Is Forgiveness of Sins the Crux of Christianity?

What is it exactly that is at the heart of Christianity? What is the one issue that defines this faith above all others, that makes its adherents believe it to be so true and full of good news? As a pastor, I wonder often what those in the pews need to hear the most. Do they need to hear that their sins are forgiven? Do they need to hear about the Kingdom of God? Should I focus on their context – affluent America? Or maybe how to become a better person, one curtained bad habit at a time, is what they need to hear. One issue, for sure, has come to be seen as the crux of Christianity more than all others: the forgiveness of sins. This act of love, made possible by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, is, for many Christians the central, and almost the only focus of the faith. It was central to Jesus’ teaching, and is even part of the succinct teachings of the Lord’s Prayer and the Words of Institution. But once convinced of this fact, where do we go from there?

There’s a number of reasons that this prominent theme of the faith could use some vetting. For starters, this is an intellectual fact for the believer. You know your sins are forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is in your mind, and hopefully, it finds a place to reside in your heart as well. But once one generally comes to understand the concept of sacrifice, of the way Jesus takes our place because he, as a sinless man, is the only person who can stand before God on our behalf, most people pretty much accept that. While this is the core message for the Billy Grahams of the world (or preachers without a congregation), for most pastors and congregations this is Christianity 101.

But what does the forgiveness of sins actually look like? This is the bigger question that must be answered, especially given the somewhat awkward reality that before the concept can be preached, you must first convince someone they are a sinner. And there are two cultural norms that make this difficult.

1. To tell someone they are a sinner is not exactly the best way to hit it off with a non-believer. But if forgiveness of sins is the crux of the faith, then that’s where one must start. I wouldn’t be particularly attracted to a faith that first had to convince me of my guilt, only to offer the solution. This is a business-like equation – “you have a problem, I have a solution” – I find lacking in the real life-giving power of the gospel.

2. In a postmodern context, sin is relative, and it may actually be quite hard to convince someone that they are truly a sinner, much less, that they need to be relieved of it.

Essentially, if this is only what Christian faith is about, it relies on this beginning block: to preach this word, you must convince them of their sin first. Certainly, we are all sinners, and to live in denial of that fact is tragic. But making it the banner headline of faith will likely be Greek to people who aren’t aware they sin to begin with. I can just imagine missionaries traveling the globe, or Christians speaking to a neighbor, and making this the beginning point of their evangelism. There’s certainly nothing theologically wrong with it. It just strikes me as rather unappealing.

In other words, how many of us go to church with this question on our minds: “How do I get these sins of mine forgiven?” I would say very few. The question is likely more like this, if I had to guess: “In my mind, I know my sins are forgiven. But why don’t I live like it? What difference does it make?”

Forgiveness itself is a rather esoteric concept. The idea that a man (and a divine man at that) took punishment and experienced death in my place must be a foreign idea to many. The idea that we are not justified by good works is clearly counterintuitive, even to many Christian Protestants, who live as though our salvation does not depend on “alien righteousness” as much as good behavior. (This is one of the truly delicious ironies of the Reformation’s aftermath; it is many Protestants who give lip service to, but reject in daily life, the concept of justification by grace through faith.)

In addition to forgiveness, there are other major themes of Jesus’ teaching and preaching that can be lifted up. The Kingdom of God/Heaven, for example, is a constant theme of the New Testament. Yet, I rarely hear pastors, myself included, really talk about what this means today for us, especially given that we live in a free democracy, not a kingdom. Or joy as a part of life in the Spirit…this was one of Jesus’ main thrusts in the Gospel of John. The theme of reversal is heavily present as well, as in the beatitudes (Matthew 5), or in many of the parables about the Samaritans, among others.

Let me be clear. Cheap grace is the most abhorrent theological tenet the liberal mainline churches face. And at the heart of it, Jesus preached about, and died for the forgiveness of our sins. But the goal of the church, I don’t think, is to dwell on this fact, at least as a mere fact. While it should never be ignored, the church must take the question further, to push the congregation to ask, “So what? So what if my sins are forgiven? What difference does that make?” When the answers start to flow, the real preaching has begun.

Tunnels and Skybridges: Street-killers or an Enhancement to City Life?

Dallas can be often insecure about itself. Many people in my home city seem to feel that their city gets no national respect nor is it the recipient of much aprobation from outsiders. Maybe I get this impression from hanging out with my own kind too much, such as other architects who love to bloviate more about the problems of cities than about the art of building. Admittedly, many architects are stimulated by idealized images in their minds of the perfect place to be in. Some are so confident as to what makes a great place that they are often willing eliminate essential means of transport (cars) and modes of building to achieve their goal. As you can imagine, bring up the topic of Dallas to a bunch of designer and urban planning types it will almost always be met with groans. For these people, Dallas can do nothing right and is guilty for having ignored all the valuable lessons of sound city planning.

For young designers fresh out of school, Dallas is an unattractive place to begin one's career. Its image embodies little of the urban values they were taught at school. As I have recently learned from my experience trying to recruit new graduates from architecture school, Dallas does not have a desirable 'cache'; it is not 'hip' and the only major reasons a person would consider moving there are mostly pragmatic (its low cost of living and affordable real estate, its abundant job opportunities and good wages, etc.) Although they offer scarcer jobs, inflated housing costs, and even fewer parking spots, cities such as Boston, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle adhere to the principles that, to them, makes great places to live in. They also presume that such cities are much more hospitable to progressive (i.e. not exclusively functional) design.

In contrast to those much older and beloved cities, Dallas is distinctly twentieth century. Except for the historic core which spans several blocks, most of that city's fabric was developed after the main-streamed use of the car. Its structure and scale is reflective of an anti-pedestrian auto-dependent approach to city planning. There are many neighborhoods with no sidewalks and driving on its seven-lane boulevards criscrossing the city ensures swift point-to-point travel. It has experimented and applied many of the innovative urban planning ideas that emerged in the early twentieth century, ones that endorsed the Modernist notion of breaking away from historical tradition. Urban spaces would be scaled for the automobile, from the abundant freeways and wide traffic arteries, to large half-acre residential lots beginning not far from the city center and even larger more minimal iconic office towers. Classic notions of the street from the point of view of the pedestrian, such as the proportions of buildings to sidewalk, the engagement of storefronts, more welcoming hardscape and landscaping and the placement of residential units within downtown blocks were almost completely neglected for a span of about fifty years.

More interesting are the kind of distinctly twentieth century urban fads that Dallas did embrace. Downtown Dallas features an extensive underground city, with labyrinthine tunnels connecting many of the major office towers as a subterranean network of pediestrian 'streets'. There are also numerous skybridges that especially tie together all of the major office and hotel towers in the eastern half of downtown. Together they enable a person to walk through a great swath of downtown without ever going outside. They represented less a complete rejection of the traditional street than an supplementation of it beyond its normal spatial limits of a ground plane framed by buildings on both sides. A remnant of piecemeal efforts from local building owners to maximize leasable area add thru-traffic at the base of their properties, sympathizers of the tunnel argue that it was a practical response to the long hot summer days where temperatures average above 90 degrees for about 6 months out of the year, since no one seems to want to go out in the heat in their business suits.

In spite of the ignorance of most Dallas residents who do not work in the central business district, thanks to deliberate efforts by city officials to never mention they exist, the tunnel and skyway network is the lifeblood to convenient life downtown. All kinds of retail and restaurants are located in the tunnels, including large food courts catering to every taste as well as shops that sell opticware, office supplies, tax consulting, pharmacies, haircuts and even massages. National chain tenants are more likely to be found underground than on the street, which is defined mostly of independent family-owned delis that are often run-down and struggle to fill their tables. Unlike the stampede of office workers that pack the downtown sidewalks at lunch hour, Dallas at the street level is by comparison nearly a ghost town. A quick ride on the lobby escalator going to the basement level reveals where all the people went, as long queues of people form outside many of the eateries, and packs of working women put on their sneakers to do their walking exercises during the lunch break. This is not a 24-hour city by any means, since everything closes at 6 in the evening, but it is quite efficient, since the businesses open only for the predictable rush of foot traffic and close as soon it ceases for the day. For new workers in the central business district, the tunnels and skybridges are a revelation and quickly take advantage of the convenience, even though few explore the extent of the tunnels beyond their building. Not having to deal with the elements and not having to look out for cars and wait for red lights makes the tunnels an attractive option when trying to meet some simple needs quickly.

