A letter to Aunt Hope

Some of you may know that I am happily married to Holly Munson, assistant editor of Constitution Daily and freelance writer. And while some of you may know that she is a great writer, you may not know that she comes from a great family. Holly’s folks have always been very friendly and kind to me, including her large network of aunts, uncles and cousins. These people are nice enough to take an interest in what I’m studying and will occasionally send me links to interesting material or ask me my opinion on a planning issue. Recently, Holly’s Aunt Hope sent her this email:

Hi Holly,

A friend sent this info to me, and I was wondering if Dave sees evidence of this in his city planning work…

http://www.postsustainabilityinstitute.org/what-is-communitarianism.html

Love to you both,

Aunt Hope

Holly forwarded this to me and I indeed took a look at it. I really enjoyed reading it, and outlined in detail what was accurate and what wasn’t about the website. Aunt Hope was kind enough to let me reproduce the letter on my blog. Here it is:

Aunt Hope,

Thanks for sending Holly this Post Sustainability Institute thing. I’ve enjoyed reading it. Some of the things in here are spot on; most of them are totally off base. Long story short, the UN is an essentially powerless body and can’t force us to do any of this (and isn’t trying to), but if you don’t mind, I’d like to go through it point by point and discuss it.

Economic collapse creates a chain of events, but on a micro level (county, city) there is a marked reduction in revenue for maintenance of services. Loss of services to outlying areas means, for example, roads not being maintained to rural and suburban areas. Roads not being maintained to those areas, schools not being supported in those areas, law enforcement/fire/social services not being supported in those areas means a gradual movement into the denser city centers.

This has happened in some degree. The main ways cities generate revenue are through property taxes and intergovernmental grants, i.e. from higher levels of government, both state and federal. As the value of people’s property has declined and as state and federal governments have become more stingy, many cities are having trouble paying for their services. Some cities have even filed for bankruptcy. Other cities (the only examples I’m familiar with are in Michigan) have set up programs where they will cut off services to outlying areas, de-annex areas from the city, or demolish abandoned properties and sell them to neighbors for low prices so that they don’t have to provide services to as many homes. So far, however, this has been fairly rare.

Smart Growth/New Urbanism in Redevelopment Areas is the supposed answer: smaller units, attached condos, little or no parking, few private cars.  More eyes on the street.

It’s certainly an answer, and one that many planners, myself included, generally support. This guy doesn’t really define what they are, though. New Urbanism is a movement, principally led by the private sector, to create towns and neighborhoods based on traditional development principles. New Urbanist developments often attempt to look a lot like the small, 350-year-old town I grew up in in Massachusetts. Smart Growth is somewhat of a public policy counterpart, which has more of a focus on developing zoning codes and other regulations that are friendly to the sort of traditional building found in New Urbanist developments, which are often hard to develop because of current suburban zoning codes.

Redevelopment projects are the implementation arm of the UN plan, and include rezoning of huge sections of your cities to Smart Growth zones.

The UN has no power to force countries to comply with its resolutions, even if it had made one about New Urbanism/Smart Growth, which it hasn’t.

This physical manifestation of UN Agenda 21 is social engineering paid for with your property tax dollars. These areas then have their property taxes diverted away from your services and into the pockets of a few developers and bond brokers for 30-45 years.

Cities don’t just give money to developers. In fact, all cities require developers to at least pay application fees to develop in a city. Many also make them pay impact fees, which go towards the costs of maintaining roads or expanding schools that will be impacted by the new development. Some cities may assist large developers by assembling land or maybe waiving some fees, but only if the city’s Economic Development division thinks that doing so will bring in enough revenue and/or jobs to offset the waiver.

Water well monitoring and loss of water rights reduce the opportunity for living outside of cities.

I’ll be honest and say I don’t know a lot about this. Water rights aren’t a huge deal in the East because it rains enough that we rarely have water shortages.

