgia O’Keefe:
“Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time.”
That quote lived on my cubicle wall for years, next to photographer Nancy Pierce’s snapshot of roadkill (possum) she came across that – I am not making this up – had been painted with a double-yellow stripe by some not-so-observant road crews.
I found my notes from an Oct. 15, 2003, editorial board interview with then-candidate Kaye McGarry, who was running for an at-large seat on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School board. Someone (notes aren’t clear) asked which of the sitting school board members she’d emulate if sh were elected. McGarry answered: Molly Griffin and Lee Kindberg.
If you follow the school board you will understand that regardless of how you feel about her school board service, McGarry has not in any way resembled Molly Griffin or Lee Kindberg.
Of course, amid the very nice notes we all occasionally get from readers, you sometimes get emails like this one to me (from 2006):
“let me say first and foremost that you are the signpost for stupidity…i can go further you ignorant slut..” And the writer did, including phrases like …. “by the way i pray daily that williams [former Editorial Page Editor Ed Williams] will be called to a higher calling somewhere other than charlotte …..”
I found an old headline from The State in Columbia –
Death Toll 3.5 Million
In Fire At Cricket Farm
And, from the Testy Copy Editors website, this poem.:
Roving bands of youths
limped into port
after an intensive manhunt
by a disgruntled postal employee
in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood
of modest red-brick single-family homes
off tree-lined streets
in a shallow grave
in a densely wooded area
and were rushed to the hospital
in a firestorm of protest
by the Texas billionaire
and the slain civil rights leader
and the financially ailing tabloid.
In the hushed courtroom
the defendant showed no emotion
at the all-important loss column.
After Friday, I’ll still be blogging but at a new site: nakedcityblog.blogspot.com. It’s still under construction but should be operational by early next week. See you at the new site.
Guerrilla tree planters, here’s a project for you
(See note at end about where to find this blog after Friday.)
Today was a sunny morning, unseasonably cool for mid-June, and so I took my last 4-mile walk to my job at the Observer (Friday is my last day after 17 years on the editorial board). Only had one vehicle nearly hit me – a white SUV at Morehead and Kenilworth. At least I made him squeal his brakes.
I’ve chronicled some of my pedestrian adventures in my weekly op-ed columns, such as (“The foot challenge for Sun Belt cities” and “City walkability goal hits an icy patch” and “Walk this way. If you can.”
This morning, I thought – not for the first time – about the possibility of a little guerrilla, tree-planting campaign. I tend to think of this as I walk up South Tryon from Morehead Street to the Observer building at Stonewall Street. The N.C.-owned right-of-way alongside the I-277 bridge, where those odd witch-hat/Klan-hood sculptures sit, is bare grass. It’s a bleak trek across that bridge, let me tell you, and once you get past it, you sure could use some shade. What you get, though, is grass. And some “art.” (To be fair, the sculptures do offer a bit of shade at the right time of day.) But what about it? Someone want to sneak onto some of our fair city’s spots-that-need-shade-trees and just plant some trees? Come December, if you see someone out there with a shovel and some oak or maple saplings, it might just be me.
After June 17, if you want to read The Naked City blog, don’t look for this URL (marynewsom.blogspot.com) because it will be disabled when I leave the Observer. Instead, seek out nakedcityblog.blogspot.com. Right now it’s in the process of being designed (using the word “design” quite loosely). That’s where you’ll find me after my last day at The Charlotte Observer.
Mime troupes a new secret weapon?
First, some personal news, if you’ll indulge me: After 17 years on the Charlotte Observer’s editorial board I was among a small group of employees offered a buyout and I accepted it. My last day of work at the newspaper will be June 17. That means this blog will vanish from the ether that day.
I intend to keep blogging, but I don’t have a new site set up yet. Keep watching the blog before June 17 for more details about where you can find my work in the future. (And yes, I have some new job prospects but nothing to announce at this point.)
So that’s why I’ve been digging through old files and various email folders tucked here and there. And I’ve found some tidbits of things you’ll enjoy.