But they also suck the life out of the street. After many years of standing by and observing the continued commercial success of the tunnels, city leaders are determined to restore to prominence the relatively vacant street storefronts. Lovers of cities such as the planners and concerned architects encourage a policy of either ignoring the tunnels or outright demolishing them. It is hoped that the rapid growth of residential living in downtown (where it has become common to convert long-vacant office buildings into apartments) will help revitalize street-level businesses and achieve the ideal of a 24-hour neighborhood. The city government actually subsidizes a grocery store to ensure that this crucial amenity will attract more downtown residents. It seems obvious that the tunnels make it twice as difficult for street-level businesses to succeed. With the fundamental unit of the urban experience (the street) having been euthanized by an invisible network of secret tunnels, the disgruntlement of urban planners and architects is justifiable.

Dallas at the beginning of the twenty-first century finds itself trying to catch up on some belated classic urbanism after having permitted a few of the more modern alternatives to thrive. An urban renaissance of sorts is indeed currently taking place with numerous constructions cranes dotting the skyline. Pockets of open-air walkable districts have recently been built or are on the drawing boards. It has allocated tremendous resources into establishing a fairly extensive light-rail sytem in the hope of generating tranportation oriented development (TOD). Urban parks are being planned (including one to span over a major freeway underpass) with its overlooked drainage ditch of its central waterway, the Trinity River, being due for a major transormation into a supposedly world-class park system. Most Dallasites welcome these changes, even as the inevitable improvements in liveability will only continue to gentrify the city as a whole at the expense of the middle and lower-middle class.

In trying to ensure that these plans succeed, it is still important to consider why the extra-urban systems like tunnels and skybridges seem to work well and remain popular to local downtown workers and even residents. In particular when, even though tranditional urban life is trending in the positive direction, it is still struggling to establish itself. Apartments and condominiums continue to sell slowly, with some proposed new towers being put on the shelf due to a lack of committed tenants. Convenience is important in attracting downtown dwellers, especially when it fosters an advantagious ease of mobililty. It's hard to beat a pedestrian pathway that is air-conditioned year round and that transcends the sometimes frustrating coexistence with car traffic and urban noise. Since they are private, they bypass much of the urban riff-raff and no obstacles such as construction fences, litter or tripping hazards. It very much is reminiscent of the early Modernist obsession of the separation of uses, of eliminating the unpleasantness city life, of isolating pedestrians form car traffic. Visionaries like Le Corbusier (the interior street in the sky), Sant'Elia and the filmmaker Fritz Lang all envisioned a future where people would perform many of their pedestrian functions in enclosed paths and spaces in multi-functional giant buildings while leaving the rest of the car/ship traffic to physical or virtual super-highway systems.

The dynamics of the 'unpleasantness' of the city has indeed changed, as contemporary cities are now much cleaner now that the traditional nuissances are more regulated. Street-life has become sanitized to such a degree so as to become appealing to many people. It's obviously a benefit to city dwellers to be able to enjoy the street. But it is in my view an additional benefit to make use of tunnels and skybridges, in that they add an additional dimension to urban life with regard to innovative ways of circulating and connecting blocks together. They provide an important additional choice in how one moves throughout a dense area and the degree to which convenience and time becomes a priority. They also supplement new perspectives, allowing the pedestrian to view the kind of things that are visible only from a bridge as compared to a sidewalk, or to explore and discover a secret world below ground. To better enhance this choice, I would favor that the tunnel systems and the street complement each other rather than compete as they currently do. By expanding the choice of mobility and experiences, it will distinguish Dallas from other cities that rely on streets. It is this very complexity of paths that make life in the big city rich in experiences but also liberating in their ease of mobility.

Mr. Obama's Neighborhood: An Inside Look at Hyde Park, Chicago

Now that we have ample time to consider exactly who Barack Obama is, I’ve been compelled to revisit my old stomping grounds: Hyde Park, Chicago. Known for being home to controversial figures like Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson and institutions like the University of Chicago, Hyde Park is also the most dense center for theological education this side of Rome. The prestigious University dominates the neighborhood economically, culturally and politically, having essentially taken the neighborhood over since the 1960s and housing thousands of students, professors and staff. And Hyde Park can boast to being one of Chicago’s truly unique cul-de-sacs, a mixture of history, beauty and eclecticism, an attempted safe haven surrounded by the seedier parts of Chicago’s South Side. But at its heart, Hyde Park is a paradoxical neighborhood, promising intellectual rigor and diversity on the exterior, but still falling prey to a tired ideology born in the 1960s on the interior. I couldn’t define Obama’s politics any better.

I recently lived in Hyde Park for 3 years while attending seminary, and generally enjoyed my time there. I taught guitar lessons at the University’s private school, I tutored professor’s students, and I studied theology with students from a host of schools. I got to know the neighborhood, and through work, many of its residents as well. To say the least, it is a very liberal neighborhood, standing out even in a liberal city like Chicago. There was certainly no shortage of visible support for prominent Democrats like Barack Obama, as when he ran against a hapless Alan Keyes in 2004. It was not uncommon to see pictures of Hyde Park residents posing with him at University or neighborhood events. And as I mentioned before, several African-American activists and politicians grace the neighborhood within blocks of each other, notably Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, and Carol Moseley Braun, who ran for president in 2004.

To me, this can offer wonderful clues about the neighborhood. Though the University did its best to polish Hyde Park’s image, I found the neighborhood to be heavy and defensive, a place of constant and unspoken tension, especially among the races. My wife, a friend, and my roommate all experienced this tension separately as eggs were thrown, guns were drawn, and bottles were hurled. There were frequent urgings not to walk along 53rd Street alone as gangs were choosing random white males to beat, presumably as part of a gang initiation ritual.

Suffice to say, the neighborhood was not a safe one. And who should have expected it to be? While million-dollar homes and condos were the norm in Hyde Park, poverty of the worst sort surrounded it on every side, save for Lake Michigan. This irony was what many conservatives have come to expect: the liberalism so often championed by professors, politicians and theologians within the street boundaries of Hyde Park and practiced by Chicago’s politicians did nothing to alleviate the real suffering around it. Consequently, the violence and tension spilled out into Hyde Park’s tree-lined streets. Even Carol Moseley Braun was not immune; she was mugged at her home before a University students ran off her attacker in 2006.

The predominant theology in this heavily theological neighborhood was liberation theologies of various stripes. (If you’re not familiar with the term, liberation theology is a highly political and social view of Jesus Christ and his redemption. It is championed by the poor and by minorities who hold poverty and oppression as virtues, for which Jesus had special appreciation). In Hyde Park, it was black liberation theology that was the norm, although queer (this is the politically correct term), Hispanic, feminist, and womanist theologies demanded attention as well. But the black liberation theology gives us the most real insight into Hyde Park’s most famous resident, Barack Obama. It is this theology that defined the culture of Hyde Park in the 1960s, a decade Hyde Park has had trouble leaving. And it is this theology that dominates his own church, several miles south of Hyde Park on 95th street. (Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, received his Doctorate from my seminary.)

To put it simply, Hyde Park is a racially-driven neighborhood. It prides itself as a neighborhood that fights white authority and prestige. Whites are seen as a great impediment to black improvement and the cause to the problems to begin with. It is whites who have invaded the neighborhood and populated its university, usually with presumed snobs who have the money to afford the U of C to begin with. Ironically, the academics that do this (as a professor, Obama would have be considered a part of this) do so with the financing and intellectual protection of the largely white university system.

And I believe this defines Obama as well. While he has shrewdly and masterfully run a campaign that transcends his race and plays into white guilt, he is at heart as racially-driven as his neighborhood of choice. His wife’s thesis demonstrated this, Obama’s controversial church demonstrates this, and if he is anything like Hyde Park and the general culture of the University, there’s no denying that race is one of his most notable motivators. You would think a neighborhood that was home to Milton Friedman for 30 years would have learned to think more objectively; in fact, Obama and company in Hyde Park are predictably and ideologically leftist.

The War against Mobility: in defense of car-based urbanism

In a recent post I tried to describe how many serious designer-oriented architects long for almost unlimited political power in order to achieve their goals for a better world. It was not intended to be an accusation against people who openly choose dictatorship but instead was an observation that the kinds of policies and changes in the status quo that currently dominate professional discourse have the effect of favoring centralized political power and the abandonment of democratic participation. From the dream of building a brand-new carbon neutral city dotted with grand starchitect-designed monuments to the unceasing calls by many designers to regulate how people should live--from being eco-friendly to promoting a contrived 'sense of place' to zoning that favors mixed-use density--they all require more concentrated powers to a government entity while usurping the freedoms of citizens.

