Finding a New “Why”

I began Granola Shotgun in January of 2014 as a way to explore how we, as a society, might get back to building more of the kinds of places I love. For me that meant human scaled, walkable, mixed use neighborhoods that were ubiquitous seventy five years ago. I became a member of various advocacy organizations and sought out people who were working toward this seemingly simple goal. I was asked to speak at conferences around the country and abroad, wrote chapters for print anthologies, and contributed to numerous online publications. But I’ve reached a point where I no longer believe it’s possible. Or perhaps it is possible under certain limited conditions, but only under excruciating pain at great expense and at ruinous risk of catastrophic failure for those who attempt it. There’s just too much institutional and cultural friction standing in the way. The juice ain’t worth the squeeze. That begs the question… Why might I continue?

Around the same time as my loss of inspiration, friends from Los Angeles were sending me photos from their visit to Britain. I lived in the UK myself as a scholarship student decades ago and I had two responses to their images. First, these Old World locations are charming. Second, even the Europeans don’t actually build new places like this anymore.

Most of everything being constructed everywhere these days is some version of auto-oriented suburbia. There’s lots of infrastructure dedicated to making all the cars comfortable and happy. Humans? Less so. What the voting public and/or consumers demand is traffic free roadways and ample free parking decorated with tasteful strips of shrubbery. This has been true for my entire life. Vestiges of the past linger on as either well tended tourist destinations, or semi-abandoned ruins. Everything else is a Sainsbury car park and a housing estate of no particular distinction off the side of a motorway. As an Australian friend once said, “The entire anglosphere is one giant Geelong.” Ouch. See also, Mississauga in Canada.

A while back I was invited to a conference in Sacramento - the state capitol here in California. The nominal topic focused on market rate solutions to affordable housing. There were the usual suspects - a mixture of free market capitalists, well intentioned do-gooders, policy wonks, lobbyists for this or that special interest group, and a sprinkling of oddballs like me.

I ignored the expert speakers and philanthropic host who are (in my opinion after a decade of exploration on the topic) ultimately irrelevant. Instead, I chatted with the hotel staff in search of how they navigate their own personal housing situations. One of the bartenders was in his sixties and said he left San Francisco in 1981. He said the city was in decline back then and it just keeps getting worse as far as he’s concerned. He bought a house on the river just outside Sacramento. It's his little piece of Heaven. The house was cheap, but he was paying 18% interest on his mortgage back then. Each time interest rates dropped over the years his equity increased and he kept refinanced all the way down. He said the place is now worth at least $900,000. Over the years he had also bought a couple of duplexes that he rents for income. Those two properties have also steadily increased in value and are coming in handy now as he nears retirement.

Another bartender in his early twenties said he was renting with roommates, but had plans to get his real estate license and flip houses. I asked him for some specifics about where and how. I’m always interested in the particulars. He just blinked and went slack jawed. I got the same feeling from him as a little kid who announced he wanted to be a professional basketball player or an astronaut. His aspirations were still larval and hadn’t quite congealed yet. Perhaps his plans will flesh out as he matures.

Then there were the two ladies I randomly sat next to before the conference began. I asked one about her background. Her people were Irish and left the Olde Country under duress. Her parents came to California from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression in the 1930s. She and her late husband opened a butcher shop as newlyweds. They bought their California home in 1966 when she was twenty four years old. (Quick math… she’s now north of eighty.) She's lived at that house ever since. As our conversation proceeded I realized she was at the conference to protest any discussion of affordable housing, not support it.

I asked her if she could duplicate that same home purchase today if she were twenty four again and had to start all over. That was the essence of the conference. How do we facilatite people today doing precisely what she and her husband had done decades ago? Her answer was swift and certain. "We were hard workers, not like young people today."

That's when she introduced me to the second lady as she approached and sat down. She was a neighbor, friend, and real estate agent. The ladies had known each other for a long time. The second woman was a serious spitfire who knew every person who held public office in the state and how they voted on everything. She had all the documentation on hand. "The problem we're dealing with are all these people who come here to destroy our country." They were both from the John Birch Society.

The sharp lady explained it to me. “Affordable housing is a communist conspiracy organized by the United Nations.” This was a direct quote. “Building more housing in our clean, safe neighborhood will turn it into a slum.” To sum up her understanding of the situation, the only people who deserve a place to live are people who already own homes - preferably old ladies. Some version of this philosophy is held by a plurality, if not an outright majority, of Americans.

If you turn that coin over it’s complimented by the politically opposite and equally virulent lefty understanding that property developers are all evil racist rentier capitalist monsters who derive joy from raping the Earth. Convergent evolution has brought the far Right and far Left together in a contest to see who can prevent more new homes from being built. This is the moment I walked out of the conference and entirely lost interest in the topic. We have a housing problem and it will work it self out (or not) without me. I simply don’t care anymore.

So why have a blog on the topic? This is my friend Willie. I can’t tell you how much pure joy I get from spending time with him. I’ll be attending his wedding next weekend and I’m so excited about it. Willie and I met years ago when he reached out to me on Granola Shotgun. We met in person at a cafe, chatted, and have been fast friends ever since.

I’ve met so many amazing people through this blog. Some, like Willie, are solid friends for life. Many others are people I learned from and enjoy knowing in a more casual way. And then there are all those that I know through correspondence that I have never met in the flesh and probably never will. But they also contribute to deeply satisfying connections and a wider view of the world.

Will writing about architecture and urban form change anything? No. The world will change when (and if) it wants to. And if that day arrives the change will almost certainly be different from anything I might have in mind. Shrug. The “why” of Granola Shotgun is about great people feeling their way through all the friction looking for whatever works for them. That’s interesting. Especially if we do it together.