I’ll do anything, officer, just make the mimes go away …: This article from a 2010 edition of City Journal (produced by the libertarian-leaning Manhattan Institute) discusses one of my favorite urban stories ever – how Bogotá, Colombia, used mimes to make people obey traffic laws. The article tells “about former Bogotá, Colombia, mayor Antanas Mockus’s use of mimes to mock jaywalkers, reckless drivers, and other scofflaws. … The mimes had a noticeable impact on compliance with traffic laws. The mayor reported that traffic fatalities fell by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2003.” Want to see a photo of the mimes, and more about Mockus? (He also donned a Superman costume and acted as “Supercitizen,” using humor to get residents laughing, but behaving better.)
I wonder if Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe has considered hiring a mime troupe to enforce (or scare) misbehaving youths at uptown’s next street festival? Or would roving bands of chamber musicians serve as prevention?
Maybe, sometimes, a pencil really isn’t just a pencil: Another fun story: “Tall buildings, short architects” from Slate magazine last December. From what we’ve seen in Charlotte, short bank CEOs also seem to have an affection for tall bank towers. And those tall buildings that claim to be so green? Here’s a look at evidence that after a certain point, those high-density towers are less environmentally sound than mid-rise buildings.
S.C. highway that was, then wasn’t, and maybe is again
It was the highway that was, then wasn’t, and now is again. The big story in Carolinas transportation planning in April was the Charleston (S.C.) County Council’s rejection of a planned extension to Interstate 526. It’s notable whenever any elected officials – and especially those in reliably conservative South Carolina – say no to any highway.
But never count a highway out. I-526 was revived with a new council vote last month that rescinded the vote to scrap it. Its future remains unclear. (Here’s Post and Courier columnist Brian Hicks on a mysterious pro-highway campaign.) Monday night, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley Jr. spoke to Charlotte City Council about historic preservation (talk about a day late and a dollar short, or maybe three decades late …) at the invitation of Mayor Anthony Foxx. Riley was gracious enough to let me buttonhole him about 526. He has been a 526 supporter, and I wanted to hear why a guy who seems to understand good urbanism would want another big ole ugly interstate boring through his city. How, I asked him, could the city prevent the typical highway sprawl if this road gets built?
Riley contends the highway is needed because of the growth in motorists trying to get to and from Folly Beach and Seabrook and Kiawah islands at the far end of Johns Island. That sends too much traffic into the neighborhoods west of the Ashley River, he said. The highway will divert that beachbound traffic.
And to control the sprawl? Riley said the city and county had adopted a plan about 10 years ago to create an urban growth boundary. They downzoned a lot of land on Johns Island – even winning a landowner’s federal lawsuit over the downzoning – and, at least inside the city limits, there aren’t any more large commercially zoned tracts available. But, I persisted, land can be rezoned. It’s not that hard. “A lot of blood was spilled,” he said, over those downzonings. “The community’s invested in this.”
Additionally, plans are that the 526 extension won’t be a typical interstate, but an at-grade, four-lane road with a tree-lined median and bike paths. It will have only two intersections, no cloverleafs, and, he said, “zero” development.
Although I’m of the belief that keeping sprawl development off a new highway is about as easy as turning lead into gold, I admit part of me thinks it would be interesting to see if this road can offer a model for a tamer way to build urban highways. It’s what I (and many others) have said for years: Don’t build highways inside cities. Build boulevards designed to move a lot of traffic but that add beauty, not ugliness. Cities need transportation connections, and that includes street networks. They don’t need interstate highways gutting them.
A thumb in Newsweek’s eye (and Scott Walker’s too)
If you are more interested in urban wildlife and in a creative in-your-face video response to a newsmagazine insult than you are in transportation policy, you may skip directly to the end of this collection of links.
Rails No, Roads Yes Part: Remember Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker? He’s the one who became the hero/villain for, among other things, turning away $800 million in federal funds for a high-speed passenger rail project because it would have required the state to spend up to $8 million in yearly operating subsidies. Just to make sure that voters get the point that he believes Rail Bad-Roads Good, he has since proposed four dubious new highway projects that could end up costing Wisconsin taxpayers over $2 billion. The Wisconsin PIRG (Public Interest Research Group, a member of the U.S. PIRG coalition) has issued a report, “Building Boondoggles” that says that despite a $3.4 billion state budget budget shortfall, the Wisconsin governor has proposed a 13 percent increase in road project funds, with four large projects of dubious necessity. Read it for yourself at the link above.
