Front Porch Cycle Chic: The revolt against lifestyle

[Welcome, visitors from Carbon Trace(!) and Copenhagen Cycle Chic(!)--and thanks to Mikael for his kind mention of this post. I hope you enjoy your visit.]

Two people converse next to a high-wheel bicycle at the fence of the first home of Alfred W. Bitting, 259 North Emporia Avenue, Wichita, c. 1882. Unknown photographer. Click image to enlarge. Repository: Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum. Image found here.

I don't know whether the bicycle in the picture belonged to the Bitting family or to their visitor. But it doesn't matter. What matters for purposes of this (very long) piece is what that bicycle suggests to me and, indeed, what cycling has come to embody for me: an easy, practical means for its owner to maintain a connection with others who don't live within its owner's immediate vicinity.

Something I'd never before imagined myself seeing was a philosophical kinship of any sort between Copenhagen Cycle Chic and Front Porch Republic. But that was before this morning. As strange a confluence as this is, though, it matters to you--or should--if you share my interest in trying to shift the conceptual frame cycling gets placed in by Wichitans--even by most cyclists--known by the insidious term "lifestyle." Until that shift occurs, we'll continue to see really, really nice bike paths built that don't really go to places where people live, work and shop and, at the same time, a continued lack of on-street infrastructure for cyclists that would facilitate their getting to places where they do live, work and shop.

As recent visitors to this blog know, I've written approvingly in a couple of posts over the past few days about the Cycle Chic movement. The idea, despite the name, is really very simple: You don't need a fancy bike or clothes; ideally, you don't even need a helmet. Just put on the clothes and shoes you'd usually wear for work or shopping, dust off your one-speed cruiser, and go. The coolness of Cycle Chic is precisely that the rider wears what s/he usually wears, goes where s/he usually goes and does what s/he usually does--just on a bicycle. There's absolutely no affectation involved with Cycle Chic, no "in" crowd, no special gear; the entire point is not muss and fuss, but the absence of it. Or, as Henry David Thoreau memorably put the matter regarding the general affairs of one's life, "Simplify, simplify!"

But as many of you know, in-town cycling is now, well, chic. Those of us who want to cycle as a practical and inexpensive means of getting around town to do what needs to be done are now a Market: a group of people who need Stuff, whether or not they in fact need that Stuff. And yesterday Mikael of Copenhagen Cycle Chic put up a lengthy post identifying a couple of the more disturbing manifestations of this fact that have recently appeared: Shimano (the company that almost certainly manufactured your 21-speed bike's shifters and derailleurs) is now apparently marketing "'Cycling shoes' that were completely normal shoes, just with a Shimano logo." Or this passage from a recent Reuters story:

In keeping with the city's efforts to promote cycling, luxury apparel maker LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton asked students at the Fashion Institute of Technology to create chic yet affordable cycling gear.

"We want to do everything we can to raise the profile of biking in New York," Janette Sadik-Khan, commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, said at the news conference to announce the winning design.

"Having functioning, attractive gear so you can arrive at work looking stylish should be very encouraging," she said. "No one wants to show up at work looking like bike messengers."

To which Mikael replies, "Unbelievable. '...functioning, attractive gear'? Open your closets. Buy a chainguard. Fenders. Off you go."

In the face of market capitalism, Mikael concludes, "Let's sell bicycles and bicycle culture. Let's make our cities nicer places to live": activities not usually thought of as being among the contributive causes of the wealth of nations. In other words: the buying and selling of bicycles aside, Cycle Chic is very much about its participants' extricating themselves, if only a little, from the consumerist dynamic.

This idea has been one of this blog's central assumptions almost from its very beginnings:

Because Nature matters to cyclists, they become different sorts of consumers of their world. Topography and weather and their bodies' and bicycles' needs, not fantasy, shape their choices--indeed, those factors reacquire an immediacy that, [Fredric] Jameson argues, postmodern culture had assumed for them. The local and immediate are what catch and hold their attention. Theirs are pragmatic sorts of choices, and being compelled to make such choices has a way of revealing just how superfluous and self-indulgent most people's choices are. This, of course, is something the vast majority of manufacturers, marketers and merchants would prefer we not dwell on too thoughtfully or for too long.

