American Cities 21

Cairns, Australia: People-friendly town at 17 South Latitude

 

Cairns, the gateway to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, is a seriously nice little city.  It has a climate similar to Hawaii - breezy and warm but not usually oppressively hot.  It has a compact central business district that is eminently walkable because of its wall to wall stores and attractions mostly under cover of wide sidewalk verandas. 

A few years ago, the city hired a landscape architect to reclaim the mudflats at the edge of the center and turn it into a large lagoon and parkland for people to enjoy.  It was a smashing success as it is beautiful and gives people a chance to swim since the ocean is inaccessible most of the year due to the presence of poisonous jelly fish.

Something not seen in America is a super-user friendly park such as Cairns' waterfront with lawns, pools, fountains, picnic tables and cooking counters with gas ranges, luxurious bathrooms with change rooms and showers for after a swim in the salt-water lagoon, bike lanes, public telephones, all near the bus and ship terminals and the numerous coffee-shops and restaurants. 

Cairns is a super-nice city and deserves at least an honorable-mention if not a top-award for best user-friendly town for residents and tourists alike.

San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge - One of Seven Wonders of America

 
The most iconic of American symbols in foreign tourist brochures, the Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937 and at the time of its construction had the longest single suspension span and the tallest towers of any bridge in the world.  It is named after the strait it crosses, which is named after the famous Istanbul strait known as The Golden Horn.  The bridge represent the goals of the City Beautiful movement which began with the 1893 World Fair in Chicago, the buildings of which were designed by Daniel Burnham - who later proposed a new street plan for San Francisco based more on the contours of hills than the present grid system.

A visionary firm named Suntrain USA has proposed a second deck for the Golden Gate Bridge that would be exclusively for trains.  A similar bridge, the George Washington in New York City, was "double-decked" in 1962, many years subsequent to its 1932 construction.    

San Francisco: The Ficus Won't Go Away

 

This is San Francisco's Hyde Street, the main cable-car route that sees thousands of daily tourists and residents from the scenic Nob Hill and Russian Hill neighborhoods.  And what do all these people see?  Trees.  These ficus trees were planted decades ago and are now 15 years or so past their maturity for their crowded, city environment.  I have written a couple of posts here about this subject because my parents are among those whose apartments are shaded in perpetual darkness because their front rooms look directly into a wall of densely canopied trees.

 

San Francisco: Those Heavy Ficus Trees

 
I recently wrote about San Francisco's Hyde Street and its overgrown ficus trees, the ones that are blocking most of the natural light in my parents apartment.  The picture here is of a nearby street, Washington Street, just after a private landscaping crew pruned these trees, also ficus.  These same trees appeared in the background of the picture I took for my post about the artistic street tree in San Francisco.  That picture was before the pruning and shows how these four trees block out the light for the people living in the apartments next to the trees.  Now the light is readmitted, but only for a year or two, before the trees grow out again.

Buses V. Trains In The City

The question of what modes of public transportation people like, buses or trains, should be a "no-brainer".  Of course most people prefer trains over buses for their speed, smooth ride, and over-all efficiency.  But what do most American cities have a preponderance of?  Buses.

Why do cities have buses and not trains?  Political expediency (politicians don't want to jeopardize their next electable term over rail funding and construction) is perhaps the single biggest reason.  A more specific reason is the price of gas is low enough so as to allow most people to drive.  But with the price of gas high enough for up to 50% of the population to not afford to drive to work everyday, the palatability of rail funding and construction in our cities would become, suddenly, much higher.

The other day, I rode the stretched, accordian style bus across San Francisco, a city well served by buses and, in some neighborhoods, streetcars (trams).  The bus was crowded and stopped at every other 3rd street, though it was a "limited", and was a rough ride - with the sudden stops and starts and the uneven motion of riding on a street.  The particular street of my bus ride is a high-volume one for both cars and buses and would be perfect for a subway, as would several other San Francisco streets.

Consumer V. Citizen

The consumer is what keeps the capitalist model alive and well.  Without consumers, the marketplace would not exist.  However, the word consumer is what companies like Walmart and others refer to when discussing the market - what do "consumers" want?  What will "consumers" pay?  Who are the "consumers" for product A, product B, or product C?  Where are the "consumers" for these products? 

What I am leading up to is this:  "consumer" does not sound human.  It sounds like something that drives the "bottom line" for corporations.  So what does one consumer see when she or he sees another in the local Walmart?  Another consumer.  Someone that doesn't matter because each consumer is in that Walmart to "consume", to buy something or some things.

What is a citizen?  A citizen is a (human) inhabitant of a place with other citizens.  Each citizen is responsible in a unique way to his or her respective place, and to each of the other inhabitants of that place.  Responsible to greet the occasional passer-by, and to help the occasional person in need of help of one kind or another.  Or just responsible in a general way. 

What's really wrong about capitalism, and it is probably not an inherantly bad system, is that people are no longer people, but something out of Orwellian fiction:  faceless people responsible only to the system and not to each other.  Think about it! 

Multi-Modal Midas Man

What America needs is a Multi-Modal Midas Man, a visionary with political connections and wherewith-all to accomplish the impossible:  change the federal policy of spending most of the transportation budget on highways to that of spending most of the money on a new, comprehensive train system.

With the federal transportation bill coming up for renewal in 2011, this is a possible but by no means assured outcome.  That is why I write about a Multi-Modal Midas Man.  The multi-modal refers to multiple forms of transportation:  sidewalks, curbed-off bike lanes, trams, light and heavy rail for the cities and suburbs, and monorail for lighter-density connections to light and heavy rail lines.  The Midas Man refers to someone with the leadership and acumen in federal policy-making in Washington, D.C. to make the desperately needed change in transportation spending to prioritize rail over roads.

The Walmartization of America

It is fair to say that Walmart has made more money than any other retail store and that it has been done at the expense of Main Street America, otherwise known as walkable towns with real community centers including libraries and schools, parks, offices, shops, and residences, all within a 15 minute walk of the nearest rail station. 

Walmart has sucked the life out of the heart of America, I dare say.  And we have let it happen and continue to let it happen.  And it is not just Walmart;  it is Best Buy, Sams, Costco, etc.  We vote by where we buy.  Buy locally and buy products that are produced locally.  You will support your community and put life back into your corner of America.

Sand-Francisco

A story I like to tell visitors to San Francisco about Golden Gate Park is that the celebrated park was a huge sand dune back in the day.  Olmstead refused the offer to make a park but someone else came in and painstakingly spent decades cultivating the plantings that eventually took over the sand and created a base for the fantastic variety of trees in this amazing park.

A Welsh Visitor in New Jersey

A young guy I just met who is from Wales and touring North and South America explained his car-less predicament in suburban America upon his first-ever arrival in the U.S.A.  He stayed with friends of his family in New Jersey, in a town not served by the New Jersey Transit commuter rail service to nearby New York City.

On his first night and morning in America, it snowed and he was unable to get a cab to come to the house so he could get out and go into New York City.  So he walked over 2 miles in the snow to get to a bus stop, sometimes along roads without sidewalks and with fast moving traffic.  He eventually got to the city, but this European experienced first hand what tens of millions of Americans experience daily:  being in suburban, car-dependant America traps us from the outside world!

The alternative is to de-fund roads and to re-fund rail!!!!!!!