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OK, guys, we're in the midst of a debate about urban/suburban, with a little rural thrown in for fun, though no one seems too interested in rural. Apparently, on this forum, anything built after 1945 is "suburban" no matter where it is located. It's time for me to reveal my "piece de resistance" that I have been putting into writing since I got back from my trip to Nebraska.
Please note the following is a figment of my imagination. Mostly I dreamed this up to pass the time on the drive to/from Nebraska. Please read it as satire. It is not intended to be serious, or to mock any one person or religion. It is satire. Read it like you would “The Onion”. (I can back up all my data if requested.)
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Here is some insider information for CD members. God has called a meeting with “committed urbanists”, two men and one woman, on the 4th of July at the Lewis and Clark landing on the Missouri River in Omaha, Nebraksa, the heartland of the heartland of America. At noon on July 4, God, in the form of a person who looks like Harry Truman, will descend from heaven and land on the Iowa side of the river. He will then commence to walk across the Mighty Mo to Omaha and greet the trio. Now I know many of you would love to have a meeting with God, but this is how he does things. He calls two or three people, sometimes even just one, as in the case of Moses and the 10 commandments. Here is an advance copy of God's message:
GOD: Hello, everyone. You're probably wondering why I called you here, in mid-America on the 4th of July. Well, the truth is, the world has become a bad place. This has happened before. I tried to clean it up with that flood, making Noah build that ark for his family. I tried it again with Sodom and Gomorrah, and turned that woman, Lot's wife, into a pillar of salt. Over time, I've tried again and again. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and a host of others got a vision from me at one point in time. The most successful in cleaning things up was Jakob Ammon, who founded the Amish. He tried to keep life like it was in late 17th century rural Europe. However, it has come to my attention that some of you non-Amish think the world is going to h*** in a handbasket, so to speak. You think the post war building boom has destroyed the urban form. Well, I am here to give you a vision. You are to go forth and preach to all nations, converting them to a new religion, “Urban Planningism” or Upism for short. All innovations and changes since V-J day, August 15, 1945, are to be eliminated from your lifestyles. You will live the lifestyle of 1945.
First of all, these computers will have to go. Your moderator has been a good and faithful mod, so he may go to the public library for an hour a day to moderate the Urban Planning forum. However, if I catch him checking his email, facebook, or another website, he's toast. Every other Up will have to get rid of their computer. No one except the mod may even work at a job with computers. This is fair, it's like Father Rapp of the Economites, who didn't allow his flock to get married, but was married himself. I know there are not many jobs that don't involve some computer work, even retail and restaurants generally use computers for ringing up sales. However, there is child care (no disposable diapers or bottles allowed though), construction (no products invented after 1945), landscaping (ditto) and a few others. Some of you could be buggy-whip makers.
While I'm at it, I have a special message for the women. That's why I brought one of you here. You cannot be an Up priest; only men can do that. The women's movement was just a gleam in Gloria Steinham's mother's eye in 1945. Your job is to be a helpmeet. Your black converts will face extreme discrimination. Harry Truman didn't even integrate the armed forces until 1948. There were only about 100 black elected officials that year. Jim Crow laws and defacto segregation were prevalent.
Only 1/3 of your kids will be allowed to graduate from high school, and only 1 in 20 from college. Those were the graduation rates in 1945. Since many men were off at war, the number of males and females in college was about even. That would all change in a few years when the returning G.Is went back to college in droves. Only 60% of you will be allowed to have telephones; you will have to decide how to allocate them. They won't be the cell phones we have today; they won't even be those touch-tone phones you plug in the wall. They won't even be dial phones. You will pick up the phone and an operator will answer. You will give the number you are calling to the op. How this stuff will work with the modern equipment, I have no idea and I'm God and know everything!
In 1945 there were only 7000 TV sets in the entire country, so perhaps one or two of your followers can have one. There were also only nine TV stations then. Under 60% of households had cars in 1945; it went up to 60% by 1950. So, let 55% or so have them. Do keep in mind, these won't be the cars of the 2000s, or even the 1990s. No seat belts, anti-lock brakes, or many other safety features. Constant break-downs. You'll be lucky if your car lasts 10 years. A car with 50,000 miles on it will be an “old car”.