I'm not arguing that serious cycling is at its heart anti-capitalist but, rather, that it goes against the grain of how consumerism has come to shape our thinking about wants and needs and how to meet them. It thus opens up a space for the individual to see him- or herself relative to those dynamics and respond with a bit more autonomy than s/he might otherwise have.

It's here that we perhaps can begin to see why the term "lifestyle" is so unhelpful as a frame for contextualizing cycling. Within the context of economics, that term has the effect of re-inserting cyclists back into the very dynamic that we're trying to remove ourselves from; within the context of debates about city infrastructure, that term makes it all the easier for the skeptical to respond, "No one's making you ride your bikes" or "Get on the sidewalks, then, if the streets are too unsafe."

A quick perusal of the OED is very instructive here: "Lifestyle" first appeared in the 1920s as a term from psychotherapy "to denote a person's basic character as established early in childhood which governs his reactions and behaviour." It was only in the 1970s, though, that the word acquired its current, more familiar meaning, "A way or style of living." Though it's true that, strictly speaking, there's nary a whiff of consumerism in that latter definition, the mere existence of "Christian Lifestyle" stores--I mean, really: ponder the implications of such a concept--is all you need to know about the extent to which consumerism pervades our thinking about how we live: we live as we do because we choose that manner of living; it is our "style." An entire economy has thus emerged whose purpose is to produce and market items that will outwardly mark for others the style we've chosen.

How we live is sold to us rather than constructed by us; "lifestyle" is designed more to say something to impress others than to say something essential about us as individuals.

Front Porch Republic's "About" statement in effect makes these same arguments about consumerism and/but also identifies Big Government as complicit with corporations: an aiding, abetting co-conspirator eating away at the vitality of what, in this blog, I've been calling communities:

The economic crisis that emerged in late 2008 and the predictable responses it elicited from those in power has served to highlight the extent to which concepts such as human scale, the distribution of power, and our responsibility to the future have been eliminated from the public conversation. It also threatens to worsen the political and economic centralization and atomization that have accompanied the century-long unholy marriage between consumer capitalism and the modern bureaucratic state. We live in a world characterized by a flattened culture and increasingly meaningless freedoms. Little regard is paid to the necessity for those overlapping local and regional groups, communities, and associations that provide a matrix for human flourishing. We’re in a bad way, and the spokesmen and spokeswomen of both our Left and our Right are, for the most part, seriously misguided in their attempts to provide diagnoses, let alone solutions.

Yes indeed. To link these sentiments more directly to the concerns of this blog: It is a sad irony that our cities, entities deliberately planned by and for human beings, in fact more often than not feel denuded of their humanity--assuming they had any humanity to be denuded of in the first place. This has happened because, too often for the past 100 years, city planning plans not with human beings but with automobiles in mind.

Another essay at Front Porch Republic, Patrick Deneen's "A Republic of Front Porches," examines what it takes to be the signs and symptoms of the dissolution of community (broadly defined) in the U.S. via Richard Thomas's 1975 essay, "From Porch to Patio." In the italicized passage below, Deneen quotes Thomas directly, then comments afterward:

When a family member was on the porch it was possible to invite the passerby to stop and come onto the porch for extended conversation. The person on the porch was very much in control of this interaction, as the porch was seen as an extension of the living quarters of the family. Often, a hedge or fence separated the porch from the street or board sidewalk, providing a physical barrier for privacy, yet low enough to permit conversation. The porch served many important social functions in addition to advertising the availability of its inhabitants. A well-shaded porch provided a cool place in the heat of the day for the women to enjoy a rest from household chores. They could exchange gossip or share problems without having to arrange a “neighborhood coffee” or a “bridge party.” The porch also provided a courting space within earshot of protective parents. A boy and a girl could be close on a porch swing, yet still observed, and many a proposal of marriage was made on a porch swing. Older persons derived great pleasure from sitting on the porch, watching the world go by, or seeing the neighborhood children at play.

