Public Square Conservatives (aka The Downtown Blockers)
Alright…to jump into the Front Porcher vs. PomoCon debate, this from Carl Scott, friend of Ivan Kenneally posted by Ivan over at PomoCon:
Where do the Porchers want to go? Or where should they? Well, it would seem to me the most important sentences in Wendell Berry are the following: 1) “The destruction of the community begins when its economy is made—not dependent (for no community has ever been entirely independent)–but subject to a larger external economy.” 2) “…if you are dependent on people who do not know you, who control the value of your necessities, you are not free, and you are not safe.” (Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, pp. 126-128) Hence, the Porchers should want to move from the current system to one in which a) the habits and beliefs of certain Porcher influenced or protected communities, and b) the hard-fought-for legislative prerogatives and jurisdictions of said communities (vis-a-vis national and state authority–esp. judicial) together allow, first, a much larger degree of economic/environmental self-regulation than is now possible, and second, a much larger degree of community-adopted morals legislation than is now possible. This dual goal assumes that the larger market system, so regulated locally and hopefully also subjected to greater national regulation in fields (esp. environmental and financial) beyond any local scope, nonetheless chugs along. It does not assume “post-capitalism.” It does not assume protectionist “post-globalism.” Nor does it seek to get past the far-older-than-Locke need to guarantee private property.
I think Carl’s analysis massively over-emphasizes the centrality of legal regulations (environmental, economic, moral). Watch the Kunstler video above. JHK is talking about the need to change public architecture and the formation of one’s sense of habitat which he believes will create places of meaning that people will quite naturally respond to with care and participation. I also really disagree with Scott’s point on assuming the national economy chugs along. See here for a counter view. But more on that anon.
If the legal framework is essentially a ratification of and judgment upon the placial (instead of spatial) structure and mode of production/fabrication, (which I think there is a good argument to be made that this is the case) then why start the fight on the legal front thereby assuming the economic order that is the central assertion of both points 1 and 2 from Wendelly Berry cited by Scott himself?
If (and I think Ivan Carl is right about this) those are the two central axes of Berry’s thought, then the view Scott lays out as the next steps for Front Porchers is a recipe for failure from the get go, since they contradict the very principles they are supposed to materialize.
Now there maybe a number of Front Porchers who would desire to enact localized moral legislation–maybe the more Crunchy Con flavor of Front Porchers (like Rod??). I get very leery of that possibility–on that point I’m with the Pomocons. And the closest Kunstler comes to this moral legislation piece is his constant (and I think rather annoying in an otherwise supremely brilliant and hilarious exposition) refrain that suburban sprawl et. al is “not good enough for America.”
So I do want to acknowledge that potential dark side, though I think there is a workaround. It involves a concept I often harp about here at the League (in fact it’s arguably the only domestic political point I ever really make). So, since I always talk about the necessity of a third leg (the commons) that is not the state nor the market, let me say it again. I think my negative reaction to that quoted paragraph above is that it is still assuming the 2 legged world of state and market. Incidentally this is why I think Kunstler’s paean to “not good enough for Americans” fails since I think we no longer live in a nation-state but a market-state. The world increasingly consists of one city, what Brugmann calls The Global City. The Commons is one to be created through cities as nodes of the global urban reality. Good urbanism in Kunstler’s terms.
[Sidenote: If there is a fight to come between regional, state, and federal governments versus front porch-esque cities than I imagine much more in an apocalyptic sense as the former forms of government increasingly face extinction and seek to stay on life support by attaching themselves parasitically to the hosts of potential real wealth creation.]
Do good urbanism (what Brugmann calls urban strategy) and do it well and it will so rejigger the entire edifice of how we conceive social, political, and economic modalities that it would I submit render essentially obsolete the kinds of institutions and processes upon which Carl Scott has based his programmatic agenda for Front Porchers. If the Front Porchers are going to assume the current economic model, then yeah he’s basically right on their action plan. I don’t think they will–or at least they would be stupid to do so. Otherwise they (again) will contadict Berry’s own central points and end up being nothing other than A) a various reform movement that will simply be conformed to the blob (point pomocons) and/or B)unleash the worst possible potentials of Front Porcher-ism, i.e. a localized moral puritanism (point again pomocons).
If however they take this other (largely unacknowledged) path–the path being laid out by Brugmann and Kunstler and others–than those critiques will be I believe more than answered and leave postmodern conservativism in the dust.
A few questions:
First, how does a community or state begin the process of erecting “the commons” and how is it protected – both from the government and the market. One concern I have with this concept is that at some point things must be enforced, and a state-enforced commons seems hardly more than the creation of some sort of (potential) monopoly or monopolized resource by the state.
Second, the problem I have with new-urbanist visions (even those I agree with, and I tend to agree that the walkable, front-porchy vision of urbanism – that anti-suburban aesthetic is better on the whole for human beings) is that it is all planned; zoned to the teeth, and expensive. Organic neighborhoods of the past which essentially were built without zoning of any kind, seemed to quite naturally create something the new-urbanists now seek to craft.
Then again, I’m not sure that anymore the alternative would work. So how does a city push for new-urban growth that is also affordable to the middle and working class….?
Third, that piece by John Robb is fascinating. I remember hearing about this years ago and then it completely slipped my mind. What a notion, eh? And the concept of “normalizing” living standards as connected countries begin to level is also interesting. I wonder if it will happen smoothly or if it will be all pain or if it will happen at all equitably.Report
The Commons needs legal recognition I think, but not state-power. It really needs to be thought of and actually concretely realized as a third realm if you like. Really I think the issue is the illegal enclosure of the commons by a combination of market and state forces. It ruins capitalism ever properly functioning.
So obviously the question is how to create another power center which would mean the market-state ceding the territory they have illegally stolen? That’s the trick. If a Commons could help revitalize economically previously downgraded districts, then I think you could get buy-in from business. And then Common-ers would have to show the state function that having a Commons reduces social cost (in terms of crime and such) while increasing productivity (hence more tax revenue which they’ll like to hear). Or at least that’s my potentially naive ideal sales job.
The Commons in other words does not so much need to be erected as proclaimed where it already exists: excess bandwith, the air, artistic commons, information commons, the ability to create money.
Now in response to the ‘tragedy of the commons’ argument–that is if no one is in charge then no one is responsible, then the Commons gets trashed–we will need an administrative function for Commons-es. But not the state you see.
The answer to your question about the high costs of planned urbanism is a good one. I suggest Jeb Brugmann on that point who is very critical of a lot of New Urbanism because it tends to get mixed up with neo-progressive social puritanism “clean up our streets stuff.” What Brugmann shows is that what we call ghettos in many places are actually quite legitimate hubs of human interaction. Not without problems undoubtedly. But generally the best solution for the migrant community looking to move up the ladder. Upper class types come in to “gentrify” or “clean up” an area which becomes a victory for the corporatist state function and a loss of the natural ecology of the place. Also C.K. Prahalad has written persuasively on this point as well. I’m really looking forward to Brugmann’s next book as I hope it will lay out in more detail precisely how to go about the process of doing what he theoretically (in terms of principles really) lays out in his current book.
The other piece relative to how to manage costs is the way John Robb discusses local production/fabrication.
But as long as the area is largely a sluice for the volatile global economy that will go through and out of the area, then yeah any attempt at New Urbanism will be heavy on regulation, high cost, pricing out those we would want to keep there (see Vancouver where I live). That was my point relative to Wendell Berry and disagreeing with Carl Scott. The only way to do it is really to radically produce an alternate economic praxis (the ethos will then follow).Report