Wildlands programs that prohibit roads and trails into rural areas while supposedly protecting them with conservation easements increase the loss of our food source independence.  The sale of development rights to Agricultural Land Trusts that restrict farmers and ranchers from using their lands and therefore make it impossible to farm for more than one more generation endanger our ability to feed ourselves.

America has never had a problem with “food source independence,” and I really doubt that it ever will. Agricultural land trusts don’t restrict farmers and ranchers from using their lands, they require it. Selling development rights means that you can’t sell your farm to a developer and that it will always be a farm.

Add to this the pressure from ICLEI Climate Protection Campaigns to reduce our energy usage to pre-1985 levels, and increased regulations on industry and you have the perfect storm for loss of jobs and greater dependence on other countries for goods.

First of all, the United States doesn’t participate in ICLEI, the Kyoto protocol or any of these other energy reduction programs. Even if it did, it isn’t believed that it would lead to a net loss of jobs; people who currently work in refineries would find jobs in solar panel plants. And as far as dependence on foreign countries for goods, reducing our energy consumption would make us more self-reliant, since we are the world’s largest importer of oil.

As the population becomes more and more urbanized and less able to provide food or necessary products, more people are dependent on the government for housing, food, and other basic necessities.

People have lived in cities for millennia and not relied on the government to provide these things. Cities are tied to their rural hinterlands and are still able to get food from them, and even within cities you get vegetable gardens and other small-scale forms of agriculture. Urban agriculture is actually a growing movement. And the best way to provide housing for people is not to have the government provide it, but to remove suburban-style density restrictions and let people build more densely so that there are enough housing units to drive the prices down so that the government doesn’t have to subsidize them.

As a major leveler, the loss of money, land, food, and energy independence brings the US into ‘social equity’ with the poorer countries.

That’s not what “social equity” means. From Wikipedia:
Social [equity] is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social [equity] includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, the extent of property rights, and equal access to social goods and services. However, it also includes concepts of economic equity, i.e. access to education, health care and other social securities. It also includes equal opportunities and obligations, and so involves the whole of society.

Community Oriented Policing will encourage, if not require, people to watch their neighbors and report suspicious activity.  More activity will be identified as ‘crime’–such as obesity, smoking, drinking when you have a drinking problem, name calling, leaving lights on, neglect (in someone’s perception) of children, elderly, and pets, driving when you could ride a bike, breaking a curfew, and failure to do mandatory volunteering.

The UN would be powerless to do this, as well as planners, who have no police power. The only organization with the police power to do such a thing would be the government itself, and it is doubtful that, in a democracy, a state like this could arise. The “Chinese and Russian models” are both dictatorships, and unless such a government is established in America, a police state like that he describes is unlikely. As a planner, the only one I even care about is driving when you could ride a bike, and I can’t give someone a ticket for that, I’ll just make the cartway narrower and add a bike lane so that they have the choice to bike and the cars are encouraged to move at a safer speed. Also, no one in planning uses the word “communitarianism.” We’re appointed officials or hired consultants, not the government. We are powerless advisers to elected officials. If someone is worried about “communitarianism,” they should call their city councilperson, not blame the planner.

Communitarianism is the ‘balancing’ or subsuming of individual rights below the needs of the ‘community.’  The community is defined now as the global village.  So anything identified as serving the global village takes precedence over the rights of the individual.

Even if this were accurate, again, there just isn’t an enforcement mechanism. It can’t happen. Basically, this isn’t something you need to worry about. I hope that helps answer your question, although I could probably afford to be more brief. I really want to thank you for bringing it to my attention, though. Would you mind if I mention it in my blog?

Sincerely,
Dave

I again thank Aunt Hope for bringing this to my attention and again want to reiterate that this is nothing to worry about. New Urbanism and Smart Growth aren’t about controlling your life; they are about providing opportunities for a better one.