By contrast, the patio reflected both new settlement patterns and the increasing desire for privacy and withdrawal from interaction with one’s neighbors. “In communities with high rates of mobility, one did not often want to know his neighbor. The constant turn-over of neighbors worked against the long-term relationships which are essential to a sense of belonging.” The patio, it was believed, was a symbol and practical expression of our independence, our liberation from the niggling demands of neighbor and community. Yet, Thomas insightfully notes that it was just as much a symbol and reality of a new kind of bondage, the bondage especially to the automobile and to the grim necessities of mobility, including long commutes and increasing isolation from a wide variety of bonds.

At the end of his essay, Deneen challenges us "to revive our tradition of building and owning homes with front porches, and to be upon them where we can both see our neighbors and be seen by them, speak and listen to one another, and, above all, be in a place between, but firmly in place." I would like to suggest, in keeping with my sense of the picture that begins this post, that bicycles can play a significant role in that revival by in effect serving as a kind of virtual extension of our individual front porches: as we cycle through our communities, we have an intimacy with them simply not possible when in our cars--and those neighborhoods through which we commute become, if not our own, then certainly something more than some streets with houses on them that automobile travel converts them into. Indeed, I have come to feel an emotional tie to that part of south Wichita I regularly ride through that, I feel certain, simply would not have occurred had I driven that same route. Yet, bicycles' practicality and portability create that version of independence that arises not from mere mobility but from self-reliance in all its senses.

Bicycle-riding thus, to my mind, has a significant role to play in the reviving of the importance of place as envisioned by the writers of Front Porch Republic--and the Cycle Chic movement is, to my mind a version of that role--assuming, that is, that it not be co-opted by consumer capitalism. Far from being merely a "lifestyle," cycling is, in the deepest senses of the phrases, life-enhancing and life-affirming in ways no lifestyle ever could be.

If you've read this far, you probably wouldn't mind reading some more about the self-sufficiency of Cycle Chic. Here you go. Andrew's own gloss on these ideas is not only also worth your time, it's a whole lot shorter than what you just read.

A tentative idea: Neighborhood Rides

This morning, while thinking that we've run out of major bike-paths to explore on our Readers' Rides (at least till the main connector between the Arkansas River and Gypsum Creek paths gets built) and catching up with Karen's yeo-woman's labor of a blog, Delano Wichita, it occurred to me that an ideal augmentation of the Readers' Rides would be pre-routed rides through the city's neighborhoods. A basic subtext of this blog is that cycling can help foster a sense of neighborhood and community and, really, what better way to see what a neighborhood is really like than by walking or riding through it? I admit to there being two political angles to this, as well: biking through some neighborhoods in town could oh-so-subtly impress upon riders the value of adding sharrows along some streets, if not full-blown bike lanes; and it would drive home the idea that "community" consists of more than retail businesses.

Here's where readers can join in the fun: I'd like to invite readers in the city to propose routes that are pleasant and relatively safe, traffic-wise, through their neighborhoods, map it using a map-making program such as MapMyRide or Veloroutes, and send me the link, either here in comments or via e-mail. Think as well about what neighborhood warts you'd like for us to see--not just the Norman Rockwell stuff. The idea is for us to see a community's strengths and weaknesses so as to begin discussions that could jump-start and foster a stronger sense of identity for that part of town. Anyway, I hope that those who propose these routes will also be willing to serve as our guides along these routes, so also suggest possible dates and times for these rides when you'd be available, and I'll post about them here--as will, I hope, those other bloggers who are neighborhood-inclined.

Neighborhoods such as the Delano, Riverside, and College Hill are obvious candidates for these rides, but here is a map of other possibilities to consider.

I look forward to hearing from you.

A new voice in/for the Delano District

Karen of Delano Bungalow fame has started a new website intended to be a source of information for all things Delano District: Delano Wichita Neighborhood News. It's only a couple of days old, but she has posted links to neighborhood organizations and has a blog aggregator for neighborhood blogs.

Over at Delano Bungalow, Karen explains the reason for this new site:

The "cause" that's prompted me to get around to setting the site up is one that came up on various neighborhood blogs: the lack of a grocery store in Delano. I'm not quite sure I'm ready to make a call to action, but I'd like to gather the discussion and see if it goes somewhere.

Radicalized much, Karen?

All kidding aside, I'm pleased to see this new site. I look forward to its attracting some eyeballs and becoming a virtual town-square for folks here. And things may indeed start soon: Karen has posted that the next Delano Neighborhood Association meeting is at 7pm next Tuesday, January 20, at West Side Christian Church. I'll try to be there as well; I hope others will, too.

