Saturday, January 03, 2009

"Urban Sprawl" is Bad?

There rages a heated debate regarding living conditions in our country among those in the architecture industry referred to lovingly as "Urban Sprawl." What is meant when someone uses this term is that they believe that people should all live in cities. Bodies stacked upon each other, not unlike cord wood. What they fail to even attempt to understand is that theirs is a limited, anti-intellectual opinion of man and man's individual desires. They look upon the profession as designing buildings rather than focus on the important aspect, the client, the man. The HERO.

They claim to want the best for man, by forcing him to submit to being the least that he can possibly be. Such is always the case for an architect with an elitist mentality. He claims to be a humanist, with no regard for his personal benefit, but he removes from his thought, the love of his fellow man and the desire for everyone to be great. He desires mediocrity and failure for everyone, equally.

Who is the client and what is his philosophy?

Freedom from other men is desirable to even the lowliest janitor. I am not saying that janitorial service is a menial task, I certainly appreciate my trash collector, but that as far as intellectual prowess is concerned, a janitor is not on par with an anesthesiologist.

Why do supposedly intelligent people deny what is the desire of most men? Men want to be free to do as they please, increase their personal wealth, and to provide and protect their families. And why is city life contradictory to that desire? A few reasons, all are philosophical.

If you live in the city, chances are good that even you attempt to migrate to people that you like unless you are crippled in that endeavor by poverty. Poverty, or likewise, wealth, is the determining factor, for a lot of people, in exactly where they live. This cause and effect is not considered by those in the architecture field that possess the elitist mentality of knowing what is best for everyone else. I do not adhere to that philosophy. My clients choose me, and I them, for individual reasons upon which we agree.

Let's push that concept further. When a poor person acquires a job that allows them the FINANCIAL FREEDOM to move from the ghetto, that is usually the very first thing that they do. Well, unless the ghetto offers something that individual ownership of their personal property does not permit. Such as continuing to be a deadbeat, all while keeping more of what they earn and bleeding the honest man to death. Their philosophy and morality matter.

I also have no problem with someone that recognizes their limitations in the financial realm, and accepts their role of a serf. Their lack of ambition to rise to a higher station in life is their decision to make. I completely appreciate that need to surrender their life and their will to their master. However, when someone is forced into the serf role for decades and generations, while others pay for their sustenance, who is the serf and who is the master?

I refuse to participate, and people that actually possess the ability to think beyond the minute do as well. When cities become too crowded with those that possess the serf mentality, our new style of government MUST provide for those that have no ability. Never mind that this action is completely contrary to the entire philosophy upon which our country was founded. The Free Man flees those that attempt to remove from him physically, that which he has earned.

This move is absolutely NOT because that man wants to DESTROY the planet, yet urbanists screech about saving Mother Gaia. They use all kinds of language to disguise the fact that they want man to fall back into the herd and be miserable like everyone else. Such is the case when you are trying to reshape the United States of America into the image of Bangladesh.

Now, to further understand the concept of concentrated population, let's look at the results of their philosophy. Think of a very pretty CITY. I can only think of one that has any type of picturesque vistas and offers any type of quaint community interaction and that is San Francisco. What is unique about that city?

San Francisco has one of the most restrictive building codes of any place on the planet. They also have a fixed rent law that FORCES the landlord to keep his rent at an artificially reduced rate. This foments a sub-sub-sub-lease black market that has removed any possibility of any type of diversity at all. The final result is complete and total fascism. The government determines the profit of all men equally, but you do not see anyone getting richer in the confines of that reasoning. And poor people simply do not exist in San Francisco. The city has outlawed poor people by passing restrictions. And the minority population is physically and legally removed.

Government subsidized housing is yet another way that they legally and forcefully keep the minorities on their side of the tracks. These housing projects are actually springing up throughout the country, even in non-urban areas. And they produce crime, poverty, and continuing failures. But, they accomplish exactly what they are designed to do, force dependence on an ever-diminishing number of the ruling class and remove wealth from those stuck between the two IMPORTANT castes. Those being ruled do not possess the mental faculties necessary to understand what is being done to them. Those ruling do not care what is happening to anyone BENEATH them.

There is a philosophy and there is self-determination. If, and only IF, you recognize it for what it is. What is the solution?

Leave man to his own devices. Every single person was given their necessary tools at birth. Some folks are less capable than others, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from the political opining of the day. The very reason that there are people in this country today that possess the damn wheel and the beast of burden, is because some folks in Europe so hated the oppression of anti-intellectualism, that they jumped on a boat, not knowing what lay ahead, and fled the inner-cities of Europe.

Think about it, New Urbanists. You are dreadfully wrong and history can prove it to you, IF you simply take the time to attempt to understand your clients.

Last point, Ayn Rand was wrong in regards to what New York City actually represents. It is most definitely NOT the pinnacle of achievement for man and his abilities, it is the proof of the caste system being alive and well in the United States of America and the utter failures of the collective.

Please take the time to comment.

2 comments:

ChristinaJade said...

excellent post!

and i couldn't agree more. i would love to see the actual figures, if they exist, on people who move IN to a ghetto vs those who move OUT. how many of the residents have been there for generations?

if NYC is the pinnacle of achievement for man, then i have a problem with being human. last time i was there i couldn't wait to leave. call me claustrophobic, or a country bumpkin, or whatever you like, but i would choose a handmade, self-sufficient earth structure in the middle of nowhere over a penthouse in NYC any day.

Paul Mitchell said...

Of course Rand was seeing New York as being nearly one hundred percent man made and showing his abilities at manipulating and developing his surroundings. But, she failed to recognize the tribal (mob rule) aspects of that development.

Four million people living on top of each other? Yeah, I think I'll pass, too. I had a good time the last time that I was there, but I was so, so, so glad to get home.