One further thought after last weekend's conference...
As I see it, the tension between Front Porch Republic's agrarianism and urbanism has something to do with what Caleb Stegall describes as "standing on your own two feet." People who take inspiration from Wendell Berry emphasize doing things for oneself, or knowing the people who do the things you can't do. "Self-reliance" is the wrong phrase for this virtue, because that's too individualistic. Perhaps we should say: flourishing in a community requires attention to place.
Now, an urbanist can certainly pay attention to her city. But the problem I'd expect Front Porchers to split on is how community itself can flourish in urban settings. Because I'll admit it's hard to know your neighbors. Do you locate the problem in post-war urban design's capitulation to automobile culture? Is it the organizational necessity of impersonal institutions? Is there something in the nature of cities that undermines attention to community and place? Do the distributivists think that there's an inherent problem in city dwellers' renting of abodes? I'd love to see some of the Porchers tackle these questions.
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2 comments:
Totally off the top of my head, I'd say it's something in the nature of cities. My experience with New York, anyway, is that because of density, you've got relatively speedy access to the people you want to spend time with, even if they don't live next door. And moreover, chances are the things you want to do often aren't in your neighborhood, simply because there's lots of stuff to do all over the city and because the areas with the most things to do are often more expensive to live in. Of course, this is all from the perspective of an upper-middle-class white guy who was only there for five years.
I've lived in New York before, and I was always roaming to different parts of town. It's different in Baltimore. For one thing, the neighborhoods with nice museums and concert halls (second- or third-rate by New York standards, but good enough for me) are relatively more affordable. Also, the Baltimore bus system is not nearly as reliable as the New York subway, so I tend to do things within walking distance.
We need someone who grew up in Brooklyn or Queens to chime in here, I think.
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