The transfer of freedom from individuals to the state (or royal family) is really the transfer of who gets to make choices. It is from the ability to make choices that freedom becomes valuable, and one of the most fundamental choices is how one will get from one place to another. Mobility is crucial to exercising freedom and thus anything that promotes the free movement of individuals contributes the health of a free society. Walking is the most natural way we choose to move, and, unlike pack or herd animals, we humans cherish the ability to move at our own pace, in groups or by ourselves creating our own paths and being free to wander without fear. It is one of the reasons why the automobile has had as great a revolutionary effect on the pattern of human settlement as the beginning of agriculture. The movement of one's self, or 'auto-mobile' is as equally valid when a person walks with his legs as when that same person encloses himself in a steel cage with four wheels and an engine to drive. Scale and speed marks the difference between the two, and it also explains the fundamental change experienced by cities in the last century, evolving from mostly walkable cities to ones that have become mostly about driving from place to place. Given the mostly innate human desire to freely move, be it in a more natural mode such as walking or a more man-made mode such as driving, it follows then that car-based cities are a consistently logical development in the evolution of human habitation.

It is from this reasoning that I believe people will never willingly leave their cars en masse to walk exclusively. Despite all the added problems imposed by car use and the strains on the massive amount of required infrastructure, the enhancements cars have made average people's daily life have been dramatic as the fast-growing rate of car ownership throughout the world can attest. In addition to being able to travel greater distances in less time, the personal car, like walking, is infinitely multi-directional. Mass transit systems are by contrast linear in direction and often confine related human activity close to the line and more importantly along the nodes in where pedestrians stops (or stations) are located. They also limit an a person's perception of the city to sequence of nodes along the transit line in which the areas just beyond are almost insignificant. As an example, going out on drives through the Chicago affected my mental picture of the city in a vastly different way than what my car-less friends understood of their city. Whatever existed more than a quarter mile from the red line or blue line did not exist in their mental picture, and even they had to go to a location within such unfamiliar areas, they opted to become passengers in a taxi, which oftens prevented them from understanding where they were in relation to the train stop.

Driving allows the city to unfold itself as planar major nodes acting as coordinates, revealing the dynamic and complex relationship between remote urban concentrations. It greatly enlarges the geographic footprint that encompasses individual patterns of living and transforms locations once too far be of any use to people into a highly inter-connected node within an economically dynamic region. Whether the suburban sprawl that results is desireable should not be evaluated uniquely on an aesthetic or even spiritual basis but also on an understanding on how economic transactions take place over a geographic area. William T. Bogarts' recent book elucidates this latter aspect about sprawl, describing contemporary metropolitan areas as polycentric agglomerations consisting of a swath of competitive trading places. Critics against sprawl rely on a monocentric view of the city, which consists of the more traditional layout of a commercial downtown as the major employment center surrounded by residential zones just outside, often linked by major transit routes in a radial pattern. Bogart argues that the monocentric view no longer applies to the reality imposed by the automobile, and suggests that rather than to urge a strict return to the traditional monocentric city, we should try to better understand and improve the dynamic nature of our contemporary polycentric cities. It would allow us who hope to make positive changes to cities to do so with the goal of ensuring that metropolitan areas cultivate a wide diversity of experiences and lifestyles and to forge an environment for citizens to freely seek opportunities in infinite directions. There is no defined form or image of what such a city would look like, since it is important to acknowledge that cities transform over time and often are rarely the same place from one decade to the next.

Such an open-ended perspective allows for both new architectural and urban typologies to evolve and adapt, to solve certain conceptual and functional flaws and to generate new unintended problems. There is little doubt that automobile use has been the biggest instigator in the generation of new typologies, especially in regards to parking. The need to park our cars has transformed the way buildings relate to the street and in turn how they relate to people in terms of scale and speed. From retail storefronts lining sidewalks directly adjacent to the street to expansive gulfs of concrete and asphalt prefacing big boxes with eye-catching signage to catch the driver's eye while traveling at 60 miles per hour, new building types have been invented and new ways of approaching them have resulted. To many, auto-centric urban development has yielded dismal changes that have prompted a call for a return to pedestrian-centric development, with little interest to more skillfully integrate parking infrasture as part of a desired solution. They do not intend to improve the experience or the practicality of parking, they wish rather to eliminate it entirely. For them, the best cities are those that marginalize parking to the extremes, that promote lots of walking, and concentrate long-distance trips to linear mass transit systems.

I came across an example of this attitude against car-centric infrastructure in an article that describes the evolution of the parking garage througout the years. Philip Kennicot of the Washington Post wrote a review of presentation given by garage building historian Shannon Sanders McDonald who has recently written a history of the recent building type and how it has changed with the city the around it. Kennicot describes some rather interesting tidbits about parking garage design and how perfecting ramp systems overwhelmed any other efforts to making the parking garage fit better with the existing urban fabric. MacDonald documents this history to encourage the further innovation and improvement to make them less jarring. For Kennicot such a pursuit is futile, and thus his article quickly becomes his private tirade against the irreperable damage cars have made to the urban experience in general.

Thanks to the new-found use of reinforced concrete after the turn of the twentieth century, ramps were perceived at the time as an innovative device in the design of vertical circulation and became instrumental in portraying a new architecture that unified motion, space and time. Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright were enchanted by them as ramps could provide creative solutions to age-old as well completely new design problems. For Kennicot, though, the parking ramp helped sever the connection of a person to the ground and to the building being entered. By measuring its merits based on sound principles of pedestrian-friendly buildings, the author unfairly, in my view, indicts a building intended for the efficient storage of cars. While parking garages could be designed to enhance the experience of the pedestrian a little bit, the car-based life requires that this building type may not be able to function well if it were it designed with the kind of standards that apply to the walkable lifestyle. With this reasoning, Kennicot argues that since traditional standards don't apply, parking garages are doomed to be ugly and harmful to cities and he thus entertains the thought of simply eliminating the car-based lifestyle for good, especially since he questions whether cars are even that "fundamental to the American right to mobility in an urbanized world." He goes on to argue for the end of the parking garage and forcing people to walk or used a shared mass transit:

...Or should we work toward their obsolescence and elimination (retained only for shared cars, buses, electric vehicles, etc.)? That is a trenchant, hard-nosed but ultimately more rational choice than the blithe acceptance of them as necessary evils that just need a little tweaking. Banishing the garage would force some social engineering on a population that desperately needs to wean itself from a planet-killing addiction to the automobile. When a neighborhood becomes a parking nightmare, one of two things must happen: People stop going there, or they get there on foot, bicycle, train or bus. Residents of crowded Georgetown might well consider both options entirely positive.

Denying people the freedom to drive where they would like to go on their own terms doesn't appear to me to be the rational choice. Such freedom has been the foundation of our contemporary economy and has empowered us in ways unimaginable to those living in urban areas before the car. Something had to replace the horse and cart of not too long ago, and linear mass transit systems were the premier way of getting around until a new kind of personal vehicle could operate faster with less restrictions.

Kennicot also reveals the latent tendency by those who admonish cars to abridge the precious freedoms afforded by the automobile. Practicing such freedom like that of self-movement by technological means is now supposedly harmful to the planet (even though modern cities have never been cleaner and would be more so once cars run on eletric or fue cells), and forcing society to give up driving so much will make life better for all us, even while each individual is disempowered. For all of its drawbacks, the car is a symbolic enabler of self-reliance that provides an independence from collective life. It ensures that a city's citizenry will balance the needs of the individual with the needs of the community, and that one can leave an undesirable situation if it arises to go elsewhere, an undefined other place beyond the reach of walkers and mass transit passengers. Like the above author, there are many urban thinkers who believe in a city devoid of the unlimited mobility afforded by cars, who think there is little real benefit to car use. Somehow it is better to rely on a public transit system run by unions that are prone to strike, that cannot guarantee adequate personal security, or runs on an impractical daily schedule wasting lots of one's time (yes, even more than the occasional traffic jam).

Like Shannon Sanders MacDonald, I accept having imperfect-looking parking garages in exchange for the level of mobility they offer to all city dwellers. I believe that each new building type presents an opportunity for refinement and innovation and can only enrich and diversify the urban experience at a point in the long history of any city. The parkage garage is a very recent and immature building type, and who is to know what it will become in the next century? Instead of trying to return the city to an assumed golden era in the past where it was almost exclusively pedestrian-centered, I favor cities to offer multiple experiences, whether from the point of view of the walking passerby to the person driving on a viaduct at 60 miles per hour. I also favor a diversity of environments and ambiance, from both a sense of proximity as well as remoteness. And I favor all modes of getting around in an urban area, providing as many options as possible regarding the kind of speed (legs, bicycle, car, train) and the level individual control one wishes (driver/passenger/promenading). A city should always serve its traditional role as a cauldron of opportunity, but it can only prosper for as long as it enables its citizen to exercise choice in where they live and how they move.

