Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
A popular legend goes that “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” The modern equivalent is leaders across the country throwing money at highway expansion projects while their existing roads fall to pieces. This week, we wrote about one of these wasteful, harmful “Nero Projects”: Rhode Island’s Cranston Canyon Project. Stay tuned for more articles in this series—a part of our End Highway Expansions campaign—in the months ahead.
Comment of the Week:
This comment came from our YouTube channel. Join the conversation here!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
(Source: Unsplash.)
Chuck: I’m a major introvert. I get my strength, ideas, and insights from time spent alone. I have a meditation routine, take long walks in silence, and (notoriously around my house) have long showers where I trace ideas in the steam on the shower wall. I take a retreat, by myself, for three or four days every year. I office mostly alone, my space set up to allow plenty of time to comfortably read and think. Even so, I know that I pay a price for this isolation, in my own happiness and even my own knowledge and awareness. My greatest insights, along with my greatest moments of joy, peace, and fulfillment, have all come in working with others. This article in The Wall Street Journal reinforced my apprehension that acting on my instinct to be alone is coming at a high cost.
The Uffington White Horse. (Source: Smithsonian Magazine.)
Linda: Next weekend, residents and visitors in Oxfordshire, England, will have the opportunity to participate in a millennia-old tradition: Chalking the Horse. The White Horse of Uffington is a prehistoric monument dating back some 3,000 years to the late Bronze Age. It measures 360 feet long, making it easily visible in this satellite view on Google Maps. The horse is made up of deep trenches filled with white chalk, and would become entirely eroded and overgrown in twenty years if not regularly maintained. Chalking Day is a ritual that has happened regularly for over 3,000 years. In reading about the tradition, I came across this article from a few years ago: “What a Prehistoric Monument Reveals About the Value of Maintenance,” which quotes UCLA archaeologist Monica L. Smith talking about the importance of ritual sites in the formation of cities. “The first move towards getting people into larger and larger groups was probably something that was a ritual impetus,” she said in a lecture for The Long Now Foundation. Though it requires considerably less resources to maintain, and is more symbolic than functional, the Uffington White Horse offers a lesson in maintaining the infrastructure of cities today. “As humans, we are historically biased against maintenance,” Smith said, “and yet that is exactly what infrastructure needs.”
(Source: Public Books.)
Norm: Over 125 years ago, a writer named Paul Lafargue suggested that, “The philosophers of capitalism … do not yet understand that the machine is the savior of humanity, the god who shall redeem man … from working for hire, the god who shall give him leisure and liberty.” Well, the machine hasn’t saved us and the god of neural networks and automation isn’t going to provide us with unfettered leisure and liberty, either. I really enjoyed this review of James Ferguson’s book Give a Man a Fish when I read it several years ago. If you’ve read the book, email me your thoughts as it’s on my to-read list.
(Source: Flickr.)
Rachel: This was a great in-depth read from someone taking us through his family’s daily commute to daycare, not in a car, but on foot (and stroller)! He talks about the joys of this walk and also the struggles as he and his kids try to cross a couple dangerous streets (video and photos included to illustrate the point). Simple design changes could make these streets a lot safer for his family, other people walking, and those driving, too. The author has advocated for some, unfortunately, without much luck. Maybe it’s time to step outside the traditional routes and try some guerrilla action?
—
Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Michael Bezanson, Justus Blankefort, Jesse Boyd, Justin Fuhrmann, Robert M Giuliano, Arthur Gomez, Matthew Gulseth, Ruben Halperin, Josh Killian, Molly McCahon, Sean Parker, Yaakov Reif, Stephen Rodgers, Jack Wasserman, Jonathan Williams, and Maia Xiao.
Your support helps us provide tools, resources, and community to people who are building strong towns across the country.
What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!