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Urbanism For Capitalists / Capitalism For Urbanists
About twice a year, I decry how conservatives are conceding an important and powerful demographic and cultural change to liberals. It’s sometimes called the New Urbanism. To conservatives, though, its just the Evil City all over again. And anything good that may be happening is “yuppification,” “gentrification,” or — even worse — “hiptserfication.” I don’t see the problem: all three words mean revitalization, which means the creation of fine, safe, productive, and interesting places for people to live and work. In other words, it means bringing back downtown and main street which, once upon a time, were natural homes for conservatives. But, as I’m wont to say, conservatives are used to what they are used to and skeptical of all else. Many modern conservatives are simply not used to downtown and main street.
But that’s not totally true. My last foray into this arena was a four–part history of transportation in America. The responses to that thread made it clear that there is a solid core of potential, budding, and already-arrived conservative urbanists. Today, I’m here with some good news for conservative urbanists and to announce a fine discovery in the form of a blog: Market Urbanism, whose motto is “Urbanism for Capitalists / Capitalism for Urbanists.”
Hayek and Bastiat (and of course, Jane Jacobs, she of Spontaneous Order) are displayed prominently in their bookstore. A few quotes I’ve so far gleaned from a brief perusal of some of the site. About the website’s founder, Adam Hengels:
Growing up in suburban Chicago, Adam suspected there was something inefficient about the land patterns and transportation of the suburbs. When introduced to urbanist ideas in freshman architecture/planning coursework, the concepts made sense, despite the paternalistic bent of the professors who presented them. Thus, he became conflicted between the urbanist instinct and the free market instinct. Through study and practice of building design, infrastructure design, construction, economics, planning, development, and urban economics, Adam concluded that our problems with sprawl, congestion, and automobile dependency were largely the result of socialistic oversupply of transportation systems and top-down regimentation of land use, not due to market failures, as many urbanists proclaim.
From an article:
So why don’t conservatives and libertarians have more compunction about sprawl? I believe the problem is more the messengers than the message. Despite the free market aspects of modern-day urbanism, smart growth and new urbanism are not libertarian movements. Urban planning is dominated by liberals, and it shows – few even seem aware of the capitalist roots of their plans. The private corporations that built America’s great cities and mass transit systems are all but forgotten by modern-day progressives and planners, who view the private sector as a junior partner at best. Yonah Freemark views Chicago’s meek and tentative steps towards transit re-privatization as a “commodification of the formerly public realm” that’s “scarring” American cities – his version of history apparently starts in 1947. The Infrastructurist must have been reading from the same textbook, because Melissa Lafsky calls libertarianism her “enemy” and apparently believes that America reached its free market transportation peak around the 1950s. And Matt Yglesias, a rare liberal who understands the economic arguments in favor of allowing density, is routinely rebuffed by his commenters, who I doubt would be so offended if he were arguing for urbanism for environmental and social engineering reasons, as so many progressives and planners do today.
And while we’re on the topic, let’s not forget another wonderful discovery introduced to us by our own Chris Williamson: Charles Marohn, a “Republican Urban Planner,” whose lecture you can download here.
Published in Culture, Domestic Policy
Coming from a predominantly conservative family, I have observed that all family members (myself definitely included!) feel deep shame at the thought of not being self-reliant: it means we are failures as (conservative) human beings.
The thing is, humans being the error-prone, fallible creatures that we are, the deep shame that we feel at not being self-reliant doesn’t only cause us to be more self-reliant. It also causes us to fool ourselves into thinking we’re self-reliant when we’re not. Mostly, we’re a pretty responsible lot. But when we are irresponsible, we are prone to deep denial about it. I think that’s pretty human, actually, and not just a quirk of my eccentric family, but a temptation that all conservatives must be on guard against.
I don’t disagree with that at all.
But I resent that being someone’s argument in a debate. I see the world more clearly than most, I understand my limitations quite well. I know what I need help on.
Good. Thank you.
Fair enough. I know I use “impersonal you” fairly freely in the comments, since it’s less stuffy than “one”. That can come across as a direct attack on others, especially when argument gets heated, and for that I apologize.