The zero-sum mantra influences much of the thinking when it comes to how a city should develop in the future. It provides a pretext for planners and city governments to aquire more control over the lives of citizens by championing the needs of the so-called "community" over the needs of individuals. Restrictive zoning policies and ordinances follow which champion the will of a the majority (or the local city power elite) and punishes the minority, who then move out of the city and leave behing a place a bit less diverse than it once was.

A city that encourages all forms of urestricted mobility is one where everthing seems to possible with something for everyone. It suggests solutions that are not confined to 'either/or' but instead to 'both/and'.

Forget Three Parties, the Next Jump Will Be to Four

For as long as I have been politically aware, there has been steady clamoring for a third party presidential candidate, an independent rogue who could unite a big enough minority to pull off an upset. Ross Perot gave it his best shot, possibly helping Bill Clinton with sub-majority margins. Ralph Nader also tried, only to de-rail Al Gore in the tight 2000 race. And if the rumors are true, Barack Obama is prepared to do the same if he doesn't win the nomination. This must make the RNC happy, because they have to be doubting that John McCain will win over the conservative base needed for victory in November. I'm doubtful Obama would ever go for it, and would more likely wait his turn, get some experience, and improve his political acumen. He should be wise enough to know that he's too far to the left for middle America's taste in a 3-person race and doesn't currently appeal to "moderates" like McCain can.

But it raises an interesting possibility and it underscores that both parties are in desperate straights at the moment. While Republicans have boasted since 1994 they were a party with all the momentum, and that even when they lost elections it was because of the unity or purity in the conservative movement, that boast can no longer be made. The Republican party is without question divided in the same way the dreaded Democrats are, by trying to appeal to niche voting blocs like evangelicals and one-issue voters, with the one issue usually being abortion. Consequently, the libertarian influence vs. the "compassionate conservative" influence are butting ideological heads, with McCain ending up somewhere in the middle, the last man standing with little support among the purists.

That's not to say the Democratic Party also doesn't have serious problems, notably allegiance to voting blocs of their own. So, if the conservatives are unhappy with their prospective nominee, and if Obama bolts to run an independent campaign, who says this won't turn into a four-horse race? Maybe this is the time for ideological purists to fight it out on both sides, to lay it out on the table, to force America to embrace ideas over a party, especially if that party has failed them, which both sides seem to be saying.

This, of course, isn't likely, and America doesn't seem possible of embracing a German-style government, where minority parties maintain substantial clout, even in the face of no majority win. But there might be a temptation to open up the floodgates if Obama breaks rank with the DNC. After all, presumably, the winner would only need a higher percentage than the other three candidates to be president, as Bill Clinton showed in 1992 and 1996, and it wouldn't necessarily dictate that the congressional elections would need to follow suit as they do in Germany, or other European nations. Perhaps a third candidate on the left would open up the path for a fourth candidate on the right, perhaps someone who conservatives view as electable and ideologically pure, maybe a Fred Thompson/Duncan Hunter ticket.

I'd be amazed if we ever left the two-party system in any branch of government. Too much of our government, and even our culture, is built around a basic understanding of majority rule. In that sense, we more accurately represent a republic than a democracy, or a mobocracy. The loudest or largest minority of many minorities does not the law-maker make. Only the one who has the ability to sell himself and/or his ideas to a majority of the public can claim such a mantle. But there is the possibility that in a one-person office like the presidency, in a year where there are no clear front-runners, four candidates would emerge just as soon as three.

God, the Grammy's, and Drugs

I admit to having the dangerous combination of an education and an opinion, which makes me a "snob," at least in the eyes of my wife. But I find the Grammy's weird. Or rather, I find our reaction to them weird. Granted, their ratings were dreadful, but that really any of us care about them at all anymore is puzzling. I realize that such award shows do not appeal to me, as I cannot help but view music in light of history, which forces me to eschew much of what is modern. Even more, I find little innovation in modern pop, and spend far more time listening to podcasts than FM radio. What struck me in particular, though, was the response to Amy Winehouse's victories for best song ("Rehab") and best pop vocal album ("Back to Black"). 

Judging from my wife, it was a moral victory, a win for the underdog, the girl just struggling with an addiction. Now, perhaps my wife is alone in that sentiment, but judging by the audience's reaction, everyone seemed to agree. It really didn't matter how good her album was, only that she was trying to get her life back together...after the threat of prison, of course. I'm not sure any of the albums were particularly worthy of many awards and, being largely unfamiliar with the music scene these days, wouldn't know the difference. I can boast that Natalie Cole agrees with me, but still I find Winehouse's music uninspiring to say the least. I understand that she has successfully made lounge music from the 50's cool again, but is that really worth heaping praise on? (Which reminds me, is her music even good, or has she just run into a sympathetic Postmodern crowd, anxious to crown the latest "old" thing the next "in" thing. I remember Norah Jones riding a similar wave on better-than-average music, only to join the ranks of the musically "good, but not compelling" category quickly thereafter.)

While I didn't watch the whole show, I can only say that my general sentiment was one of emptiness. Not to sound like a college radio DJ, but do we really believe these shows are driven by much more than the music industry picking who they would want to win, who should win? Winehouse was apparently a great pick, as no one was going to deny an addict struggling to recover. But at the end of the day, the show was just a trip down memory lane, hoping to tap into some rock nostalgia, and a display of the latest and greatest, who rarely seem able to develop an interesting chordal progression, presumably because it doesn't sell well.

This reminded me of a seminal reality as it concerns art, morality and religion. Ultimately, my main objection to most modern art, be it oil on canvas, Amy Winehouse, or independent films, is that they are trying to cull from a rather shallow well: themselves. While occasionally brilliant pieces of artwork is produced using the inside-out method (I still enjoy Radiohead's Grammy-winning "OK Computer", and Warhol, while overrated, made some interesting observations about popular and celebrity 

culture), I would not be surprised at all if one-hit wonders are a by-product of this method more than anything else. Simply put, we're capable of producing fine art on our own, but inspiration that's lasting is hard to come by in secular circles. Beyond shock and anger, the staples of the modern artist, what else can the world give you?

What's the alternative? Well, I'll call it the outside-in method, the process of devoting your art to God, at the risk of sounding like a pietist. In other words, it is a fool's paradise to assume art is its own reward, or that it can stand on its own for long. (I highly differ from Ayn Rand in this regard.) Eventually, inspiration for the artist will be limited if their own minds and souls are the sole source. But the beauty found in religion, God, or scripture, or any combination of the three, is a treasure trove of inspiration for the modern artist, if they will only bother to look. 

Consider the amazing (stunning, really) output that the Church has produced. 2,000 years worth of sermons based on a pretty small number of ancient texts, and the artform is still evolving. The invention of western music from Josquin des Prez, to Palestrina, to Bach, to wonderful largely anonymous composers who are still producing beautiful poetry. Or the cathedrals that still stand as prayer in stone, even after architecture said those styles were outdated. Again, label me a snob, I just find songs about rehab boring, and worse, depressing. Only when we engage in such Postmodern irony do we chuckle at such a song, and feel so, well, nothing about it.

Further Reading...

Recently I've found a couple of interesting on-line reads that I would like to share about topics outside the usual realm of architecture. I figured that I could give some of my readers a rest and maybe provoke interest regarding other subjects. Below are a few reads well worth one's time:

• As of today, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party is John McCain. When his candidacy was on the rise following his win in New Hampshire, I happened to read an article that at first seemed to be an invitation to support McCain but that ended up actually being a persuasive reminder on what should truly matter in all politics beyond either party's dominant ideology: a creed stating what one believes about human nature and how virtue should play a part in the affairs of individuals. It isn't a question of philosophical purity or consistency but rather a question of whether it is the right thing to do. It is fundamentally better for a political leader to adhere to timeless virtues than to repeat all the right talking points. Benjamin and Jenna Storey make to my mind a convincing point, stating:

" ...they (ideologues) will lose an important -- indeed the most central and precious -- aspect of their creed: the faith in the virtue of individuals to make a good society for themselves, rather than the faith in an ideology to make a good society for us. "

Their article takes libertarians to task and reminds me why I gradually moved away from the libertarianism I subscribed to during my youth. It may seem naive to those who are generally cynical, but I believe it is imperative to preserve virtues that undergird a free and good society.