"Let's go shopping!"

The late, lamented George's Market, no longer open any day. Image found at Delano Bungalow.

Karen of Delano Bungalow, inspired by my earlier post, has up a thorough post addressing the near absence of a true grocery store in the Delano. Karen and her famuily have lived here since 1995, so she speaks out of a knowledge of the area that I don't have. She rightly identifies me as "kind of an auxiliary Delano/Riverside resident," but for the record I'll add that I do most of my non-food shopping in the Delano, and a store there would be my closest option. She also notes that the market named in the article I linked to is too hoity-toity for the Delano, and I agree: My larger point was simply that a community's viability is invaluably served by a full-service grocery store (or three, in the case of smaller, corner grocery stores). Indeed, back in the summer when I first posted on this subject, I wrote specifically that what I did not have in mind was some sort of frou-frou gourmet-food kind of place but a true neighborhood store. Indeed, Karen's description of the Delano's demographics makes all the clearer just why it needs such places:

Delano is chock-full of seniors who've lived here since just after WWII, and many of them don't drive, or at least don't drive far (or fast, or well). As those folks move into apartments, nursing homes, or die, the houses are rented or bought by couples or families looking for inexpensive housing. Some are just starting out (that was us…in 1995), others just can't afford anything better, and often have one car or none. Even those who have cars won't regularly shop at a high-end market; that includes me.

Delano needs something a little more…working-class. But not too working-class, or no one will go there if they can afford to avoid it, and it'll become welfare-class. (Confession: towards its end, I did my real shopping at a Dillons even farther from me than Central and West, because the Douglas Street one was getting downright skanky.)

Here's where we go all blue-sky, because I know doodly-squat about the supermarket business, other than that it's obviously tough to compete in if you don't have the purchasing leverage of a big chain. None of the big chains (in the area, anyway) seem quite suited to experimenting in Delano. But we've already got some of the pieces for a non-super market, in or close to Delano.

Go read the whole thing, as they say.

To connect this subject to cycling and its part in neighborhoods who give thought to complete-street planning: stores whose true intent is to serve most of the grocery needs of neighborhoods would not need lots of parking--just a few spaces as part of the lot provided for trucks making deliveries. As traditionally conceived, people who use these stores would visit them 3-4 times a week (the now-familiar once-a-week grocery trip is an outgrowth of post-WWII suburbia/car culture). Most of the customers for these stores would walk there or, in my case, ride their bikes there (so don't forget to provide some bike racks). Some might take the bus, so a location near a bus stop would be important. Anyway, what with all those people making all those trips, people will get to know each other, get to talking. Assuming they like each other, the neighborhood becomes more than a collection of houses--it begins to cohere, acquire a sense of place that is informed as much by the people who live there as by aesthetics.

Like Karen, I don't know doodlely about the grocery store business, apart from the fact that it's extremely competitive due to low profit margins. Back when I worked at a grocery store in Texas, the store said it made one penny of profit for every dollar of groceries sold. Given that that was before Wal-Mart came along with its ability to set the prices it pays to its suppliers (rather than the other way around), that profit margin has probably not improved. So, there's considerable risk for someone who tries to open a grocery store anywhere these days, much less in a place like the Delano. But it would not have to be all things to all people, just a neighborhood thing for the neighborhood's people.

Anyway, thanks for posting on this, Karen. The first step is to admit there is a problem.

"In the neighborhood"

UPDATE: The list is growing--thanks to those of you who have let me know you're out there. If you know of others whose blogs should appear here, too, please send them my way.

If you have a blog and live in the downtown, Riverside or the Delano District of Wichita, I'd like to encourage you to leave me a link here in comments. My intent is to post links to your blog here in a section I'm calling "In the Neighborhood" so as to emphasize more that neighborhood-y thing I occasionally yammer about. No need to link to me in return, especially if you don't want to. However, I do look forward to the chance to visit your blogs and link to posts of yours on occasion.

Thanks in advance.

The need for a grocery store in the Delano

Imagine a couple of places like this in the Delano District. What more timeless place of business than the corner grocery? Image found here.