Matty will have to make his own apologies, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend to single you out either as an exceptionally irresponsible individual.
I have to say, reading this thread it seems that what Matty proposed initially has kind of gone off the rails.
My sense of the original posting was that Matty was saying that today’s structure of cities/suburbs/country has been created in good part by government action rather than by market forces. His proposition was that conservatives ought not simply retreat and give up the urban “battleground” to the Lefties. I believe he has some point in such a point of view.
However, the rub seems to sit in the fact that Bryan (and I to a lessor degree) is happy with his suburban existence and has no interest in returning to the urban battlefield. If you are going to contend with the Left over the urban landscape you sort of have to be there; one cannot fight on a battlefield without presence on that battlefield.
The concept of trying to fight for the cities is, however, a valid one, regardless of whether one lives there or not. If conservativism is to win any fights and restore any sense of balance to the nation, it will need some rational stand on urban centers. We had better have a rational and workable position on places like Detroit because there are others coming along shortly (like Chicago).
It appears that Matty’s plan for fighting for the cities is to stop supporting the suburbs.
See, that kinda feels like he wants to draft me into his fight.
Bryan: “It appears that Matty’s plan for fighting for the cities is to stop supporting the suburbs. See, that kinda feels like he wants to draft me into his fight.”
Matty: “Fair enough. The whole point of this thread is to draft conservatives into the fight. But don’t take it personally. It’s not like I’m simply anti-burbs. What I am is anti-government-burbs, along with anti-government-cities. I’m anti-government intervention in anything and everything beyond a tiny minimum. marketurbanism and strongtowns (the two organizations being recommended by this thread) take that position, too. That’s why I recommended them.
Bryan: “To argue that suburbs are all about subsidy while ignoring all the money spent on cities is nuts.”
Matty: “Though you present that as if you are arguing against my position, in fact it is exactly my position. And you’re right, it is nuts.
Bryan: “Please don’t lecture me that my lifestyle is somehow being supported when cities are not.”
Matty: “I have never ever said that city lifestyles are not being supported. That would be, as you said, nuts. But yes, I’m afraid your lifestyle is also being supported. First there’s the massive roads programs of the last century combined with pro-suburbanization zoning and out-of-control government loan programs, restricted to whites for much of that period. And don’t forget the financial meltdown on the horizon pointed out by Republican Urban Planner Charles Marohn. That’s the huge government collusion ponzi scheme used to build suburbia, a scheme which is nearing the end of its natural lifespan. I hope Marohn is wrong, but he makes a strong case.
Anyway, good luck on fulfilling your dreams. That’s what America is about. But we need to get government out of the process. Dreams are for people to make, not for government to finance.
Thanks for admiting you want to draft people like me.
I’ll keep fighting not to be forced into serving your agenda.
Oh, and good luck with getting get government out of the roads. But keek on dreaming.
Thx Bry, but hey, I’m not admitting anything, I’m declaring it loud and clear. The urbanist movement needs conservatives for the sake of the nation and the survival of the Great American Experiment. Good luck to you too, and yes I will keep on dreaming.
PS – Based on the little Amazon summaries that Kurtz book looks totally loony bin. To the extent suburban voters are conservative Obama is dismissive but to attribute this sort of detailed agenda to an administration that can’t tie its shoes is silly. But we are 3 years on now so we have benefit of hindsight.
PPS – I hate these books as a general rule. Right there with management books.
Look, if it never happens, it’s not the end of the world. It’s not like proponents of privatized roads believe that road privatization will immanentize the eschaton.
Even those who are fairly convinced that privatized roads would actually run better if they existed typically don’t have raising the political capital to get privatized roads on the top of their to-do list. Other reforms, like loosening licensing requirements and zoning laws, most likely take priority. You know, stuff like what IJ is already doing.
And there’s nothing preventing someone who privately believes in the superiority of private roads from also supporting reforms that would make public roads better.
Draft has been compared to slavery by at least on libertarian on these boards. Just saying.