The Concrete Chronicles – Part 1

As some of you who are closer to me may know, or those of you who read this blog consistently, I am a really big fan of Christopher Alexander, and especially of his book A Pattern Language. The book can teach you how to build practically anything, from a country to a doorknob. However, once it gets into the idea of actual construction, it focuses a lot on the use of lightweight concrete, which has about the weight and density of wood, but is many times stronger. In pattern 207 (Good Materials) of A Pattern Language, Alexander encourages the use of concrete “whose densities lie in the range Of 40 to 60 pounds per cubic foot and which develop some 600 to 1000 psi in compression…a range of mixed lightweight aggregates, containing vermiculite, perlite, pumice, and expanded shale in different proportions, can easily generate 40-60 pound, 600 psi concretes anywhere in the world. We have had very good luck with a mix of 1-2-3: cement-kylite-vermiculite.” Since this pattern is so fundamental to the basic construction of nearly anything in A Pattern Language, I decided to experiment with lightweight concrete.

Preparation

The first problem I encountered was that there appears to be no such thing as kylite, one of Alexander’s recommended aggregates. All I could find on the internet were other people quoting Alexander and adds for skylights (Put an “s” on the front and misspell it, you’ll get there). So I went looking around for other lightweight concrete formulas, and found out for the most part that Alexander’s formula still stands if you just replace kylite with sand. I also found that vermiculite and perlite are more or less interchangeable in these formulas, so I wanted to get both so that I could compare their properties. Based on a few different sources, I came up with a recipe of two parts cement, four parts sand, six parts perlite/vermiculite, and three parts water.

Perlite is used as a garden aerator and is actually fairly easy to find at any garden store. Vermiculite, on the other hand, was not so easy to find. According to Home Depot’s website, there are two stores out of the dozen or so in the Philadelphia area that sell vermiculite, neither of which are the ones that are reasonably close/transit accessible. So the next step for me, since my license has expired and I am therefore not legal to drive or use PhillyCarShare, was to find someone willing to drive me to the Upper Darby Home Depot to pick everything up. Eventually Brad Packer from the ward volunteered, and this morning we set out for the store.

At the store, we went and got a 2×4 cut into 30-inch sections with a six inch block left over. We found three cabinet hinges and two clasps. These all would be used to make the concrete form. We then got a bag of sand and a box of cement. I would like to point out that I am quite happy with my purchase of Cement All, partially because they were one of the few manufacturers that sold it in packages that were less than 50 pounds, and they also have a carrying strap and a resealable package, which is great for non-contractors like myself. We headed back to the garden section and…no vermiculite. Apparently Home Depot’s website is full of lies. But they had plenty of perlite, so I grabbed a bag of it and we loaded up the car and took it home.

Assembly

I first cut the last six-inch block into four inch and two inch sections. I then took the four-inch and two of the 30-inch sections and attached them with hinges to the third 30-inch section. This is so that when the concrete is dry, the sides can fold down for easy release. I left the two-inch block unattached so that it can be moved to create sections of different lengths. I put the clasps on the end of the assembly to hold the sides up while the concrete dries.

The concrete form.

By the way, I pretty much did all of this in my kitchen. More on that later.

I then rinsed out a gallon milk jug, quickly made a funnel from a piece of printer paper, and poured my cement and sand into the jug. I then got out a real funnel and added the water, because one of the columns I had read said that it was important to mix the other ingredients first and then add the perlite. Perlite is a really interesting material. It weighs next to nothing and looks like something between corn snow and Styrofoam balls. I added this into the jug, put the lid on, and mixed vigorously for two minutes or so.

My cement mixer.

I started pouring the mixture into the form, and after I got impatient cut the top off the milk jug to speed up the process. The cement came out in thick, heavy globs. The concrete was so thick that it wouldn’t slide down into the form on its own, so I quickly squished my paper funnel into a paper trowel to level it.

This is a real professional job here.

All in all I filled a space about 27 inches long. And then I waited.

Letting the concrete set.

Results

The cement I used was “rapid set,” and was supposed to be set in 15 minutes and cured in an hour (a really exceptionally short time since most concrete can take days or weeks to fully cure). After about three hours, I busted open the form.

See, that's why I put hinges on it. Pretty cool, huh?