I don't know if anyone in the Delano District reads this blog, much less cares what I might have to say about its neighborhood revitalization plan, but here goes (again).

I have said at various times that Delano would immensely benefit from having a true grocery store and that such a business would seem to be central to achieving its vision of itself. Here, in full, is their plan's statement regarding "Neighborhood Character," with a crucial passage italicized:

The Delano Neighborhood has a wealth of resources, as identified in the SWOT analysis. In this case, character and identity are easy to create by revealing the heritage and history of the area. Preserving the character of homes and removing false facades from commercial structures to expose the original historical architecture not only celebrates the area’s architectural heritage but establishes the neighborhood as "timeless". Many of the most pleasant tourist destinations in the world are those that have timeless qualities - old Paris, Rome, colonial Bermuda... or closer to home- historic Charleston, Austin, New Orleans, or San Francisco. They also contain the most sought after real-estate.

Delano is a unique area of the City, and has the resources to establish itself as a high quality, people oriented, multi-faceted urban community. Ultimately, the average daily needs for a resident will be found within walking distance, thus fostering a greater sense of community through pedestrian interaction. The challenge is preserving that character once it is uncovered. This plan identifies the specific objectives that will ultimately preserve and enhance the character and quality of the neighborhood.

All this is well and good--really--but: The last time I checked, eating was an "average daily need" for people; and while the plan goes on to mention that a goal is to attract businesses to the area that will enhance its neighborhood character, the sorts of businesses specifically mentioned are places like restaurants, specialty shops, office space, "light industry," and single- and multi-family housing (though, it seems clear from the plan's language, multi-family housing is something they are wary of). Not one word about attracting a full-service grocery store. But here is the list of businesses described as "Grocery Stores" that serve Delano. No knock against Quik Trip, but a neighborhood that wants to compare itself to places like New Orleans, Austin and Charleston wants its people's grocery needs served by gas stations? Really?

I want to see the Delano District succeed in achieving its vision of itself. But it strikes me that that vision, at its most specific, really addresses only literal and figurative cosmetic issues. The most basic of a community's needs--the need for close access to a variety of good-quality, reasonably-priced food for daily living--seems to be not at all a consideration. The result, as I put it elsewhere, is that Delano, as well as places like it in other cities seeking to encourage people to live downtown but don't seem to seek out grocery stores as tenants, is "something like a bedroom community turned inside-out: now, people have to leave the neighborhood not to work but to buy food to prepare and eat."

(I would just note in passing that in New Orleans both the French Quarter and the Garden District have several corner grocery stores.)

Via my bloggy friend Ariel in Kansas City comes this announcement about his new neighborhood, in which he is raising a family and establishing a church in KC's arts district:

On Tuesday [January 6?] at 8 a.m. a grocery store will open its doors to the public. Cosentino’s Market Downtown will be located at 13th and Main, within view of the Sprint Center and Power and Light District. The new 33,000-square-foot store will all the typical shopping cart staples like meat, seafood, produce, bakery, liquor and floral departments… The store hopes to meet the needs of people who live, work and entertain downtown. A seating area designed for more than 100 people is equipped with tables and WiFi for lunch or dinner breaks.

Ariel goes on to wonder if the 120 or so parking spaces will be sufficient for customers, but I'd simply reply that such a store, given its stated hopes, probably anticipates that people will visit a couple of times a week rather than the once-a-week visits people tend to make to suburban stores.

Now, I wouldn't necessarily argue that a 30,000 square-foot store would be in keeping with the Delano's self-image, but surely a couple or three stores that collectively approach that square footage would be--especially if the Delano's Powers That Be are serious about meeting its residents' "average daily needs." And as for fostering a sense of community, I cannot put it any more succinctly than this, from the president and chair of the company that landed the grocery store:

"There is no greater catalyst to creating a livable downtown than a great supermarket, and in Cosentino's Downtown Market we have found the ideal tenant."

President-Elect Obama *hearts* bicycles--and urban policy

Readers may remember that last month I encouraged visitors here to vote for Barack Obama on the strength of his approach to urban and transportation issues. It is a sign of the high priority he has given these matters that he has recently announced the establishing of a White House Office of Urban Policy that will coordinate the activities of such offices as HUD, Health and Human Services, and Transportation. Various commenters on this news note that it has been many, many years since a presidential candidate has emerged from--and spoken to his experiences derived from--a large-city background, and all this bodes well for cities addressing pressing urban planning and transportation issues in a near-future of at-best uncertain state and local revenues.

