On Jane Jacobs

I think I have learned about Jane Jacobs before, but basically forgot about her until she was discussed in class on Monday. I LIKE HER. from what I heard in class, she sounds like she advocated a style of zoning/planning that I like and was trying to advocate in my first blog post. Her idea of a sort of laissez- faire, libertarian attitude towards zoning, that would just let the city develop on its own, and on its own would great dense and diverse communities, is one that I really like. You should just let the city grow as it and its people want it to over time, and the end result will be a very unique and varied condition. There may be problematic issues that arise, but then the community should simply edit itself. Pruning and trimming and mowing the lawn. I think that the government should impose some basic rules and guidelines, like rules for fire-safety and such, and say don't put a porno shop next to a school, things like that, but beyond that, specifics should be set out. Does that make sense? At the end of the lecture on Jane Jacobs we discussed reasons why her plan for no planning wasn't as perfect as she thought and reasons why it wouldn't really work other places. I think basically it was what she liked was just her rich white lady neighborhood, and simply letting areas be themselves wouldn't produce similar results in other locations, because there was a very specific set of circumstances that led the the development of her neighborhood as she liked it? now I'm thinking that maybe her ideal neighborhood and the one in which she lived were very different, and her ideal one never really existed? I should look into her more. Anyway, I think that any sort of attitude and method toward planning is not going to be perfect and have problems, but I still think that the libertarian approach is best. Have a libertarian attitude towards planning in all places, and you will see as a result vastly differing neighborhoods and cities with varying densities and lots of diversity... and if something undesirable develops, simply trim it out. I like this train of thought, but I am worried it sounds like nonsense... I should refine this idea and use it in my policy paper...

D.U.M.B. Housing

So I have lived in an 'Quarters' apartment in west campus for 3 years now. I kind of hate it, but also, I like it just fine. West campus isn't very nice when everyone is drunk and making a mess, but it's a 10 minute walk from school, so that is great. The building and apartment I live in are kind of lame and have no character, and I pay way too much for a 400 sq ft studio apartment, but it's new and clean and everything works and I have it set up the way I like and I have a nice view and natural light, so really, it is just fine for me. I was planning on moving at the end of the school year and I didn't renew my lease. But I have one more semester left next fall, so I decided why not just stay there another year and not have to hassle with moving? I knew my rent would probably go up, but I went to check if my same unit was available for the next leasing period. It was available, but it had been reallocated as one of the Quarters' 5% of their units set aside for S.M.A.R.T. housing, and I am still a dependent of my parents, so I don't qualify... I argued and pled with the management, who are all idiots, but they said there is no way I could stay in my apartment next year... S.M.A.R.T. housing sounds like a great idea to me, but I don't think the city should just make it a universal mandate across Austin. It should be specialized to match the area the units are located. This may actually be the case, but if so, they should revisit their policy on west campus. I know someone in our class said they use S.M.A.R.T. housing in 21 Rio, but still. My apartment with the smart housing rate is $900 dollars a month for a 400 sq ft studio. That is more than what I pay right now, which is my rate when I first signed my lease 3 years ago. Get real. People who qualify as low-income are not going to pay that much. So basically, my apartment is most likely going to sit empty for at least a year until they decide it isn't SMART housing anymore, and I will have to move, and then end up moving again a year later. I don't know how much of this is to blame on SMART housing, or the Quarters management, but those make me equally pissed. Also, they need to stop building giant high-rise apartments in west campus while the existing ones are half-full. Maybe they should just burn west campus down and start over...

ZONING !

I think that I am more anti-zoning than pro-zoning, but I recognize that it is necessary evil. Think of places that grew-up without zoning. Not large metropoli like Houston, but smaller scale places. I live in West Campus; this place didn't evolve without zoning, but in recent years the zoning has been changed and loosened to allow for larger and taller buildings to be built. If you stand on the northeast corner of 22nd and Rio Grande and look northwest you see a few neat old houses in the foreground, and then 10 story tall apartments and garages in the background. West Campus is a really eclectic and interesting place I think. I don't really like the student population who lives there getting drunk and trashing the place every weekend, but I do like the fabric. Now back to my earlier thought. Think of a pioneer town in the 1800's or something; they didn't have a city plan or anything like that, they just picked a spot based on the water or the railroad and started building. They chose a main street and built what they needed and as they got bigger the built out from there. People lived out on farms, which might be equivalent to a suburb in my example, and some lived in town, but if anyone needed to conduct any kind of business they came into town, which is still somewhat true today. I think that places like that the grew out of necessity have a more organic and human quality to them, not like large planned areas of commercial strips and residential blocks, or even worse, forced mixed use developments like the Triangle - that place is awful... Another example of unplanned and nice places could maybe the UT campus? Actually, I am sure they have and had a very specific campus plan, but the University did expand from its original 40 acres as it needed, and over time the repositioning of different types and buildings and departments and the variety in style and old, medium, and new buildings creates a very eclectic and organic environment, in my eyes. So, I think planning ruins the character of places and makes them boring and contrived. I do think that now that the population has grown so large and the cities are growing so quickly that some planing and zoning guidelines are needed, but if it were up to me I would be very conservative in my application of these things and try to do them in a way to allow or at least emulate the organic and human growth that I am so fond of.