I started tapping the concrete with a hammer to loosen it, something that any wood would stand up to, and a section about eight inches broke off at the bottom. This didn’t bode well. I had two tests in mind to examine the density of the material: the nail test and the saw test. In both cases, the material was, if anything, considerably less dense than wood. The nail went in quite easily.

Simple drywall nail in concrete. Sorry for the bad image.

The saw in particular was very telling. My saw is fairly dull, and it took me more effort than I would have wanted to cut the six-inch wood block into two. My saw went through the block like it was cardboard before it split after I got through about two thirds of it.

The broken block. The solid gray part is where it broke without the saw touching it.

It was around this point that I read the warnings on my box of cement which said something along the lines of “do this in a well-ventilated space with a lot of safety gear or else you’ll get cancer,” so I took the remainder of the operation out onto my deck. The main portion of the block was stuck fast to the form, and as I hammered it to get it to come off, it was like hitting a well-built sandcastle. This stuff was nowhere near hard enough to build a house out of. When it finally came off, I took it in one hand and gave it a good solid whack with the hammer. It broke right in half. No two-inch wooden board would break that easily.

What a mess.

Lessons for next time

1. Go outside!
2. I feel that I may have been impatient in only giving it three hours to cure, despite the assurances on the box. Next time I will try giving it a solid 24 hours.
3. Later research into Cement All showed that their product already includes some sand. This could be why the concrete initially came out so globby. I may try replacing the four cups of sand with four more cups of Cement All and see what happens.

That’s all for now, but don’t be surprised to see another edition of The Concrete Chronicles very soon!

My two cents: “The Book of Mormon” musical

from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576218451086713370.html

There has been a lot of talk, for and against, about Trey Parker and Matt Stone‘s Broadway musical, “The Book of Mormon.” I’ll start off by saying that I haven’t seen it, so a lot of what I say about the musical is hearsay. That being said, I have a lot more to say about how it has been covered than the musical itself.

Yes, Parker and Stone’s musical is irreverent, offensive and disrespectful. The thing is, that is Parker and Stone’s shtick; it’s what they do. You’ve got to give it to them, the creators of South Park are equal opportunity insulters. Although they are disrespectful to Mormons, I don’t feel that they are any more or less disrespectful than they are to Muslims, Catholics, Africans, Hispanics, women, homosexuals, the disabled or anyone else in particular. You can’t expect much more from the inventors of Mr. Hankey.

But I don’t have the same low expectations for the supposedly objective news media reporting on the musical. Don’t get me wrong, I feel that some reviewers have done better than others. As a social democrat, I feel very odd supporting the Wall Street Journal, but I don’t feel that their review overstepped the bounds of the show’s context to comment on Mormonism itself. But Maureen Dowd of the New York Times uses her review of the show as a chance to make a personal commentary on some of my beliefs.

Her first affront to facts is that “Mormons can’t have caffeine.” I really get tired of explaining this one. I appreciate the person who, in the comments section, said, “The Coke Zero I purchased at a Mormon church-managed restaurant on Temple Square in Salt Lake City last month was missing a lot of things, but caffeine wasn’t one of them.” The Mormon doctrine on health is found primarily in the book of Doctrine and Covenants, section 89, one verse (9) of which reads, “And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly.” Joseph Smith later clarified that by hot drinks God was referring to tea and coffee. Caffeine, though many members choose not to partake of it, is not expressly prohibited, only when it takes the form of tea and coffee. As an avid Dr. Pepper drinker, I occasionally have to explain to people the facts of this doctrine, and I think that Dowd’s comment will only add to the confusion.