• Last month Louisiana inaugurated the first the Indian-American governor ever in the U.S. Considering it was a little more than 16 years ago that David Duke was riding high in the Pelican State, the overwelming electoral victory of Bobby Jindal appears to be evidence that voters were finally willing to give a young ambitious man who lacked the traditional Louisiana political pedigree to solve seemingly intractable problems. In a post I wrote on another web site on the night of Jindal's election, I reflect on where the new governor came from, as he and I are fellow alumni at the same high school Baton Rouge. It was a truly unique place, filled with brilliant and talented young minds that stood out from the stiffling malaise that was life in Louisiana during the last few decades. I admit to often being cynical to who politicians are and what they can deliver, but his unique background and proven character makes me more hopeful about that state than ever before.

• Is the ultimate goal of an education is achieving tolerance? From my perspective tolerance is just one of the many means useful to enhancing a person's education, spurring an insatiable curiosity and a desire to continue asking questions about anything. However, to many others, the job of education is not to instill a life-long skill for knowledge or foster employable skills, nor even to familiarize the young to notions of productive achievement. Instead they would like to socialize individuals to accept difference, to doubt any notion of objective intelligence or genuine academic achievement and to scapegoat those who choose to not become part of the group. Scott Walker writes in an understandably bitter tone about the fallacy of the doctrine of inclusion that dominates pedagogy in our public schools. When a school system forces students of various learning ability in the same class, the quality of instruction and achievement declines overall. Be sure to read the accompanying comment thread, as it reveals an orthodox perspective from those who promote the doctrine of inclusion. For these people, the problems with our public schools is not the lack of academic achievement but rather a lack of money for this or that program and that it isn't inclusive enough. How can one be hopeful for any productive reforms from within the school system with such a mentality?

• A particular preoccupation that many women my age seem to have is trying to explain the lack of men wanting to get married. Apparently "commito-phobes" are a problem to many young women, and naturally the men get the blame. If there is one thing I am certain about, it is that the scapegoating of men for all sorts of things that sometimes are really the fault of women only leads to a greater faultline in the expectations of what men and women actually want. In trying to explain why more and more men are delaying or downright shunning marriage, there are two complementary articles I recommend. The first is Kay Hymowitz's exhaustive account describing men's natural state of immaturity and the need for civilized society to channel their energy in productive ways. To put it more simply, young men of today won't grow up because society don't expect them to, which may explain why men don't aspire to marry. The second article is a forum hosted by Dr. Helen at Pajamas Media that focuses on how contemporary society has made marriage a increasingly losing proposition for men, from biased divorce laws to a rejection of letting men be men within marriage. The discussion thread features an endless series of comments from disgruntled men, which in my view are illuminating in spite of their bitterness.
  
  
• For some dazzling and imaginative examples of computer-generated architectural modeling, rendering and graphic, be sure to visit the Slovene Igor Mitric's blog. It's a genuine craft, and doing this kind of work as part of my job makes me that much more appreciative of those who do it with such incredible sophistication.

Politics and an Exploration of Cynicism

Most generations think that the one they are enduring is the worst. Taxes are high, the war will never end, virtue is all but forgotten, and the young kids just don't get it anymore. These are common sentiments uttered in one way or another through the previous centuries as well as this one. It's as though there is a built-in sense of pessimism that we find alluring and attractive, a safeguard against our hopes being dashed and a fallback position when our best intentions don't pan out. These days, I'm hearing more and more about the role cynicism, though, as opposed to pessimism, especially in politics, but also our culture.

Certainly, for me, cynicism is an outgrowth of Post-modern relativism, the by-product of boredom, angst and ennui. In a vacuum of truth and the general fear to commit to an ideology that is "bound to fail," a great deal of posturing has come about, and it looks like a leaning cynic. Just as sarcasm is a way to avoid a certain level of intimacy with other people, cynicism is the posture one takes to avoid political or social intimacy. So instead of cheering on Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, the cynic may disavow themselves of all politics, declaring that none of them are good enough to deserve their support. Better to be a cynic than a broken-hearted activist, the sentiment seems to be.

Cynicism is different from mere pessimism, however, in that pessimism assumes a value system. So the old curmudgeon who doesn't like the way things are going, bases his opinion on a value system that is, in his opinion, being ignored or denigrated. Bitter that taxes are too high? It's because your value system tells you they should be lower. Don't expect them to be lowered anytime soon? History has told you they tend to go up, not down. This is pessimism, a camp I often fall into. Cynicism doesn't complain about taxes being too high or low, but rather might hope the government will use your tax dollars to punish those who disagree with you, by de-funding the military because you oppose war, for example.

Cynicism does not have the type of value system that pessimism has. In fact, it doesn't have one at all. It uses people, it pits them against one another, and is driven by fear of real human contact. I often heard cynicism in jokes about marriage when I was engaged. Sure the jokes were considered harmless, and contain an element of truth. Jokes about how my freedom will be lost and how my wife would be running my life were common until I hinted that those jokes weren't appreciated. (Maybe I have a bad sense of humor, but I found them pedantic and boring after a while, if not offensive.) These are the types of jokes that seemed to suggest marriage is hardly worth it, relationships are doomed to fail, and it’s the best of a bad situation. To me, the pessimist says, marriage is at times hard work and there will be some days that are worse than others. The cynic sees it as the last refuge against what is destined to be a mostly lost cause anyway.

Politically, the Clintons seem to epitomize this sense of cynicism. They've used race explicitly throughout their careers, promising the "disenfranchised" a seat at the table of government. But now that an African-American is running against them, they've done everything they can to pit his race against him. They are the masters of making promises they know they can't keep, or keeping them knowing they'll make the problem worse. They accuse President Bush of being secretive, but are among the most secretive politicians to date. These are the ways they are the gods of supreme cynicism, pitting people against each other, waiting for humanity to fail so they can promise to pick up the pieces.

Obama is at least honest, or he comes across that way to me. He might even be optimistic, even if his form of optimism strikes me as either naive or uninformed. (His brand of populist socialism is either the result of a true optimist who believes the absolute best in humanity, or a Clinton-esque cynic who also hopes he will be able to pick up the pieces when his plans produce misery.) Obama himself highlighted Clinton cynicism when he advertised that the Clintons will "say anything" to get elected. So don't just take my word for it.

Now, I'm not going to say that only one side of the political aisle is prone to cynicism. The failure of Republicans to own and enforce conservative spending habits and legislation has generated a great deal of cynicism where optimism and hope was only a few years in the past. But I would be remiss if I didn't say that liberalism ultimately embodies cynicism more than conservatism in many ways. Liberalism, and its legislative life, are built on a certain assumptions about humanity, mainly that we are in need of a government to do what we cannot do: keep ourselves healthy, educated, or in good financial shape. At its heart, liberalism assumes the worst in people, and may even hope for their downfall to prove their biases correct. While conservatism embodies the belief in original sin, and the consequent need for limited government, property rights and the rule of law, this is born more out of fundamental anthropology that might lead one to doubt our potential, but not lose all hope. A basic lack of trust in humanity, fickle and unpredictable though they may be, is what drives much liberal ideology, and leads many a politician to unknowingly embrace cynicism.

Finally, I don't know that merely being "positive" is the antithesis or solution to cynicism. If I bought this theory, I might be a big fan of "The Power of Positive Thinking" or other self-esteem preachers/writers. Cynicism and this sense of positivism are both based on a false understanding of the human person, which is a being plagued by sin but created in the positive image of God. We can be a people of hope and be mindful of our limitations without drifting too far to either pole. Can we elect politicians that espouse a similar worldview, or is this message too nuanced for the global stage?

Reflections Along the Danube: Thoughts about Budapest

At the beginning of the new year I traveled to Hungary for the first time on family business. The end of the Cold War has been the geopolitical event with the most meaning for my family, allowing us to build deep bonds with families behind the former Iron Curtain that will hopefully endure for the rest of our lives. I have benefited by cultivating lasting friendships in the former East Germany while other members of my family have spent considerable time in Poland, Hungary, Russia and Romania. These ex-communist countries have somehow held a deep fascination among all of us Franco-Americans, possibly in that these countries maintained a sense of foreign-ness that has long been lost in much of Western Europe due to decades of political isolation. The people of these places have also been unusually warm and down-to-earth, failing to exhibit the typically blase and indifferent smugness all too prevalent among Western Europeans.


Arriving in the outskirts Budapest, I was reminded instantly of my year living near Chemnitz only three years after German reunification: a landscaped marked by houses of gray and dull stucco, old busses, and remnants of the dismal Soviet-era architecture. Admittedly the dead of winter is the least ideal time to visit these countries, as the short daylight, snow and barren trees, only intensify the dreariness of structures that beg to be renovated or at least worthy of being torn down. It was closer to my visits to Prague during my year in Germany, in which I stayed with friends in the suburban areas that are defined by cheap concrete construction and unpainted facades. At least the East Germans were receiving generous funds from their western counterparts to renovate most buildings and infrastructure--something the Czechs, Hungarians and Poles were not nearly as fortunate to have.