Dylan and Infrastructure. Infrastructurist.com, in honor of Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday last Tuesday (Yeah I’m a week late. It was a busy week) put together its Top 10 Dylan infrastructure songs.
Take that, you ignorant journos: Courtesy of colleague Tommy Tomlinson and his @tommytomlinson Twitter feed, here’s a great video from Grand Rapids, Mich. – the city’s video response to being dubbed “a dying city” by Newsweek magazine. If you don’t love it, you may have no heart.
Grin and bear it: There’s been a boomlet of bear-sightings in the Carolinas in recent weeks, including a black bear that wandered onto the third hole at UNC’s Finley Golf Course. Another was killed on a highway near Charlotte. Check out this video from the Greensboro News & Record, of what one resident found in his back yard. THIS JUST IN: A bear was shot and killed today at the Piedmont Triad International Airport. And the @GreensboroBear1 Twitter handle just switched to @GboroBearGhost.
Pedestrians get better press
Pedestrians – and their safety – got national attention this week. And in the process, a redesigned Charlotte intersection got some national attention, too.
Tuesday, a national transportation advocacy group, Transportation for America (T4 America) released its report, “Dangerous by Design 2011,” looking at what it called an epidemic of preventable pedestrian deaths. From 2000 to 2009, it said, 47,700 pedestrians were killed in this country – the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of passengers crashing roughly every month. More than 688,000 were injured. Nearly 12 percent of total traffic deaths are pedestrians, but, the report says, state departments of transportation have pretty much ignored pedestrian safety if you look at how budgets are allocated. Only 1.5 percent of available federal money goes to projects to retrofit dangerous roads and streets or create safer alternatives.
The report uses a pedestrian danger index based on a variety of factors and ranks the U.S. metro areas. The most dangerous, in order: Orlando, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Miami-Fort Lauderdale (all in Florida), Riverside-San Bernardino Calif., Las Vegas, Memphis, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas-Forth Worth. All are Sun Belt cities, and all but Memphis saw major growth booms in the last half of the 20th century, when suburban-style development catered almost exclusively to automobiles.
Atlanta was No. 11. Raleigh-Cary was No. 13. Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord hit No. 17.
Fully a third of Americans can’t or don’t drive, and for most, being able to walk places is important. They are our children, our young teens, our elderly and our disabled. The City of Charlotte has pushed hard, and admirably, in the past 10 years to make the city better and safer for pedestrians, by ordering sidewalks to be built in new subdivisions, building sidewalks where they’re lacking in earlier developments, and retro-fitting intersections to add crosswalks and pedestrian refuges. Here’s to an even lower spot on the next ranking.
One of those retrofitted Charlotte intersections (at top) got national display at npr.org, with a Tuesday piece on “Morning Edition” – “As America Ages, A Push To Make Street Safer.” The piece talked about efforts to improve safety for the elderly, both pedestrians and drivers. Although Charlotte isn’t mentioned in the piece, see that photo at the top? That’s Rozzelles Ferry Road, redesigned by the city to add bike lanes, crosswalks and extended sidewalks.
Photo credit: NPR and National Complete Streets Coalition.
Council member says planning IS included
City Council member David Howard just phoned to comment on my previous post, “Charlotte’s disappearing focus on planning.” Howard chaired the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission before he was elected to an at-large Charlotte City Council seat. He wants to make this point: The council committee, which he chairs, is still named Transportation and Planning. I’ve corrected the previous post to make that change.
The council’s committees essentially divvy up the workload, vetting issues before they reach the full council. So his committee hears and gives preliminary approval to many – but not all – area plans, land use policy changes, etc. The so-called focus areas are the issues the council makes its top priorities. He said planning has never been a council focus area, “because it’s infused in everything.”
