Tangentially Pynchon. see today's Google Doodle

[David Morris]

I pick #2, and that's what I was trying to say earlier with this: "Design
does matter, as does concentrated poverty.  Money might trump (is that word
still usable?) poor design. But design can help mitigate the effects of
poverty."

I would guess that ST/PCV isn't a place of concentrated multi-generational
poverty.

David Morris

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 5:55 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't take anything said as personal attack or criticism. I'm simply
> telling you that in my own experience, and in what I know of that the
> almost 70 years that ST/PCV has existed, there has been
>
> NO deterioration or trashing of "indefensible" public spaces (neither
> halls, elevators and lobbies nor lawns, walkways and playgrounds between
> buildings)... and a consistently very low crime rate. In 1960, when I was
> turning 11, I and younger children were going unescorted between apartments
> and playgrounds, roller skating and scootering on the (mostly vehicle-free)
> interior drives -- as children were in Sept. 2015, the last time I was
> there.
>
> NO shortage of multiple, varied forms of social solidarity and engagement.
> There are no restaurants, bars, churches, or athletic fields within ST/PCV.
> But its population strengthens (in many cases is the primary support of)
> scores of them in the adjacent blocks. Within the apartments were more
> rather than fewer poker nights, book clubs, crafts groups, small potluck
> suppers etc, per capita than the small-town and suburban communities I've
> lived in.
>
> Possibilities (none exclusive):
>
> (1) ST/PCV is a freakish anomaly
>
> (2) demography/socioeconomics and property management entirely compensate
> for the destructive effects of modernist design
>
> (3) those destructive effects are much exaggerated. Maybe architects and
> community planners of *all* persuasions -- Jacobites and New Urbanists as
> well as their Modernist predecessors -- ascribe much too much influence to
> their own work.
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 12:16 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Monte,
>> I'm not sure I understand your response either. I certainly didn't intend
>> my comments to be taken as a personal attack or criticism.
>>
>> Www.innergroovemusic.com <http://www.innergroovemusic.com>
>>
>> On May 7, 2016, at 11:53 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> What?
>>
>> Have you been drinking? Or what?
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 5:33 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I assure you I will give due weight to these insights, and due weight to
>>> 25 years of my family's (and 25,000 neighbors') experience.
>>>
>>> On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 2:45 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Also I forgot to mention another very important aspect of
>>>> old-urbanism's semi-public spaces where "owners" of the street could be its
>>>> defenders:  Those stoops, porches and fire escapes naturally resulted in
>>>> residents interacting with their neighbors, forming community bonds,
>>>> knowing who on the street lived in their neighborhood, and who didn't.
>>>> Streets thus had many "mayors" wise to normal street patterns, and they
>>>> defended their neighbors as well as their streets.
>>>>
>>>> David Morris
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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