Since there was so much to take in while staying in one of the world's most beautiful cities, writing about it all under one coherent theme was not practical. Instead, multiple themes emerged during my experience:

• Materiality: A noticeable observation when traveling from an American metropolis to an historic European one is the changing qualities of building materials. Simply put, stone is everywhere in cities like Budapest compared to my home of Dallas, which is visually defined by its glassy skyline, mirror-finish metal paneled walls and concrete paving and bridges. Naturally this lends people to identify stone-clad places as 'old' and glass-and-steel clad places as 'new', but a more accurate contrast would be between timelessness and ephemeralness. In my view, any form or object made out of stone somehow never seems to 'get old' in spite of the passing of time, while forms made of modern materials seem to 'get old' the day after its become complete. Part of the reason stems from the fact that stone once formed will last an eternity and that is the product of primal natural forces. Glass, metal and even stucco are man-made derived from natural materials and while they theoretically can last forever, they are diminished relatively quickly by natural forces such as weather, heat and impact. Walking on the streets that feature a mixture between modern and old facades the differences of impression can be striking. On one side, the stone is weathered but its character only enhanced and inherent beauty intact. On the other, a glass curtain wall covered in a film of grime and water stains and condensation, far from its most ideal state when they were new. The irony emerges when one realizes that although a modern curtain wall with precise detailing can be extremely costly, when juxtaposed with a stonewall the former still seems cheap in comparison. Most the city's urban fabric dates from at least one hundred years ago, and much of it remains to be fully renovated since those times; and yet, the richness and vitality of these stone buildings is well intact. I wonder if any other kind of modern material could achieve the same effect.
  
  


• Architectural Vocabulary: Like other major capitals of the Hapsburg empire, Budapest exhibits a rich variety of historical styles and stylistic experimentation. In addition to exquisite examples of Gothic, Baroque and Neoclassical, the city is dotted with facades inspired by the Viennese Secession and Belgian Art Nouveau. In each of those styles there is evidence of experimentation and improvisation, giving the buildings a distinctive local character. Being usually mired in contemporary design trends at work, absorbing the rich variety of architectural vocabulary reminded me of the fact buildings indeed do communicate a language. Symbols and recurring ornamental motifs are part of a visual language that not only have the effect of modulating light, shadow, and drainage along the walls, but they also unify cultural artifacts in a harmonious structure. This yields particularly interesting results in Hungary, a land the bridges East and West, Catholic Muslim and Orthodox Christianity, and whose language is completely unrelated to any other European language. Taking in the ecclecticism that ties together Budapest's endless series of monuments, it is evident that the Hungarians do consider themselves unique from their neighbors, but they are still trying to figure out what makes architecture specifically "Hungarian". Flamboyant ogive arches can be seen everywhere, hinting to eastern Byzantine and even Indian roots (it is believed the Magyars came from Asia), while folk-derived cartouche patterns grace the facades of building completed near the turn of the 20th century as part of a Hungarian interpretation of the Viennese "Jugendstil". The colorful roof tile patterns on many of buildings of all historic styles add vibrancy and act as assertive markers to the city skyline. Elaborate murals in both Gothic and Baroque structures exhibit a sort of wavy halo kind of pattern I have found in no other city. In my view it is especially important to closely study architectural ornament of countries who have relatively faint international cultural presence, since it is the most accessible way to somewhat understand who the inhabitants are compared to researching obscure national histories or learning their language. The Austro-Hungarian empire was a fertile context in which to develop a national architectural language, as all these diverse nations were cobbled together but could never successfully coalesce into a unified political identity. The omnipresence of the exhuberant baroque and the neo-baroque compared to the relative paucity of sober neoclassical in cities like Vienna, Budapest and Prague attest not only to the historic epochs of prosperity but also to a desire for playful and original cultural expression that would differentiate places in this large multi-ethnic empire. Before going to Hungary, I made sure to closely browse an excellent book on the architectural language of the Hapsburg empire that has been all too often overlooked in architectural history surveys.
  
  


• Soviet-era Sprawl: Although we in the States seem to revel in droning on and on about our own brand of urban sprawl, I couldn't help but be grateful that our cities haven't been subjected to an even more jarringly imposing alternative commonly found in all cities and towns behind the Iron Curtain. In the winter, the numerous brownish-grey, pre-fabricated concrete apartment blocks and towers dominate the town's outskirts like tired wooly mammoths at the end of the ice age. The cheap and drab stucco finish is flaking off, the roofscapes are often now topped with corporate billboards, and the outdoor balconies are frequently framed in a hideous orange acrylic panel. The fact that these structures are often taller than the older vernacular structures nearby only intensify their monotony upon the landscape, whereas our suburban tract homes are tempered by growing trees and vegetation over time. One doesn't have to travel all that far from the central historic core before these blocks rear their ugly heads, which should remind us naive Americans about the way many people in Europe actually live: far from joyfully residing in a cozy apartment along a charming historic street, much of the European working and middle class live in these dull and dense blocks that in our country were mostly reserved the extremely destitute (think Cabrini Green). These blocks are not going anywhere as housing is tight and many residents have made them their home for many decades. It makes me kind of appreciate the low-rise wood framed apartment complex that tends to house many of our poor, since they are relatively hidden from view and are constructed to last for no more than a few decades before becoming something else. For those readers who haven't had the chance to encounter Soviet-era sprawl, imagine everything you hate about modern architecture and then deliberately cheapen the materials and limit the colors and textures to the most vomit-like palette. Then build hundreds of the same identical blocks with zero curb appeal and lifeless streets and public spaces. Give me the quiet cracker-jack box suburban subdivision any day
  
  


• Lighting Design: For those of us Americans living in lower geographic latitudes, one often forgets how short the daylight lasts in Europe during the winter. By the time I would leave the guest apartment after lunch, the sun alreay began to set. It resulted that I would see many of Budapest's landmarks at night, to which I credit the dramatic artificial illumination that laces the city. During the day visual hierarchy of the city's skyline is determined by dominating forms and profiles such as domes and spires. At night this hierarchy is informed by illumination, with the major monuments brightly lit like lanterns while the rest of the city fabric is submerged in modest street lighting. The most important public squares and the most heavily trafficed streets present themselves as glowing corridors and cavities, like a diagram when perched along the hillside castle on the Buda side. The Danube river comes alive, functioning as reflective canvas to the city's dazzling display of light and dynamism at night. Considering that in many parts of the world the night is as long or longer than the day, a building is only as effective as its ability to manipulate both natural and artificial light. Although most of the old buildings were designed before the advent of electrical lighting, I found that their highly articulated masonry surfaces allowed for a more powerful aesthetic expression under the lights than their sleeker modern counterparts.
  
  


• It's all fundamentally about the people: Beautiful architecture can do a lot to impress a visitor, but the quality in the interaction with the local inhabitants marks the experience even more. Though genuinely friendly, I was struck how seldomly the Hungarians I came across actually smiled. I didn't hear much laughter either and the overall mood seemed to be one of indifference and sobriety. I remember the people of Prague to be littel bit more jovial and easy going, always looking for ways to have a good time (beer-drinking is their national pastime). For any city as dependent on foreign tourism as Budapest, the retail experience is at the frontlines of constructing a desired impression on visitors. Shop clerks are do their job competently, but the delivery of the service still leaves a cold impression. I sometimes wonder if the long period of Communistic rule sapped the energy and joy out of the retail experience. There are inefficiencies in how long one must wait in line and in the limited selection of goods. In the subway stations there are far too few ticket counters and way too many ticket inspectors (and the automated machines tend to eat more money than it costs). These of course are all really little nit picks on my part, but other family members were driven to the edge on these little things to the point that they are not determined to visit the city again. Fortunately, I wasn't too annoyed by the level of service at all, since it can't overshadow the architectural richness and romantic urban landscapes of Budapest. I would love to come back again (especially during a warmer time) but we do have to be mindful that for most people, the level of customer service is as important as the level of architectural excellence.

Episode #3

Episode #3 finds corbusier and relievedebtor discussing why architects love power. Is it because of a particular political persuasion, or because they fear the unpredictable nature of the market? Listen here.

Update: Further comments by corbusier on the subject can be found here.