Mormons from Liberia in front of the Accra, Ghana temple. From http://www.bsmarkham.com/mission/mission0305.html

Dowd said that “In 1978, beset by protests, the president of the Mormons announced that God had changed his mind about black people [being able to participate in temple ordinances or for black men to hold the priesthood].” I think that many modern Mormons would agree that we are somewhat embarrassed that, yes, that date is correct. As to why black people were ever barred from full participation in the Mormon faith, I have no idea, and I won’t try to apologize for that. Also, I don’t know if these are Parker and Stone’s words or Dowd’s, but either way, they demean the process of prophetic revelation that is unique to Mormonism. I am not entirely sure why 1978 was the year that this practice was changed, but I don’t believe that “God…changed his mind about black people.” I believe that, sometimes, God doesn’t give certain recommendations until you ask the right questions. My thought is that maybe no one until President Spencer W. Kimball had asked God if it was appropriate to extend full blessings to people of African descent. That in itself may be embarrassing, but the truth is, God is not in error and did not flip-flop on the issue, it was the imperfection of man that allowed this sort of discrimination to last in the church as long as it did, and that we have since amended this practice.

Map of Kolob. From http://lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/fac-2?lang=eng

As far as Kolob goes, you can read everything that mentions Kolob in Abraham 3 (part of a book of Mormon scripture called the Pearl of Great Price), and if you can make sense of it, congratulations, you are a better Mormon than me. As far as I can understand, Kolob is a star this is near to where God lives. I don’t entirely understand why this matters, and it is not exactly a key doctrine to Mormonism.

Dowd’s paragraph, “The authoritarian Mormon church still does not have equal status for women, blacks and certainly not gays. It provided the majority of the funding for California’s Prop 8 against same-sex marriage,” is what prompted me to write this post. First of all, I don’t feel that “authoritarian” is a reasonable label for Mormonism. Yes, we have a whole lot of rules, but the specifics of those rules, and even whether they are to be followed, are entirely up to the individual. There are very few consequences that the church imposes on people, except in the case of what we view as particularly grievous sins, such as murder and sexual sin. Generally, punishment for sin is administered by God, not by the church. As far as equal status for women, I assume that this is in reference to the fact that women cannot hold the priesthood in the church. Though this is the case, there is an organization in the church (the Relief Society) which is entirely headed by women. Women hold significant positions in the church as teachers, leaders, and organizers. I wouldn’t call the role of women in the Mormon church less than that of men; I would just call it different. If you really want to know, ask my wife.

As far as equal status for black people, as I have covered above, we’ve had a checkered past, but I can’t think of anything in the modern church that doesn’t give people of African descent the same access as anyone else.

As for gays, Mormons don’t have a doctrine as to whether or not people can be born with an attraction to someone of the same sex (my personal belief is that they can); however, acting on those urges, whether natural or fabricated, is against the tenets of the faith. While this is generally seen as an arcane view, especially among my fellow liberals, like it or not, it is a standard of the church that has been reaffirmed by modern revelation. As far as Prop 8, I have often wondered why the church put so much effort into California legislation when they put so little into legislation in Massachusetts, Iowa, Arizona, Hawaii, or any other state that has voted on similar legislation. Although I think we are approaching the question from the entirely wrong angle (I agree with the authors of Nudge and think that marriage should be privatized), you have to understand that the prophet of the church does not direct members to act unless God directs him to, otherwise he will be removed from his office as according to Official Declaration 1. Because of this, while I would regularly disagree with legislation such as Prop 8, I believe that, for one reason or another, God has made a special case in California. I don’t know why California is so different from other states, but that’s all I can say.

I should note that the opinions expressed in this article are only my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the majority of the members thereof; they are my views based on my interpretation of Mormon doctrine.

Parker and Stone have every right to make their play, and as comedians and satirists, they are allowed a certain leeway with the truth and respect. Journalists, on the other hand, don’t have that leeway, and I hope in the future they will give a more equitable view of my beliefs.

Oy and Oi: Not the Same Word

This started as a Facebook status, but was over twice the length of the Facebook status character limit.  So I thought, my not make it longer and add pictures?

It has come to my attention that there is some confusion over the difference between the words “oy” and “oi.”  As someone whose mother went to Hebrew school and someone who listens to the early Dropkick Murphys (pre-Al Barr), let me explain.  “Oy” (often followed by “vey”) is a Jewish expression that is generally used to express something being difficult, frustrating, or annoying, although it can be used to express almost any negative emotion.

