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Originally Posted by Komeht
Urbanism has won the vast majority of urban planners. Builders are on board as long as the regulatory environment supports them. The market is demanding for more of it driving huge spikes in cost or real estate in good urban places everywhere.
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I think someone has been celebrating Texas Independence Day to excess today. No doubt reality will hit about the same time as the hangover.
Look at your hypothesis: "Urbanism has won the vast majority of urban planners". Huh? Isn't "urbanism" precisely what "urban planners" are all about to start with? "Urban planners" wouldn't have much of a career without "urbanism". Perhaps most of this false hype about urbanism can be attributed to unemployed "urban planners" who refuse to face the reality of numbers to begin with.
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There are two major battles that will be played out over the next century.
1. Win over the D.O.T.s
2. Crush the NIMBYs
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This is all you have identified as opposition to Komeht's "better society"?
Every despot has to start somewhere I suppose.
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Most cities have a comprehensive plan or are in the process of developing one that calls for "compact and connected" cities, vibrant mixed use districts, walkable neighborhoods and traditional neighborhood design.
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Most of them have some word like "vision", "envision", "strong city", "sustainability" or some other worthless word. The plans all rely on suppressing individual rights and individual property rights and moving towards more socialist concepts. The plans dictate where building is allowed and where it is not to be allowed. The plans provide for "open space" - to be privately owned and maintained for the benefit of who knows who of course. The "open space" is deemed "shared space" but it isn't really shared by anybody. Certainly ownership of it isn't shared. "Walkable" as used by Komeht means aesthetically pleasing to him/her rather than any economic or utilitarian purpose for businesses/store fronts. These plans also generally call for a significant decrease in individual private space and rule by private corporation - things that just aren't appealing to many folks in the concept of a "home". Certainly nothing even remotely resembling a "traditional neighborhood design".
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But there are two major forces pulling in the opposite direction. They must be won over or crushed for urbanism to truly flourish.
The D.O.T.s are still operating on retrograde 1960s thinking that roads, wider, faster, straighter are the answer to traffic woes. It's so damaging on so many levels. And they are completely entrenched - with a huge amount of political power, vast sums of money to play with and an enormous industry that depends on D.O.T.s continuing their destructive path all donating quantities of money to pols to perpetuate the cycle.
But these people are persuadable. 1. The gravy train is over. There is no longer an endless stream of revenue to support this insanity. Most if not all D.O.T.s are extremely cash strapped or in debt to the tune of billions. They can't afford to maintain the current infrastructure, let alone build new ones. Right now every D.O.T. in the nation is trying to figure how to raise revenue - they're almost universally hitting upon tollways - once anathema to car people. That door is opening up a whole new line of thinking among D.O.T.s for ways to deal with traffic with managed tollways. But more importantly, as a new generation of engineers rises in the ranks, slowly but surely outmoded and outdated 1960s thinking will come to an end. The battle will be won by 2050 or so - unfortunately that gives another 35 years to do significant damage.
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Yawn.
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NIMBYs on the other hand, are not persuadable. They belong to the class of people who will never get it. The only thing to do with NIMBYs is crush them. NIMBY's only have power because pols pay attention to squeaky wheels. But as urbanism becomes more and more the desired goal and as urbanist become more vocal about these issues and as people become more educated about what makes for a good city and what is a disaster - pols are given political cover - and the answer more and more to NIMBY's will be "that's very nice that you feel that way, but we have the entire city to think about, now go sit down."
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If urbanism was such a great thing you wouldn't have the opposition you claim exists, now would you?
"never get it" and "good city"? "Desired goal" for who? So you claim superior insight, intelligence, and an ability to define the "common good" and how everyone else needs to accept your idea to conform to a good society? Seems like the same sentiment that gave rise to the Third Reich and historically associated with a lot of negative "-isms"* (nationalism, socialism, communism, racism, ...
and urbanism) Have another round.
You have plenty more than NIMBYs to worry about. You aren't actually dealing with the residents that you call NIMBYs most of the time. Instead you are dealing with anti-growth, anti-change organizations that falsely claim to be representing all the homeowners in an area. "Associations" and "associations of associations". Those organizations should largely be ignored. People forget about fundamental legal principles such as "standing".
Along with these groups you have the faux environmentalists (anti-change zealots) who claim to be representing inanimate objects, various compositions of matter, invisible critters, state property, and all the people that aren't there. Those organizations should likewise be ignored. Eventually you get to the true parties with standing - actual citizens, property owners, and residents of affected property. These folks should be heard. Some of the things they would be affected by are simply things they have no right to be protected from to begin with (e.g., zoning change). Other things, however, such as restrictions or takings of their property may require compensation. We all know that decisions in city government are often made to benefit friends of the elected class rather than for the stated purpose. The petition process and open meetings are part of a democratic process to address these issues.
Your attitude about what powers a city should have over individuals and the property of others is rather disturbing - and it is just one reason why many people have absolutely no desire to live in or near a city much less promote "urbanism" as you seem to want to define and implement it.
The only disaster coming is morning. Happy Texas Independence Day.
*You sound like Dr. Utopia hawking "ISM" in the following animated short from 1948. He appears shortly after 2 minutes into the video. At about 7 minutes, the narration with the blue handed character seems to describe the "urban planners" you promote. You're selling a particular flavor of "ISM" - "urban-ISM":
Dr. Utopia's ISM
Blue hand of ISM
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