[SustainableTompkins] Density & Crime, etc.

[Joel and Sarah Gagnon]

Dear Katie, (Sally Gagnon interjecting here)

   The fact that you feel you'd be dead in a month if you lived in 
high-density housing, whereas others feel that humans should conserve 
resources by demanding/occupying less land area, reminds me of a few 
cliches about living with others in harmony. See if they sound familiar.

   "Different strokes for different folks" and "One man's trash is another 
man's treasure" and "Nature abhors a vacuum" (the last of which I read as a 
human-colored view of the natural world, wherein "There will be no empty 
niche").

As you said to Marlo, I appreciate your voicing your disagreement so 
kindly. I agree with you that there's no one-size-fits all solution. If 
people are forced into this crowded living, I suspect we'll see more 
quarreling.

Sally Gagnon


      Thanks for voicing the opposition so tactfully and courageously, Marlo.
I'm afraid I won't manage quite as well...

I'd be dead in a month if I lived in "high density" housing with no way
out.  Period.  During the course of this discussion thread I actually
tried to imagine myself attempting such a thing and I kept coming back
to the same question:  "But what would I do with myself?"  I'd be exiled
from everything I understand, everything I rely on to give my life
meaning.  As a person who grew up in a dairy and apple farm community, I
simply wouldn't know what to do with my days.  Living through the
transitions of a post peak oil/climate disrupted/economically
impoverished world seems much more palatable on my 80 acres located 5
miles from the Commons - which is why I'm here.  It's still
walking/biking distance from the city and my family will be able to
raise most of its own food and network with others choosing to do the
same in our low density sprawlish community.

Talking this prospect over with my kids and husband at dinner visions of
sci-fi nightmares centered on people living cooped up in efficient
living circled round the table. Perhaps as George Franz suggests we are
all afflicted by American real estate brainwashing or an unjustified
earth-killing dose of American Individualism.  Whatever.  Personally, I
think attacking people where they live is a poor opening for a
discussion about the future.  Giving people a reason/positive motivators
to reconstruct their lives that are tied to their well-being in terms of
better services, jobs, opportunities to work collectively (like
community gardens & kitchens) and security makes more sense.  In some
important ways I have over the past 12 years seen this taking shape in
the City of Ithaca, but, of course, it is often derided as
"gentrification" and salvaging homes downtown still carries the stigma
of "single-family dwelling" with the proponents of shared walls.

Acknowledging that the high density vision is not for everyone, nor is
it practical (Who's going to grow the food or supply the wood for the
high density crowd?) and that it is dependent on large systems running
responsibly would go a long way toward opening up this discussion.  It
could be argued that it's easier to reduce your footprint and contribute
to the well-being of your local community in a rural location, because
you and your neighbors have more control over your circumstances.  In
any case, not everyone's spirit is attuned to becoming bike-riding
vegans living in 4 story housing or, conversely, living in the isolation
of a rural community growing rutabagas with your extended family on the
back acreage, however much "sense" either reality makes.  Perhaps it is
the limitations of my 20th century upbringing coming to the fore, but I
still hold diversity as a key to our collective success when planning
for the future and am nervous about one-size-fits-all solutions
requiring "If only people would..." as a starting point.

-- Katie Quinn-Jacobs



Simon St.Laurent wrote:
 > marlo capoccia wrote:
 >
 >> i'm being contrary about this probably because i just can't imagine
 >> having limited access to rural living.  aren't there tons of people
 >> like me who would feel terribly penned-in not being able to wake up
 >> in the middle of the night and walk in a field all alone with the
 >> moon?  is that a figment of our imaginations or lack of experience?
 >>
 >
 > Even George's world will, I expect, need farmers and the villages and
 > hamlets that support them.
 >
 > Unless, of course, I've missed something.  (And of course, that's fewer
 > people than currently live outside the city.)
 >
 > Thanks,
 > Simon St.Laurent
 > http://livingindryden.org/
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