Oy vey. From http://ricksincerethoughts.blogspot.com/

“Oi” comes from the British isles, and is generally used there to get someone’s attention (“Oi!  Over here!”), although it was used as a rhythmic sound by some punk bands from the late 80s to the early 2000s (“Oi!  Oi!  Oi!”).

Oi! Oi! Oi! From http://travel.webshots.com/

“Oy” carries the same meaning as a heavy sigh in contemporary American usage, while “oi” is more of a “hey!”  “Oy” is a long sound, with the emphasis more on the Y, while “oi” is a short, quick sound, with more emphasis on the O.  I hope this can help clear things up.

Appologies and Bernts Have Daycare Center

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted.  Grad school is harder than I was expecting, and takes up more of my time than I would have thought.  While my undergrad was easy enough to breeze through and still have plenty of time to update the old blog at least once a month, Penn is considerably more demanding.  Also, I wish at this point that I would have spent more time on my long Christmas break working on the blog, but I mostly spent it loafing about watching Mythbusters back at home in Pittsburgh.  But now I am back in Philadelphia, it is the last day of break before classes, and I have finally taken the initiative to work on the blog again.  Let’s hope I can get at least a few posts in here before Workshop kicks my butt later this semester, as I have been assured it will.

from http://www.archdaily.com/85118/bernts-have-daycare-center-henning-larsen-architects/

I actually found this building a few months ago, but it has taken me forever to actually write about it, and after this post is done I will finally be able to close those two tabs on my Firefox.  This is Elverhøj, the daycare center and kindergarten at Bernts Have, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Holbæk, Denmark, by Henning Larsen Architects.  It is comprised of the nursery in the southern wing and kindergarten in the northern wing, with administrative offices linking them.  It bursts out of the hilly terrain to the South and West, opening towards a small lake, the rest of the city, and the sun.

There are a lot of things I really like about this building.  It is very well integrated into its landscape, both in how it juts out of the hillside, how its green roof helps it blend in, and how the play areas are landscaped.

from http://www.archdaily.com/85118/bernts-have-daycare-center-henning-larsen-architects/

The landscaping has a mix of more manicured and more natural areas mixed in with the play spaces and hills to provide a wide variety of play and teaching opportunities for the children.  The landscaping doesn’t end outside the building, but is integrated within it as well.

from http://www.archdaily.com/85118/bernts-have-daycare-center-henning-larsen-architects/

Corridors in the areas between the south-facing windows and the inner rooms provide both a temperature buffer and added greenery, and are heated in Spring and Fall, providing the kids with a play place that is neither inside nor outside.  The plan shows how the layout of the building provides some sustainable solutions.

from http://www.archdaily.com/85118/bernts-have-daycare-center-henning-larsen-architects/

keep in mind that the section between the wings runs north-south, so north is not up in the picture above, but slightly up and far to the left (I spent a lot of time picking up my laptop and turning it around to figure that out, and I’m hoping I wasn’t the only person confused by this).  What this does is it allows the two long, narrow wings to get light and heat that they wouldn’t both get if they were right next to each other in a more blockey structure.  In the morning, there is even light in the administrative section.  The playground to the south is very sunny all day and all year round.  In cold climates like Denmark, it is important to use the sun to the greatest extent possible to achieve sustainability and minimize heating and lighting costs.  The green roof also provides greater insulation, while providing space for vegetation.

Another thing that I like about this structure is the fact that there is a railing, which you can see in the image above and at top.  I’m not sure why it doesn’t extend all the way to the edges of the roof, because there’s plenty of play area there and it almost tempts the more adventurous kids to hop the fence.  Maybe there were considerations about noise that were involved, I don’t know.  But it does allow for at least part of the roof to be used as a play area, just as any grassy area on the ground would be used.  The small detail of this railing is something that, at least here at Penn, seems to be left out of architectural designs.  I have seen mid-rise buildings designed with exterior facing entrances with no railings.  If they were to be built, it would be a matter of minutes before balls, pets and children were flying off the higher stories into traffic.  While railings aren’t sexy or artistic, they are sensible, and it is important to find good ways to integrate them.