Most homes did not have a refrigerator or central heating then. Food had to be left out, and it frequently spoiled, causing illness if you ate it. Consider yourself forewarned if you are one of those that gets to live w/o a fridge. Katiana and her DH once rented a house built in 1953, eight years newer than I'm allowing you guys to have, that did not have a furnace as original equipment. This was in Champaign, IL, an area that can get some pretty severe winters. 30% did not have running water. Some of you will have to learn how to pump water, manually, and how to pump outhouses, too! The most common fuel for stoves and heating was coal, with wood the second most common. Most people rented. (Of course, I guess that's what you Ups like!) People spent 34% of their income on food! 34%! I guess you'll all have to take a pay cut to live like that.
Health care will be limited to the care available in 1945. Pencillin had just come on the scene. Tuberculosis was still one of the leading causes of death. Immunizations were limited to smallpox (all of you will have to get it and get those nasty scars on your arms); diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, not “bundled” as they call it now, but individually. Your kids will have to get 15 shots and way more antigen to be completely immunized agains those three diseases, in comparison to five for parents following current immunization practices. There was no polio vaccine. Polio was epidemic, causing panic. It wasn't until 1953 that Jonas Salk, working at Katiana's to-be alma mater, developed a vaccine for this fearful disease. It's kind of funny that in 2012 even immunzation deniers usually want polio vaccine for their kids. As the eipidemiologists like to say, “It's only an airplane ride away”. While most of your converts will be immunized, your kids won't be. You may get to relive the joy of wheelchairs, braces and iron lungs, long forgotten in the US. When Katiana herself was a little kitten in college in 1968, the rubella (German measles) vaccine was tested on her nursing class prior to licensure. Your kids won't get the vaccine, and if they don't get the disease as kids, the females may get rubella when they're pregnant, subsequently delivering babies with all sorts of birth defects. Katiana herself enrolled her red-headed daughter in an immunization study in 1989 for the Hib vaccine, a major cause of childhood meningitis. Since this vaccine has been introduced, deaths from hib disease have dropped to almost zero. Your kids, however, may get this life-threatening disease.
All of this may seem a little harsh, but that's the payback for living like it was 1945. It will be worth it. You will have the “Holy Grail”. Good luck. Have a nice 4th of July!
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At this point, I will fly in on my wings (I'm the Falls Angel, remember?) and say “The Word of the Lord.”
The three urbanists will reply:
“Thanks be to God”.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 06-21-2012 at 09:07 AM..
Yeah, they weren't too good at treating polio in 1920, but I think they were better at building neighborhoods. I don't think that's an untenable position.
That was amusing. However, and I do know that it's "satire," it's still silly to operate under the premise of "Well if you don't want auto-based suburban societies, you can't have any of the perks of modern life, because I said so!"
Yeah, they weren't too good at treating polio in 1920, but I think they were better at building neighborhoods. I don't think that's an untenable position.
That depends on your perspective. I think people on here fail to understand that some people really do enjoy living in sub-divisions. They value large rooms, a garage, and a basement theater over "character," walkability and amenities.
That depends on your perspective. I think people on here fail to understand that some people really do enjoy living in sub-divisions. They value large rooms, a garage, and a basement theater over "character," walkability and amenities.
I do realize that, though it is easy for me to forget.
Either way, reasonable people can argue whether change in neighborhood form since the 1940s was an advance or not. Just because there have been many beneficial changes doesn't mean all changes must be good. It's not an either / or.
And regardless, there are still many, many (though it depends on the region of the country) people living in pre-1945 housing stock, including myself. Most of the people are not experiencing living conditions from 1945. The median age of Massachusetts housing stock is around the mid 1940s. Yet, Massachusetts ranks very highly among states in quality of life indicators (health, education, income, etc.)
Nothing turned on a dime right after 1945, but the trends toward ranch homes and suburbs were pretty firmly planted by 1950, at a minimum.
