June 18, 2003
The City of Tomorrow


I live in Gwinnett County, a suburban county of Atlanta, Georgia. In the late 80's and early 90's, Gwinnett County was a poster child for fast, stupid growth. It set national records in growth as families flocked to it by the scores. They were drawn largely by the excellent school system, the proximity to a large metropolitan area, and the big, pretty, new, cheap houses, built in quiet neighborhoods with cul-de-sacs and big yards.

Gwinnett County's growth is slowing down now. It feels like someone has pulled the plug on its great engine, like it has used up all its energy and it is not sure what to do with itself now. Is this the giant pause before the big collapse? It's hard to say. The gigantic Wal-Mart off Highway 78 is still buzzing with activity, but the three other "big box" stores that anchored the strip mall — including a movie theatre, a grocery store, and a clothing retailer — have all gone out of business. All you can see from the road when you drive by at night is the spectacular glow of the Wal-Mart, and its gigantic parking lot, surrounded by acres and acres of dark, empty warehouses. It gives me a chill every time I pass it.

Tom is reading this fascinating book: Home from Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler (click here to read a long but very worthwhile article he wrote by the same name for Atlantic Monthly in 1996; it does a great job capturing his philosophy).

If you have any interest in the science of city-building, or if you want to get to the bottom of why certain cities work so well, and why certain others give you rabies, Kuntsler is the guy for you. He talks about cities and buildings at the micro level (e.g., porches need to be at least 8 feet wide for people to feel truly comfortable sitting on them) and the macro level (why living in a well-planned city encourages good citizenship).

In Home from Nowhere, he comes out with both barrels firing about why places like Gwinnett County make us so unhappy. (In other writings, Kunstler saves some of his most glowing words of praise for Atlanta, calling it "one big-ass parking lot under a toxic pall from Hartsfield clear up to the brand new completely absurd Mall of Georgia." He also calls it a "giant hairball of a thirteen-county demolition derby." Well! Tell me how you really feel.) So dig this:

		"Deep down, many Americans are dissatisfied with suburbia—though they have trouble understanding what's missing... Their dissatisfaction is literally a dis-ease. They feel vaguely and generally un-well where they are. Nostalgia in its original sense means homesickness. Americans essay to cure their homesickness with costly visits to Disney World. The crude, ineffective palliatives they get there in the form of brass bands and choo-choo train rides leave them more homesick and more baffled as to the nature of their disease than when they arrived—like selling chocolate bars to someone suffering from scurvy—and pathetically, of course, they must return afterward to the very places that induce the disease of homesickness."

He talks about why people love to vacation in little New England towns or other charming cities that are built on a square—built not around the car but around people and civic life, rich in mixed-use properties and public parks and green spaces. "They think of these places as special exceptions," he says. It never occurs to them that their own home cities could be just as lovely.

Who ever heard of a page-turner about the psychology of architecture? Well, this book is the kind that you start to read and you just can't stop. You find yourself nodding emphatically as you turn the pages, and you find yourself strolling casually into the kitchen so you grab your roommate by the elbow and read a passage aloud.

Living in a place that honors the past and the present and the future, he suggests,

		"....puts us in touch with the ages and with the eternities, suggesting that we are part of a larger and more significant organism. It even suggests that the larger organism we are part of cares about us, and that, in turn, we should respect ourselves and our fellow creatures and all those who will follow us in time.... In short, chronological connectivity puts us in touch with the holy. It is at once humbling and exhilarating. I say this as someone who has never followed any formal religious practice. Connection with the past and the future is a pathway that charms us in the direction of sanity and grace."

Kunstler understands the psychological damage that is inflicted on each of us when we live in towns where neither the past nor the present nor the future are honored. When we live in towns that are not built to facilitate human life but instead to accomodate cars. It all just makes so much sense. He's dead on. I recommend anything you can get your hands on with this guy's name on it.

Happily, he doesn't just paint a vulgar picture and then leave you in ruins at the end of the book. Instead, he sketches out a plan for new growth, intelligent growth that brings cities back to the human scale. Since stupid growth areas like Gwinnett County are slowly collapsing, "[w]e are now free to redesign our everyday world in a way that is going to make all classes of Americans much happier," he says. And he offers some real ideas about how to do that. (Most of them center on tossing out zoning restrictions and getting back to the principles that guided city-building during the turn of the century.)

So all this talk about cities has got us thinking.

And then last week, I came across this:
http://www.glenwoodpark.com/

I've heard about Glenwood Park for a while. It's the brain child of Charles Brewer, the guy who started Mindspring years ago. It is a new development that is being built here in Atlanta. And it is based completely on these Kunstlerian ideals on creating attractive, pleasant, human cities. Glenwood Park, if it's built according to plan, will be totally walkable, pedestrian-centric, connected to public transportation, very attractive, and earth-friendly in design, construction and maintenance.

All of a sudden, we are really interested in living there. I'm thinking maybe we could buy a home there, and remember what there is to love about Atlanta. I've ranted before in this space about wanting to give up on Atlanta, about wanting a home in the country, searching for a saner way of life. And it's true, I do love the country. But reading Kunstler's words, I realize that what I really want is not necessarily to live in a rural area, but to live in a sane place, a place just like the one he describes. A city built for people instead of cars, communities instead of corporations.

I've gotta say, it's really exciting to see something like this happening right in our own backyard. Right now, Glenwood Park is a pile of concrete and rubble. It isn't scheduled to open until 2005. But what better time for us to start investigating and saving? There may be hope for this old hairball of a town yet!