Vote, and vote Sestak

You ever do something dumb?  Well, I did.  I mailed in my voter registration form the day before it was due, and just got it back because after filling the whole thing out, I forget to sign it before I mailed it, so now I can’t vote in Pennsylvania’s second district.  As far as national politics goes, I’m not worried about The House; I think Chakah Fattah‘s position is safe until he dies or gets bored, whichever comes first.  But I am worried about the open senate seat in Pennsylvania, and since I can’t vote, I’m going to try and encourage some of you to vote the way I would have.

The two candidates are Joe Sestak (D) and Pat Toomey (R).  If you go on the internet and are from Pennsylvania, you’ve probably seen a few Toomey ads, since he has been a lot more aggressive in internet advertising at least (I don’t have cable so I haven’t seen any of the attack ads that I’ve been hearing about).  I think the web pages of both candidates are sort of funny.  Here’s Sestak:

 

From http://joesestak.com/splash.html

 

And here’s Toomey:

 

From http://www.toomeyforsenate.com/

 

Notice anything?  That’s right, they’re both about Sestak!  Toomey would rather demonize Sestak than talk about what he actually believes.  And the sad thing is that might work better for him.  Republicans generally respond better to attack adds than Democrats, which is probably why I think Toomey is being stupid and evasive, while someone form the Alabama part of Pennsylvania would think that Sestak is a socialist and probably Kenyan.

A little bit about backgrounds.  Sestak served in the Navy for 31 years and reached the rank of three-star general before being elected to the House of Representatives.  He has served our country and has been given a distinguished rank for his service.  Toomey was in the financial sector when he finished college at Harvard (where Sestak also went), and after doing a short stint in the House switched to the more lucrative position of being a small-government, free-enterprise lobbyist.  He’s basically been a money-grubbing, selfish jerk his entire life.

The most important issue to the nation right now, as almost anyone can tell you, is jobs.  Sestak, who has worked on the Small Business and Education and Labor Committees in The House, focuses on stabilizing volatile institutions, investing in small business and working families, support new industries and public-private partnerships, and enforce fiscal discipline.  Toomey is a broken Republican record, saying cut taxes and decrease regulation.  That’s what got us here in the first place, and the last time we were in a crisis like this we got out of it by Keynesian pump priming.  We need to spend federal dollars so that we can actually get some dollars into the economy, not pull back.

Of course, the most important issues to me are urban issues.  Toomey doesn’t even mention them.  Sestak specifically addresses our failing infrastructure and how we need a major overhaul.  In congress, he actually was able to get money to support SEPTA, and in the senate, he could do more to help public transportation elsewhere.  Failing infrastructure is one of America’s greatest problems, a problem that could be addressed by creating a WPA-like body that could put thousands of Americans to work, and give them the money they need to spend in the private economy.  This is crucial, and Toomey doesn’t even address it.

For me, the choice is easy.  Toomey is the type of person that we can blame for most of the problems in America – a financial goon, a government lobbyist, and someone that doesn’t care at all about cities.  Sestak is someone who has been a public servant his entire life, who addresses real issues with intellect, and who should be the next senator from Pennsylvania.

The first post

This is my third blog.  My first one was just about me; unfortunately, I’m not the type who has to share my opinion with the world more than once every few months, so that didn’t last long.  My next blog was devoted strictly to New Urbanism.  That one lasted a while and was fairly successful, being cited by PBS and the ASLA.  However, I feel that focusing just on New Urbanism limited the scope of topics that I could talk about, and I wanted to have more freedom in my posts.  Thus, Munson’s City was born.

Chances are, this blog will still have a heavy urban bend to it.  I am a planning student and have worked in planning, and I am most familiar and opinionated in that regard.  But I also hope to explore some of my own feelings about contemporary architecture so as to hone my own style and try to improve upon the works of others.  Also, I want to have a blog for occasional journaling and spouting off, so I retain the right to do so on this blog.  Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoy yourself.