"Layers, my dear, layers."

I love this comment, my best friend's interpretation of the complex and contradictory inner workings of a person. Discovering the struggles and conflicts within when faced with an uncomfortable new arrangement of living is definitely worthwhile, so long as there is a friend there to ease the discovery of self, which can sometimes be a blow! I think Jesus would agree with this, very much, for in the course of life, we are destined to unveil our imperfections and flaws continuously -- just as we unveil our strengths and victories in a continuous, ongoing manner -- and it is love that enables us to keep growing and not be stunted by the difficulty of layers.

I miss you.

Here's how I know I love you:

1. You're the first one I want to tell good news to.
2. Your laughter is my favorite sound. It feels like an embrace. You invite people into your love with your laugh.
3. You are the one I want by my side through every season of life.
4. No day is dark when you are with me.
5. You are the desired recipient of all my creative energies.
6. I can be, and have to be, honest with you. I can't let anything get in the way. No clouds allowed!
7. Time passes so slowly in your absence. (Maybe this is merely evidence that I long for you.)

Here's how I know you love me:

1. You don't hold my weaknesses against me.
2. You are patient with me.
3. You want me around. You want to know what I think, why I think it.
4. You encourage me. Nurture me. Soothe me.
5. You share with me: stuff, food, loved ones, thoughts, feelings.

Strength

Cesar Chavez once said, "You are never strong enough that you don't need help."

My mom-figure sent me a postcard two weeks ago that said, "thinking about what a strong woman you are." Which made me feel so good about myself until I read the next part, buried under the postage barcode marks: " ... strong Swedish stock!" Well, not that that's anything to be ashamed of, but I was hoping she meant my character was strong, as opposed to by body.

I do think I am pretty strong, but that strength isn't due to myself. Rather, I've simply seen God be strong in me, especially at certain times. The joy of the Lord is my strength. I simply have no other source.

As I am living in a season of missing the ones I love, one most of all, I am not blind to the new love and zest for life that He is putting in my path even now. Even though I am away from home, I am coming to regard this new place, the cite of my new productivity and growth, a new kind of home- a home that will incubate me and develop that same strength, the kind of strength that glows reassuringly under the surface. It's not bold (at least I can't see it that way right now, anyway), but it is persistent and sure. This strength I find in God will not fade. I can always use His help, even on the day when it seems everything has been provided for me.

In the week ahead, may that strength well up and be visible and winsome...

A Joint Enterprise

Roommate: a friend to cohabit your living space; a person with whom you can coexist and who helps you lower your cost of living; or, hopefully, some manageable combination of the two.

I have mixed feelings on and mixed experiences with roommates. First year of college- strained, stayed out of the room as much as I could. Second year of college- had a single room. bliss. Third year- 6-girl suite heaven. I won't ever have that experience again!! First year in MS- two roommates; one, didn't work out, the other, became a beloved friend who I loved dearly and was totally comfortable with and was so happy to come home to. 2nd and 3rd years, MS- I wasn't really close with these roommates, but it was livable. With the first, I wanted more of a friendship; with the second, I often felt bad for not being more of a friend.

Now in Atlanta, I have a new roommate. I am starting to like her more by the day; we have a lot in common: our age, faith, place of origin, tastes in things in general. I am actually for the first time really getting excited about getting to know her. She is great to come home to.

I wanted to post this short blog to say, it is so nice to have someone to share life with. Meaning, someone with whom to build a household. And for this season of my life, it's roommates; we split buying household needs and goods. Another step towards adulthood: check!

DLGAC, Chapters 15-22 (the end)

I've gotten behind in my reading. Shock!

"Unslumming and Slumming": First thing to come to mind is, why in this order? Seems backwards. Jacobs attacks the superficial means for solving the slum problem; when planners "clean up" an area by putting a project there to get higher tax yields, or lure less-expensive-to-support populations back to an area, these are merely shifting slums, not remedying them. She sites Gans' work on the West End of Boston [which I read in Marwell's theory class), which is regarded as a slum but is actually a "stable, low-rent area" where residents are intensely attached to their neighborhood and its upkeep. Also, when people stay by choice, it is practical to stay, where newcomers still come, and where there is a thriving sense of urban vitality, all these factors keep slumming at bay. Jacobs addresses how the city grows the middle class, but this is the class it most often loses, for the above reasons. She urges that this emergent middle class in vital low-rent areas is the "greatest regenerative force" for an energetic economy, but is sadly thwarted because it is regarded as "social untidiness and economic confusion" (290).