I grew up in a postwar neighborhood...with one notable exception. The first house, built in 1947, was constructed for a family whose breadwinner was in his 40s ( a true salt-of-the-earth guy) with a farming background. Now this house had a decidedly pre-war look to it, much like a large clapboard house, but without a porch, and it had a decent-sized yard in both front and back ( and both sides) too. To enter his home was to go back to the 1920-1930s, with a large, old-style pantry in the kitchen, the grandfather clock in the living room, the old-fashioned uncarpeted staircase, etc. Now, my other neighbors had more modern-looking homes, with attached driveways, large suburban-types lawns, "modern" kitchens, wall-to wall carpeting, etc. The original house stood out as the exception, as the surrounding homes clearly indicated a change in thinking about modern home design.
That depends on your perspective. I think people on here fail to understand that some people really do enjoy living in sub-divisions. They value large rooms, a garage, and a basement theater over "character," walkability and amenities.
Character and amenities are both traits that are in the eye of the beholder. Is living in an "authentic loft" an opportunity to live in a building with character or is it just paying too much to live in old dumpy warehouse? Is living in a neighborhood with not much street parking a feature because it allows you to live closer to shops, restaurants and bars or just really annoying because you and your friends have to spend 20 minutes circling for a parking spot?
I do realize that, though it is easy for me to forget.
Either way, reasonable people can argue whether change in neighborhood form since the 1940s was an advance or not. Just because there have been many beneficial changes doesn't mean all changes must be good. It's not an either / or.
And regardless, there are still many, many (though it depends on the region of the country) people living in pre-1945 housing stock, including myself. Most of the people are not experiencing living conditions from 1945. The median age of Massachusetts housing stock is around the mid 1940s. Yet, Massachusetts ranks very highly among states in quality of life indicators (health, education, income, etc.)
It's interesting to watch movies/TV shows, set in the 1960s, but in different parts of the country. A TV show set in 1965 NYC, Boston, etc often showed dark, dingy neighborhoods, guys wearing fedoras, neighborhood ward politics, ethnic disagreements, people talking about the "Old Country", etc., while a show set in the same year in Los Angeles featured sun-kissed skies, backyard barbecues, technological advances, and full of optomism about the future. The contrast, in my opinion, was pretty startling..
A show set in the 1960's in NYC, Boston etc was probably showing a neighborhood that was mostly built out in the 1920's or earlier - a neighborhood that was at least 40 or more years old when they were filming it. A show set in the 1960's in the San Fernando Valley is set in a neighborhood that at that time was probably less than 20 years old.
Today most neighborhoods anywhere in the country that are less than 20 years old are filled with more affluent people and most of the neighborhoods where first generation immigrants are moving to are neighborhoods where the housing stock is more than 40 years old.
Well, if you are going back to 1945 you need to get rid of the word "guys." I was born in 1945 and I had never heard that word until my brother who was twelve years older than me came back from basic training in the Air Force talking about the guys. I thought it was an ugly word then and it is even more ugly when it is used today.
You see, I looked it up and the definition in those days was "a person of grotesque appearance." Ugly thing to call a respectable person.
We got electricity from the REA when I was about five years old and my father had our house already wired and a refrigerator and a washing machine ready to start up when the "power" was turned on. My mother thought she was in heaven. She never gave up her wood stove for canning though. Electric stove just did not cook as good as the wood one. It was still in hr basement when she passed on at 85 years old.
BTW I was not born in a hospital. My dad brought the midwife to our home and she was there a couple of days before my birth because a big snow storm was expected.
I am still trying to figure out why the satire. Just exactly what is the point you are trying to make? Life was pretty hard for my parents way back then, but being a child growing up on a hundred acre farm was bliss. I had a really good childhood. You haven't lived until you pick your own grapes, crawl out with bare feet on a branch of a good climbing tree that sticks out over the road and sit with your brother eating grapes and throwing the hulls at the cars that pass under you. I don't think our parents ever knew we did that. LOL
Last edited by NCN; 06-21-2012 at 01:53 PM..
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