Since I was fortunate enough to have the chairman of the Transportation and Planning committee on the horn, I asked him about another tidbit I had spotted while burrowing through Charlotte City Manager Curt Walton’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year. This is on page 70. Deep in the text accompanying the summary of the Planning Department’s accomplishments and focus, etc., under “Service Delivery Challenges,” is this:
“One of Planning’s challenges is updating this [zoning and development] ordinance so that it reflects desired community characteristics and recently adopted land use and urban design public policy. A more comprehensive update is necessary. This will require a tremendous amount of resources and technical expertise that Planning does not have available in-house and funding is not available. The impact of which will be the inability to fully implement adopted area plans and [not] achieving the highest quality development Planning can in our community.”
In other words – and if you follow my writing this will sound familiar because I have been beating this drum for years – the city-county zoning ordinance needs a top-to-bottom rewrite. The types of development it allows and in some cases requires can all too often completely undercut the city’s adopted plans and policies.
I asked Howard about that. He said he had had conversations with Planning Director Debra Campbell about that issue while he was on the planning commission. I asked if the idea of a comprehensive re-do of the city’s zoning ordinance had come up at the City Council level. “It hasn’t come up to that level,” he said.
As a postscript I’ll note, just because Charlotte and Raleigh NEVER compete, that Raleigh has in the past few years finished a massive re-do of its comprehensive plan, adopted in 20090, and is embarked on the huge task of rewriting its whole zoning code so that it upholds the plans. That process is in the public comment period.
Charlotte’s disappearing focus on planning
So I’m poring through Charlotte City Manager Curt Walton’s proposed budget today – I know you wish you could do the same, but sometimes they just pay us here at the paper to have fun like that – and I notice that the City Council’s committees and their “focus areas” seem to have dropped a word from previous years. That word is “planning.”
The committee formerly known as Transportation and Planning is now simply Transportation. Council member David Howard, who chairs the committee, says that while the official council “focus areas” don’t mention the word “planning,” the committee name remains Transportation and Planning. Before Mayor Anthony Foxx took office in 2009, there was a committee known as Economic Development and Planning. When Foxx took office, it became Economic Development, and “Planning” was added to the title of the Transportation Committee, and there it remains.
Of course you can make the case that “planning” is embedded in many focus areas, such as environment, transportation, housing, etc. For the record, the focus areas are: Community Safety, Economic Development, Environment, Housing and Neighborhood Development and Transportation. Other committees are Budget, Government Affairs [no silly, this does not include Schwarzenegger, Edwards, et al] and Restructuring Government.
Pardon my bias here, but I want to stand up for the idea that planning, in and of itself, is important for a growing city such as Charlotte.
The City Council should make clear, as part of its focus areas, that planning is important. Aren’t the city’s plans a valued resource for the council and the whole community? If they aren’t, why not, and what needs to happen to make them so? A comprehensive city plan, drawn up with massive public involvement, builds buy-in from the community toward a vision for the city’s future, lays out a road map for policy changes that help get there, and builds buy-in as well for making those changes.
Planning should again become a visible part of the City Council’s focus.
U.S. lags other nations on infrastructure
While I was taking a few days off, an interesting report came out from the national Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young. “Infrastructure 2011: A strategic priority” details how the U.S. is falling farther and farther behind other countries. [Sorry, but it looks as if blogger is refusing to embed links today. Visit uli.org; the report is on its homepage.] It also analyzes Charlotte’s situation (on Page 51), saying, “But the grand plan hit the skids in late 2010 when the regional transit agency tabled two projects — a BRT [bus rapid transit] corridor and a $450 million airport streetcar line — while sending two others, a $1.2 billion extension of the existing light-rail route and a new $375 million commuter-rail corridor, into underfunded limbo.”
Looking globally, the report says that “Canada and Australia have leapfrogged the United States in confronting aging and crumbling networks, as well as employing public/private partnerships.” Here’s a quote from from the Executive Summary: “The United States notably continues to lag its global competition – laboring without a national infrastructure plan, lacking political consensus, and contending with severe federal, state, and local budget deficits that limit options. Some metropolitan areas appear better positioned when they can forge plans and pool resources for new transit lines and road systems across multiple jurisdictions.”
The Washington Post report on the study includes this tidbit: “The report envisions a time when, like Detroit, U.S. cities may opt to abandon services in some districts and when lightly used blacktopped rural roads would be allowed to return to nature.”