"george conklin" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
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>
> "Amy Blankenship" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>
>> "george conklin" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>> ...
>>>> Given where Pat says he lives (and in fact where I live in rural Nova
>>>> Scotia), it is hard to do without a car. It would still be awkward
>>>> and limiting if I lived in the nearest town where I would be on the
>>>> every other hour transit line and have one bus a day to Halifax. I
>>>> would assume that this is true of most rural areas in North America
>>>> and Europe.
>>>
>>> One of the tragedies is that planning is for urban areas, and if you
>>> don't fit that model, planners could care less.
>>
>> I think the reality is that it is very hard to get support for planning
>> in rural areas. That is not the fault of planners, but simply a
>> political reality that exists. So, like everyone else, they do what can
>> be done and let the rest go.
>>
>
> Planners, according to ACCESS this month, are heavily derived from
> architects who plan for elaborate and fancy buildings.
I would agree with you there. But that doesn't mean that the very idea of
planning is bad. Just that we need to find a better way of educating
planners. I think once the hidebound modern and postmodern trained faculty
retires or dies, the situation will improve.
> This does not include rural, industrial and what most people want to live
> in.
For many schools, that may be true. Not all
http://www.cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/projectstype.htm
> I have said all along we need to plan for what people want, not to preach
> to them that comfortable housing is bad.
You're saying that people should always be given exactly what they want and
no one should ever try to educate them on alternatives that might be better
for them and the community long term? So in the paper you posted where
people didn't want low income residents among them, essentially your
position is that the government should have backed off and let them have
what they wanted.
One issue is that sometimes what a community says it wants for itself
collectively is not compatible with every individual doing exactly what he
or she wants. For instance, if a community were to set a goal for itself to
reduce fuel consumption and the people there object to the initial cost of
insulation, then someone should at least try to educate the people as to the
value of insulation long term, if not mandate a certain minimum insulation
value.
I notice you also say comfortable, but not sturdy, low-maintenance, energy
efficient, or anything else a less educated owner or renter might not think
that he or she wants but might well be hurt by not having.
> What is surprising is what architects in the past denounced (say in UK),
> the now praise. It is like painting. Things go in and out of fashion.
Yes, once it was unfashionable to assert that the earth goes around the sun
rather than the reverse. As we learn things we adjust the conclusions we
draw from the available information over time. Would you have us believe
that in Sociology in the entire time you've been teaching none of the
material has changed at all?
You appear to have missed my point, though, which is that whether or not
planners are interested in rural areas, political bodies that fund planning
are emphatically not interested in planning there. A planner who
concentrated on rural areas exclusively might well find it difficult to eat.
So it's pretty natural for planning schools to prepare their students to be
able to operate where funds are available.
Funny you are so solicitous of Wal-mart's profit margin, but not of ordinary
people trying to make a living.
-Amy