"Gradual Money and Cataclysmic Money": There are three sources of money for building in cities: the biggest share is credit from non-gov't lending institutions. The second is gov't moneys, either from taxes or through borrowing power. (Did you know some residences and business properties are financed this way?! I'd like to know what businesses in Jackson were financed by gov't help.) The third source is from investment money (its source being mostly concealed). Jacobs takes an interesting stance on the moral difference between these money sources, as to the private vs. publicness, and legitimacy vs. illegitimacy. She urges that gradual money is healthier for a city, as buildings require constant upkeep after the novelty is gone (remember Pruitt-Igoe?). On the cataclysmic side are the agents of city decay, such as credit blacklisting, which is done when the bank and planners create maps with spot-clearance, excluding help in areas projected to be slums. (I admit, I didn't go into intense detail or probing with this chapter. There is much for me to learn here, in money matters!)

Part IV: Different Tactics (Last Section)

SUBSIDIZING DWELLINGS: Herein Jacobs rails against the government as landlord, as it goes about housing people who cannot afford housing today. She indicts the way these peoples' rents are used almost exclusively on local admin, maintenance and running expenses - i.e., paying combaters of vandalism and sitters in conferences on how to improve project safety. Rather, Jacobs suggests a proper use of subsidy monies, by a "guaranteed rent method," in which there are no low-income ceilings for people which will de-qualify them for subsidized housing. Rather, when this happens, the tenant ought to take up ownership of his unit. Soon, private vs. public housing becomes in-differentiable. Jacobs also makes the point here that it is very important to not transform or replace subsidized housing too quickly; gradual change will bring about the victory of "holding as many people as possible by choice over time" (334).

ATTRITION OF AUTOMOBILES I found this to be a rather dull chapter, except for the fact that I have been witnessing of late, since my move to Atlanta, the true war between cars and pedestrians. Cars don't like the anxiety the pedestrians' safety produces upon them; pedestrians hate waiting for proper times and places to cross. One interesting thing I learned is that some traffic, especially of trucks and buses, is essential for the vitality of a city.  OK, so maybe this chapter wasn't so dull, because it also got me thinking, which pressure has given way in Jackson: cars over peds, or peds over autos? Definitely the former. In Atlanta, the latter is making headway, although the disincentives of driving aren't quite high enough to eliminate large numbers of one-drive-only private automobiles. Jacobs says equilibrium has been achieved in no american city as of yet. Of course, this was written in the 60's.

Did you know one-way traffic is a solution to alleviate congestion?! I had no idea that was its purpose. Another golden nugget of Jacobs' philosophy -- that no remedy applied to city life comes without a consequence or new problem -- was illustrated by her point that large parking garages actually erode city vitality, even though they aimed to enhance its economy. In this chapter I finally learned the controversy about Robert Moses, which I never understood before. He was park commissioner in NYC in the 30's, and tried various adjustments to Central Park to get heavy traffic flow to be permitted around or through it, both of which were turned down. Oh, New Yorkers and their protectiveness of their Perfect City dreams!

VISUAL ORDER: As the upper limit of complexity, cities cannot be works of art, Jacobs claims. Art and life aren't the same things; for life, better design strategies and tactics are needed. So, in sum, I like this chapter's premise: practicality first, art second, around the skeleton of practicality. Clear thinking about city planning therefore starts with an understanding that cities ought not aim to be works of art, foremost. What cities need is for their "remarkable functional order [to be] clarified" (377). On the same token, art/design ought not interfere with function; they can co-operate and coexist. The minimization of the impression of endlessness, and artful tactics of suggestion and emphasis, can be well applied to a functional cityscape. Using very well organized writing, Jacobs lays out exact, practical ways artful principles such as these can be applied to cities in a functional, life-giving way. Is this kind of application-/prescription-heavy writing sociological? Or are we now in a different era of sociology, one which is less amelioration-based/driven? Is this because we think this posture in academia is somehow more appropriate or respectable? And why is that? Who decided that and catalyzed that shift in thinking?

SALVAGING PROJECTS Again Jacobs uses this chapter to be a practitioner of specific remedies to this particular city illness: projects laid to waste.

GOVERNING AND PLANNING DISTRICTS Coordinating city planning and mapping and zoning ad building is a behemoth of a process. Jacobs thus advocates for the development of a "'Metropolitan Government,'" which is comprised of separate localities which come together into a federation of powers only for the explicit cause of corporate planning. This is in contrast to what she calls "municipal bigness:" the planners-conquer-all approach, which leave localities helpless to change.