Casey, by all means then report me for a COC violation. Can’t trust those NR writers.
No, I’m not saying that but it’s just that this 2012 book in 2015 looks silly. (Political books like that usually do) I haven’t read it though. Only the amazon link.
I am in Hokkaido now so neener neener neener. There are trees and rivers and straight roads.
I have not read all the comments but I agree with Matty since he is in Japan.
Juu-en, thanks for the vote of confidence. Yes we need to stick together! The trees and rivers sound really nice, though. Envy ya. But maybe you should have waited a month or two for escape from the soon to be sweltering southlands!
Matty,
I got a great deal on a ferry ride with my car. You know how the rates change so I decided to save “my people”. Have you ever take a 20 hour plus boat ride. The new boat had a 露天風呂 whatever that means. Relaxing.
I am going to report 10 cents for a COC violation though. Neener is unacceptable language.
Casey,
Neener to the Max. You squealer. Bob Barker Bob Barker Bob Barker. Be careful or I will phone a vet and if The Price Is Right he will do a jewel heist for me.
Whoa, this went downhill fast.
Sorry Skip but Casey started it again.
It’s all well and good to say conservatives need to take back the cities. Doing it is another thing. Breaking the liberal WASP hold on urban power is not going to be easy. It will take a lot of discipline, more than a little luck, and a level of political genius I’m not sure any of us have (for example, it may be necessary to bring poor whites and poor blacks into the same coalition, and keep them there in the face of efforts by liberal elites to divide them. No one has ever done that successfully in American history, except for FDR, who basically bought off both groups in a way that isn’t possible today).
I’ve thought about this a lot. I live near the people responsible for certain forms of anti-white persecution. This is hard on me, but I’ve stayed so far because while I’ve overcome said persecution, I have friends and family who have not. And yet, deliberately disrupting the social equilibrium of people who are affluent, highly privileged and believe themselves to be morally superior human beings is a rather frightening idea. Frankly, I am afraid to try, and while I may yet try to do so anyway, the temptation to just leave can be overpowering.
Joseph, some interesting thoughts, and you’re taking this off in a new direction, which I think is good.
For anyone paying attention, I have concentrated – at Rico anyway – on transportation, trying to make the case that rebuilding America for the benefit of the auto, and the related government support for white suburbanization, are historically progressive ideas and programs. It was progressives who wanted to free us from the evil clutches of railroad captalism by supplying “free” infrastructure for cars. Car dependency, however, has been a disaster for the poor, both black and white. Liberals kind of get that, but have no idea that the whole thing was their idea in the first place. Unfortunately, conservatives don’t know that history either. If we did, I can see the possibility of co-opting the New Urbanism movement and making it a conservative thing. That, anyway, is what strongtowns.org and marketurbanism.com are trying to do.
Ok, that’s probably a little off track from what you are suggesting here, but I’m suggesting we can merge your ideas and mine. In fact, I already have, if not at Rico. I’m a big fan of historian David Hackett Fischer’s thesis that Puritans seeded northern culture through settlement of Mass. while Cavaliers and Borderers seeded southern culture through the settlement of VIrginia. Without getting into the details, I (and Hackett to some extent) make the case that the original seeding still strongly affects America. Puritans are now neo-puritans (ie, progressives), our blue staters. Borderers (Irish etc) are in cultural opposition, even now, at least those who have grown up within red state sensibilities. Your personal experiences so succinctly expressed in 142 really illustrate much of that under-the-radar cultural conflict.
(Apologies if I mixed up red and blue. Dang, but i can never remember which is which!)
?Isn’t what Joseph says in #142 the basis of “white flight”.
Interestingly, liberals have been fleeing their own “havens” – for red state ones. Where they try to institute the same failed philosophies that caused the problems they fled. You would think they would learn. Apparently you would be wrong.
Brings us back to one of Jonah Goldberg’s favorite points, that liberals don’t know their own history. (Cross-ref Liberal Fascism)
OR if you wish to be more unkind, don’t want to know their own history. It would just be a burden to them.