The Patriots: Putting Adam Smith to the Test

One of the basic tenets of free-market capitalism is this: if we excel in our own small corner of the world, others will benefit along with us. Adam Smith called it the Invisible Hand, the force that allowed the butcher, baker and brewer to flourish as they practiced their craft while providing valuable services to others. Now this is, of course, macro economics at a very micro level, and it doesn’t take into account an enormous amount of variables: unforeseen incentives and changes in the market, government interference and regulation, the unpredictable nature of people themselves, among others. But this age-old doctrine seems to have worked pretty well in America, at least according to Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and well, myself. And not only in America, but pretty much anywhere free markets are encouraged and the rule of law defended, be it Hong Kong, Chile or Estonia. Yes, when people practice their craft legally and honestly, others benefit alongside them. That this simple doctrine works as well in a small town as internationally speaks to its simple truth and the universal nature of incentives.

But we have seen that old-fashioned jealousy, envy and fear have led many to denounce the baker and the butcher when they excel at their craft and make a fortune doing it. Alongside renouncing the baker and butcher comes a condemnation of the vehicle (capitalism) that allowed such wealth to be legally and ethically created in the first place. “It’s unfair,” they cry, “that so few should become so wealthy while so many are still so poor!” It’s the exact line that the likes of Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Huckabee and other such populists spew on the campaign trail. And the same thing is said about others who excel, even to the point of perfection. As I predicted, the venom spit towards the New England Patriots has increased as they inched closer and closer to perfection. America has decided not to cheer on this team, but to root for their downfall. As I’ve said before, how unpatriotic!

But what about Adam Smith’s theory? Does it really work, or is it just a simple fantasy that may work in theory but never in practice? Let the Patriots help answer the question. Without a doubt, we can say they have excelled at their craft, more than anyone else in league history. Not only have they excelled, but they’ve done so in an era of free agency, losing plenty of marquee names over the years. They’ve also done it in the era of the salary cap, which means money alone could never solve their personnel problems. They’ve done it with a brilliant scheme, a coaching genius, and unmatched shrewdness...you know, the old-fashioned way. I can think of no better example than the New England Patriots to put Adam Smith’s much maligned theory to the test. So let’s consider who else has benefited from the Patriots’ success, besides the fans, owners and businesses in and around New England, which in and of itself counts for quite a few people.

1. The networks. The Patriots run at perfection has been a boon for NFL ratings, which were on a downturn the last several years. Their close Monday night game against the Ravens set an all-time cable ratings record. The Patriots-Giants game was the fifth highest rated NFL game of all time, and it came on a Saturday night. For more on their record ratings, go here. Clearly, the television networks are ecstatic to pull those shares and pass the cost on to advertisers.

2. The NFL. The Patriot’s run has gotten the casual fan more involved in the product on the field, just as the McGwire/Sosa home run chase did in 1998 for MLB. Like any business, the NFL is always looking to expand market share, either by exciting an apathetic audience or generating a new one altogether. The Patriot’s have been a godsend, bringing positive media exposure to a league that had been bombarded by dog-fighting, gun-wielding, drunk-driving thugs in the off-season.

3. Their competition. Yes, even the Patriots’ competition benefits from their excellence. It sets the bar higher and in turn forces them to improve. (For example, the Colts’ success forced the Jaguars to get better.) It also gives a roadmap for how teams can succeed in an era of free agency and the salary cap. It’s no wonder every year college and pro teams pick off the Patriots’ staff, hoping they can emulate New England’s success.

Maybe the question should be, who hasn’t benefited from the Patriots’ success? I can’t think of anyone, from retailers to the league to big-time television. Adam Smith, from my point of view, has been proven right yet again.

Update: Check out Gavin Kennedy's post here.

Update 2: For a more cynical take on the Patriots' success, go here.

Why There’s No “Liturgical Vote”

Why do Evangelicals get to have all the fun? Since when did they become the only voting bloc that mattered anymore? With Mike Huckabee’s populist and shrewdly Christian message winning over voters in Iowa, one has to wonder if such a group could really be so easily manipulated. And why, pray tell, don’t you ever hear about the mainline Protestant voting bloc, the Catholic bloc, or the “Liturgical” bloc? There must be something about being an Evangelical that really is different, that really matters, if every semi-conservative politician takes such great pains to reach out to them. As a theological Evangelical (like, I believe in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and whatnot), but also a liturgical theologian (and, hence, not what the mainstream media would call an “Evangelical”), I wonder why no one courts my vote?

I will admit, this will not be a politically correct essay. I have long delighted that Evangelicals were in my political corner. But now I’m irritated. This is writing in broad strokes, of course, and I have to give Evangelicals all the credit in the world for their religious values, charity of heart and love of God. It’s the politics that are pushing my buttons. I will be doubly irritated if another pseudo-conservative like Bush is elected in the lamentable Mike Huckabee, who strikes me as the greatest threat to thrust populism into conservatism with his class warfare mantra, a la John Edwards. So here are my thoughts on how the Evangelicals came to prominence instead of boring ol’ Christians like me.

1. Evangelicals can be swayed by single issues, even if a politician is in no place to do anything about it. Abortion comes to mind, but this speaks to culture generally. Please, name the last president who did much about abortion. I can think of none, shy of using the bully pulpit to defend the right to life as a concept. You might say, “Yes, but they appoint judges, who may overturn Roe v. Wade.” All very fine and good. But I hope the judges that overturn Roe v. Wade do so because it is unconstitutional, not necessarily because life begins at conception, even though I believe it does. In other words, it’s important to me personally that my president is pro-life, but I don’t expect a pro-life President (see George W. Bush) to change much, if anything, with regards to abortion law. I do want a president who has a sophisticated understanding of the balance of powers, and who views the Constitution from an Originalist framework. In this regard, Giuliani, even though he’s “pro-choice,” is the better choice than Huckabee, who seems incapable of much sophistication at all, but instead exceptional communication.

2. Evangelicals are not moved by the fragile relationship between church and state that preserves a true republic. That is to say their political philosophy seems to run about skin deep. In fact, I’ve heard all the finesse of a bulldozer when understanding how church and state must keep their separation. (That’s the nicest I can phrase it.) It seems as though there is a great deal of fear that leads Evangelicals to need Christianity in the public sphere. But even as a Christian, I have few fears of government persecution any time soon, and government indifference towards religion is absolutely constitutional. If Christians and/or Evangelicals so want what verges on a theocracy, I’m sure that can be accommodated somewhere. But not in America, as long as our Constitution survives. Issues like the 10 Commandments in the courthouses, even “In God We Trust” on currency are symbolic gestures at best. But these are issues that fuel Evangelicals and inspire them. It leaves little doubt in my mind, though, that the right charlatan will know what strings to pull when he/she needs some crucial votes, only to change course once in office. This is my primary fear regarding Huckabee.

3. Evangelicals are emotionally driven, and sadly, can be used. You certainly see it in their theology and worship. Why not politics as well? Don’t forget that Bush ran in 2000 as a domestic candidate, riding compassionate conservatism, pro-life policy, and tax cuts to victory. Only after September 11 did he become a foreign policy president. All of this is to say that he was elected, due in large part to Evangelicals, and even then, due in large part to one or two issues. Yes, there were other issues, but without that issue in his favor with Evangelicals, he would not have been elected and he would not have had the opportunity to spend like a drunken sailor (my apologies to frugal drunken sailors everywhere) and implement questionable programs like Leave No Child Behind, among others.

Make no mistake, there is a massive schism in the Republican party, and now I clearly see it: Evangelicals on one side, and Libertarians on the other. Yes, Democrats have serious fissures as well, probably even worse than the Republicans because they tend to pander to so many different minority groups, who very frequently do not like one another. But why don’t Republicans feel the need to pander to me, or even Catholics? Combined, we are far more powerful than Evangelicals.

So politicians, I urge you: don’t ignore the “liturgical vote.” We, who appreciate ritual, custom, and seeing the big picture of things, also want politicians who stand for values that transcend our immediate context. We understand the fragility of a constitutional republic, just as we appreciate the fragility of virtue among a sinful people. With all possible humility, in the long run, we’re the voters you need, because we’ll be sure to pass down our collective wisdom for generations to come.

Building a Better World: Why elite designers keep worshipping power

Recently I listened to a podcast hosted by Glenn and Helen Reynolds in which discussion revolved around the persistent strain of statist totalitarian philosophy that subliminally resides in contemporary political discourse. At one point in the program Glenn made a reference to Le Corbusier's dedicating his architectural manifestos "To Authority..." as a way of illustrating the common belief that government was to function as the master planner and allocator of a nation's resources in order to achieve utopian social goals.

Such appeals to state authority during the interwar period had become a standard tactic perfectly complementing the rise of highly mobilized and increasingly pervasive state apparatus found in socialism and fascism. We can accuse Le Corbusier and Philip Johnson for sullying their reputations for their involvement with communists and fascists, or for the Bauhaus school for being originally founded by a socialist worker's council, but in the end it became a default mindset to desire an omnipotent and hopefully benevolent state that would usher in radical social progress. Mild transcendentalist libertarians like Frank Lloyd Wright were intellectually out of the loop during the interwar period.