THE KIND OF PROBLEM A CITY IS In this chapter, Jacobs dabbles back into the philosophical side of comprehending city problems. She holds that the common, misguided camp's approach to city planning is that cities are problems of simplicity (or of disorganized complexity, which are then easily reduced or  converted to problems of simplicity), whereas the appropriate approach to city problems is to treat them as problems of organized complexity. The philosophical underpinnings to this is the understanding that problem solving only works when you understand what kind of problem it is. Cities have organized complexity because their "variables are many, but they are not helter-skelter; they are 'interrelated into an organic whole'" (433). Thus, Jacobs pushes for studying cities in a process-driven, inductive, attention-paid-to-the-anomalies fashion - just as she just exhibited for us in this masterpiece of hers! Too bad its genius ca't be duplicated now! This work can only be original once.

In her final page, Jacobs trumpets the city as king (or rather-and I don't know why this is that I like to imagine the city as a feminized power, a queen...is that not the popular imagination of a city? Like that of a ship as being a "she"?) because it is the only place that is a stage for productive innovation and the stunning "juxtaposition of talents." The best cities generate enough energy not just for themselves, but to meet needs and solve problems outside themselves.

THE END

Decline & Regeneration: Beware Duplication and Border Vacuums

In this section (ch. 13-14), Jacobs identifies destructive and helpful powers towards killing or enlivening a city.

On destructive force is the continual shifting of a city's center. This happens because a popular locale will become a fad and be reproduced, but will lose its luster with time, as what was once original becomes the norm. As Jane writes, "Diversity is crowded out by the duplication of success" (247). What's needed to protect city vitality, then, are ordinaces that defend against excessive dupication of restuarants, or whatever the thing was that caused the inital economic boom for that prospering areas.

A second source of city decline are the deadening border zones used to separate different areas - i.e., the most classic example being railroad tracks. Also, Morningside Heights Park in NYC is a boarder, with sidewalk use there deadened by the perception of them as insecure areas. Another boarder zone can be a place with one-way traffic - people on one side going and coming, but people on the other side never crossing out of their own side. Borders are active, she argues; they are infertile, unused areas, usually, leading to an "unbuilding, or running-down process" (259). The insightful point here is that running-down is an active movement in a particular direction---even though, true enough, entropy takes less energy than building an area up. I was curious to see what Jane would suggest as a remedy for this problem.

At this point, Jane finally discusses Cetnral Park - you may recall I've been awaiting her view on it. She suggests turning barriers into seams; moving attractions of intensive use to the perimeter, such as zoos, mueums, ponds, rinks, cafes, chess houses, carousels. If the border isn't along a park, relying on counterforces, such as intentionally large and diverse populations, can protect city vitality. Finally, Jacobs argues against pedestrian street schemes if they create borders.

Speaking of walkways reminds me of T.'s recent comment, as we drove down State Steet, that he thinks college campuses ought to hold off on sidewalk construction at first, see where students themselves want to walk, then pave those routes. T. and Jacobs would get along; both see orthodox planning efforts as cou terproductive. When I mentioned to T. that I've noticed heavy use of an outdoor public space - med students and nurses and patients who sit cross-legged near the crosswalk along State Street - I said that I thought a bench should be put there. He disagreed, saying that he thinks it would chase the initial users there, who like it for the fact that they can sit in grass. The users of the space - as unplanned of a socail space as it could possibly be - have already defined it in terms they like and utilize routinely. Why mess with it? Why interfere with organic success?

A City's Personality

When suburbs or towns zone and plan, they aim to avoid the ugly messiness of cities where the old and new cohabit. But to avoid the monotony of homogeneity, but still capture the visual order and "pleasant esthetic" (223), suburban planners will opt for and get, what Jane scathingly calls "results of vulgarity and dishonesty" (229). I assume she means places like the Renaissance Mall, where there is nothing but a "city guise" ... all the while, anyone who has been in a real city isn't surprised to learn that its walls are literally made of painted and molded styrofoam.

It is by reading Jacobs that my eyes have been open in admiration and understanding of Fondren. Truly, it is a city-pocket that can boast "radical inherent difference" in architectural style and building use.

Jane argues, again using very moral diction, that diversity, and the peculiar and unppredictable uses it sprouts, is "one of the missions of cities" (238). Out of fear that diversity in scale of buildings together in one place will "explode" a street, for instance, diversity is "unnecessarily suppressed" (238). Supressed indeed is the suburban landscape, in its ironic inefficiency and social dryness, compared to the city that hits the planning bullseye, as Fondren does. (OK, maybe I am bringing biad into this.) Only in the city will the strange and the rational be found together, linked by questions. When I studied at Columbia, I found that to be true; the city constantly bombards one with images and social scenes that confront one to examine her own beliefs, and why. In the suburbs, such questions aren't raised; the visual landscape is no catalyst of personal growth.