This is what I’m trying to say regarding incremental development versus mega-projects:
In my (well documented) experience the lived reality on the ground over the last 40 years is:
Incremental steps toward more auto orientation.
Or giant steps preserving a traditional development pattern.
The only exception has been some historic preservation, which has incrementally preserved a traditional pattern, though lots of that has been very expensive and very top down.
Apart from some ridiculous Kobayashi Maru stance which just wishes for a different reality in the here and now I’m stating that I would take, and will take giant, perhaps risky steps in the preservation of a traditional development pattern over incremental steps toward more Taco John’s. I’m fighting for, lobbying for, educating those around me for, and working for an Age of Enlightenment when the popular response is to support a traditional pattern such that incrementally doing so is truly possible. The record of the last 40 years shows that we, in this place, are not there yet.
I’m not sure why that’s “stupid”, and I don’t think it’s dickish to point out the irony of the circumstance that a man who is calling bullshit (correctly, in my opinion) on the basic development pattern on which American society has been built for 75 years would call anyone else out on showing a lack of humility! Dude. The bar for dickish is set pretty low in Minnesota, like the bar for success in sports I guess. Now that’s dickish.
(Only 10 since 1991 though. Thanks, btw, for KG and Big Papi, I can’t imagine what things would have been like without ’em!)
When Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns started on Incremental it seemed to be about recognizing things will evolve. Accepting projects that hit singles or doubles, and not demanding only home runs. Somewhere along the way that got turned into “small project good, big project bad”, which is a totally different message. Perhaps not by Chuck himself (I’m not sure) but certainly by people waving the Strong Towns banner.
I’ve come to the conclusion that we have the built environment that we have. For better or worse, we’re going to continue to occupy it all for a very long time more or less the way it is. The current political and cultural framework doesn’t permit much else. So yes, incremental urbanism is a long slow march of pulling down old buildings and putting up disposable drive-thrus and parking lots, while the Silver Bullet mega projects are marginally better in some regards.
So what do I as an individual do in response? Personally, I’ve decided to do… nothing. Let the larger system play itself out. When the cash for infrastructure maintainace runs out, when the pension funds are revealed to be completely insolvent, when the really hard choices have to be made by the town council… I just want to be in a position to not be bothered much. Most of my activities these days are organized around the concept of riding out a bumpy period of adjustment in relative comfort without centralized services if need be.
Johnny,
I get your idea, but I just think it’s going to take way longer than you realize and look way different. Strong Towns is pretty quiet on what actual, give you the finger failure currently looks like even though we have an example: Puerto Rico. And those who were prepared only got screwed slightly less. Other people simply left. Sucks but really no big whoop. People leave places all the time.
San Bernadino, Orange County, and Stockton CA have all gone bankrupt. OC is still where the beach is – that wasn’t repossessed. They are all equal or better than maybe half the other places to live across the US.
Practically, ‘incrementalism’ has to be associated with form and so the places being built referenced in the pictures above are non-conforming and probably should have been subsidized to be appropriately scaled – that is if ‘incrementalism’ isn’t just a flimsy cover for ‘do the same things you are doing now, just spend less public money for reasons’. I’m still not 100% convinced.