Nowadays we like to shrug off Le Corbusier's naive embrace for unlimited government power to build the cities of tomorrow, pointing out that people prefer not to be treated as mere units to be arbitrarily arranged at the planner's own discretion. After numerous experiments with Modernist town planning resulted in continued social failure, changes were made to supposedly improve the Corbusian model in the hopes of improving the project's appeal to residents as well as to curb endemic social pathologies. Large-scale social housing projects continue to be built with much willing participation by talented young architects looking for their big break, each putting their own ingenious spin on the multi-family Corbusian prototype. In most parts of the world, the planning of communities has not evolved all that much from a man who appealed to authority and awaited impatiently the coming of an all powerful state to set things right (and obviously guided by the architect's god-like genius).

The reason I say that not much has changed in the worldview of many high-design architects is that few if any have made the radical leap in their conception of state power. In the design and building of a better world, the question is never whether the state has too much power. Rather, the question becomes: how can the state acquire more power so that the proper thing can be done? Of course, contemporary designer architects are not political theorists, and such abstract thinking about state power is never meditated on nor even clearly articulated. Rather this unconscious draw to state power is revealed by the kind of projects they choose to highlight in their journals, books and even internet sites. Beyond the multi-million dollar houses exhibited, one often finds projects made possible either by government funds or tax-exempt cultural institutions where matters relating to profitability are outside the scope. And thus architecture magazines are loaded with shiny images of museums, performance halls, stadiums, public housing and university buildings. At school, the curriculum in the studio courses called for public housing, galleries, interpetive centers, museums, arts facilities and a brand new downtown district for a Dutch city.

Design specialties that tend to be market-focused, such as retail shopping centers, resort hotels, mid-priced apartments, office buildings and 99.9% of single-family houses are given little to no attention. Specialties requiring detailed programatic knowledge and the maximizing of efficiency such as hospitals, penitentiaries, or assisted living centers are for the most part equally ignored. Architecture journals and publishers of architect produce what they like and are inspired by. In a better world, more money should be spent on the kind of buildings high-design architects enjoy doing, projects liberated from the mundane cares of liberal capitalist society like private property rights, limited budgets, eeking out profits, and desire average people to simply be left alone.

In a better world, architecture firms would not be run like a business but more like a collaborative studio workshop, where fees are considered secondary compared to the opportunity of creating something truly spectacular and endowing it with a high-minded moral purpose. There is no need to watch the bottom line, nor worry about how much to pay your workers since it should be an honor to the have the privilege to be part of such important work (which describes what actually happens in many of the most high-end boutique firms worldwide).

In a better world, government would be structured in a way that would favor architects, managing a limitless number of public works projects to keep everyone busy and enacting regulations and policies that conform to their ideals, from proper town planning to strict environmental policies that would prevent individual non-designers from realizing their own buildings without adequate guidance from professionals who better understand the expanding minefield of approved materials and methods. Instead of winning jobs by pleasing repeatedly pleasing the client or skillfully marketing potential target opportunities, competitions judged by culturally enlightened dignitaries and sympathetic architects would be the main means of selecting designers for all sorts of civic projects. It would ensure a consistently high level of creative and artistic quality while jettisoning the need for designers to balance both conceptual depth and running an enterprise of dedicated employees who seek stable careers. Quality would prevail over profitability, exquite detailing and technological sophistication triumphing over pragramatic simplicity that aims to be just good enough.

In a better world, preparing for war would not be a priority. Rather, all that money supposedly wasted on national defense could be more productively spent on even more government-comissioned public works projects. Some of those projects could function as a solution to global conflict, such as centers for peace, memorials or museums recalling this or that episode of genocide, goodwill bridges, and more international sports festivals such as the olympics that always call for additional garissons of architects. Better yet, redevelop areas devastated by war in such a thoughtful way so as to prevent social upheaval or inter-ethnic strife. Just as career diplomats put their faith in papering over inter-state conflicts with one toothless accord after the next, some elite architects and their clients (often non-profit foundations determined to do good without achieving any meaningful reform) believe in the spiritual and emotional power of buildings and cities to overcome unresolvable political fissures.

A case in point was an article I came across about the design of the new headquarters for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by Thom Mayne of Morphosis. Much of the article discusses the tension between the satellite center's users and the architect's bold vision. Making a practical building was already quite a challenge, but containing a soaring budget had become almost impossible when the federal government chose Mayne to design their edifices. Mr. Mayne appears to have no qualms, stating:"Why waste money on public buildings? Well, what else are you going to do to represent a culture?" He then goes on to equate the cost of his buildings with the amount of money the government spends on the Iraq war per hour, so as to avoid evaluating the cost of his project in absolute terms. By describing the cost of his projects in terms of how the same money could be spent on a war is an open declaration of Mr. Mayne's political values and an honest expression of where he thinks government funds should go. Far be it for a state to perform its most fundamental role (defend property from outside enemies) or achieve critical goals in ensuring a stable balance of power around the globe; rather, it should be spending unlimited sums on unnecessary architectural monuments to bloated government bureaucracy.

To this day I still remember statements made in a blog post at BLDGBLOG, one of the largest architecture blogs around. In writing about the development of a brand-new city by the communist chinese government that will implement to the most green technologies. It was apparent that Geoff Manaugh was awe-struck by the shear scale and ambition of the project, and that this somehow shoud shame Americans in trying to supersede it by launching an even more technically superior city built and designed from scratch. Manaugh writes,

"Compare that to the hum-drum initiatives under discussion now to rebuild New Orleans, and you can't help but conclude that the United States is in such an advanced state of structural decrepitude and urban-imaginative bankruptcy that opening up a few branches of CVS or a Ross Dress For Less somehow passes for successful urbanism."

Although building brand new communities at the small scale is an American tradition, building humongous planned cities by marshalling unlimited amounts of cheap and abused labor and discouraging the rights of private property owners is not in our cultural DNA. Somehow it is imaginatively bankrupt to foster a loose and decentralized blueprint that ensures maximum mobility and flexibility, but it is successful urbanism to dredge up Corbusian fantasies a la chinoise, a fantasy that requires tremendous amounts of state coercion and the inefficient acquisition of economic resources by the state that would have been more productively used by private enterprise.

As for New Orleans, the federal government's response to rebuild reveals several things: For all the billions funneled into the recovery effort, it is to be expected that much of the money has not been put to good use, which is to be expected when federal agencies manage anything. Second, public did not seem to be all that favorable to initiating a massively scaled rebuilding of a city that is below sea level, in particular when it was the result of another previous large-scale public works projects (Army Corps of Engineers' design of the Mississippi valley flood control system). An lastly, as the New Orleans has slowly recovered, the population has risen to about two-thirds the pre-Katrina level, which, having lived there myself, is probably sensible considering a good third were not up to much and not benefiting themselves by living in New Orleans. As the city could only the sustain the livelihoods of up to a certain number of inhabitants, it is not apparent that a massive public works undertaking would ensure long term growth and prosperity for the additional population. What is actually more fascinating and something few other countries around the world could accomplish is the successful relocation and significant improvements in the daily life of the poorest New Orleaneans who have found more welcoming homes in other cities so quickly. The logistics of such a massive evacuation in addition to the limitless numbers of volunteers and financial donations in such a short period of time attests to America's resilience and decentralized dynamism. This perspective cherishes individual resolve, economic flexibility, and voluntary association and providing solutions at the local level. It doesn't offer a sexy urban vision for aspiring and unadmitted power-hungry urban designers that would seem to prefer a massive mobilization of subjects to build something no one really needs.

As a self-confessed libertarian on many topics, it's not that I'm disturbed that elite high-design architects and the avant-garde urban planners would like to increase state power to build more projects to their liking. But rather it's that they do not want to openly admit they worship centralized political power, a form of enlightened despot that concurs with their visions for a better world: a world that reveres artistic passion over economic self-interest, constructing new cities and constantly reimagining the built environment (as if it needs it anyhow), and foresaking the government's role to provide for the national defense in favor of centralized construction policies.

This better world hasn't fully manifested itself yet, but as I browse the glossy architecture magazines these days, it's obvious that there is a part of the world that almost fits the bill as a better world: Europe. Some contemporary buildings there are amazing and gorgeously inspired, but it is also an extremely difficult environment for many who dream to practice architecture but are not part of an thin elite class of gifted designers. They build and they build, but even the most cutting-edge of schemes fails significantly ameliorate social misery and unrest. As they continue to build for a better world, I wonder if these conscientious creators ask themselves if in reality that have unknowingly made it worse.