FROM THE ARCHIVES
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Where we live
[Bruce Frohnen 03/13 09:18 AM]Whenever the subject of neighborhoods and towns comes up I can't help but think of the description of housing as a "machine for living." That description brought with it housing tracts miles away from any place for people to gather, the loss even of the local sandlot, and an entire ideology of housing design that levelled poor people's neighborhoods (and middle class people's neighborhoods for that matter) to make way for apartment towers surrounded by nothing, simply plopped down in the middle of a field, barely walking distance even to the main street, let alone anywhere viable for work, shopping or play.
And, oh yes, the "machine for living" quotation is from the French leftist Le Corbusier, leader of "brutalist" architecture. Which raises my continuing question, why do so many people defend as "the American way"
trends and institutions foisted upon us by the left during the post-war era?
A return to towns that make sense, where work, play, schooling, shopping and sleeping are part of an integrated life, would be a return to the way Americans did things from the Puritans' landing up to the New Deal. I can't help but think that preserving the New Deal is not what conservatism is all about, and that conservatives who believe in the innovative powers of entrepreneurs ought to be able to escape from the massive, New Deal mindset that we have to split up our world into compartments that suit nobody but a few lazy developers and ideologues. After all, one thing we know from the market is that people want to live in viable towns — that's why property values in places like Old Town Alexandria (the old urbanism) and Seaside Florida (the "new" urbanism) are so much higher than surrounding areas.
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