More good news along these lines: Via Austin Bike Blog comes this Transportation for America post which reprints a response from Mr. Obama to an e-mail petition asking him, should he be elected President, to address urban planning, alternate transportation, and infrastructure issues.

As you know, [investments in infrastructure, green technologies, and high-speed freight and passenger rail] will have significant environmental and metropolitan planning advantages and help diversify our nation’s transportation infrastructure. Everyone benefits if we can leave our cars, walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. I agree that we can stop wasteful spending and save Americans money, and as president, I will re- evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account.

I will build upon my efforts in the Senate to ensure that more Metropolitan Planning Organizations create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and sidewalks. And as president, I will work to provide states and local governments with the resources they need to address sprawl and create more livable communities.

No matter one's politics, what's not to like? It's neither a liberal or conservative position to say that over 80% of our people live in urban areas and that the needs of those areas and their inhabitants have to be addressed through effective planning, no matter who is in the White House or in Congress. As Matthew Yglesias recently put it,

[T]o my way of thinking an enormous amount of good could be done if conservatives were more interested in applying really basic free market principles to transportation policy. For example, why not allow developers to build as much or as little parking as they want to build when they launch a new development? Why not charge market rates for curbside parking on public streets? How about fewer restrictions on the permitted density of development? Why not reduce congestion on the most-trafficked roads through market pricing of access? It happens to be the case that most of the people who are interested in these issues have liberal views on unrelated political issues, but the specific set of views at hand don’t draw on any deep ideological principles, it’s just application of basic economic thinking to the issues and, as such, is something that should be completely accessible to conservative politicians looking to show that conservative ideas can be relevant to the concerns (environmental concerns, quality of life concerns, economic growth concerns) of a set of people who are disinclined to think of themselves as conservatives.

As I've said elsewhere, such proposals, along with others that enhance public and alternate transportation, are not in the end anti-car but end up enhancing everyone's quality of life through quieter and less-congested roadways, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, cleaner air, healthier people, and increased revenues for local governments. It's my hope that Wichita and its new city manager are listening.

Planet Bicycle #3: Hey, you neighborhood associations

Dream this:



Except: this is no dream. It's a viable, vibrant city.

Yes, it's Amsterdam again, from Amsterdamize by way of Carbon Trace. We can't build this . . . but surely here and there in Wichita--or just about anywhere--it would be possible to create a several-blocks area with the feel of this space. Old Town on good days occasionally has this feel, though with fewer bikes . . . why not other places in town? Delano District, I'm looking at you in particular.

More on this later.

News from the neighborhood(s): A mixed bag for bike-friendliness

Advance warning to non-residents of Wichita: what follow is pretty Inside (Wichita) Baseball, though one could make the case that our particulars may sound familiar to residents of other cities that are less than bike-friendly.

I'll preface all this by saying that it's not entirely proper of me to be critical of what follows. Many of the decisions were made early in my residency here; out of ignorance or sloth, I've not been involved in the decision-making that I could have been involved in; it is possible that infrastructure changes to streets to include bike lanes don't need to be stated in light of other, previously-made decisions (see, as one example, the WAMPO link over in the right gutter); and of course, pending the fate of The Complete Streets Act of 2008 (S. 2686), these plans may yet change in the future to conform to that act's requirements if they do not already. So, then, the more appropriate way to take this is as observation based on what I know and observe.

First of all, some good news for Riverside cyclists: I'd not been by North High School since work on the bridge was completed, so this morning I was pleased to see that the path that runs north along the Little Arkansas from Minisa Park now has a short southern extension that passes underneath the bridge and follows the river to the Bitting Street bridge. This allows cyclists to avoid the intersection at 13th and Bitting, which, especially when school is letting in/out, gets very busy. But for some reason there's no cutaway to allow cyclists to leave the path and get on to Bitting easily.

That last sentence is, in essence, the Wichita bike path system in a nutshell as it stands today. (Some of) the pieces are in place, but the other pieces that would link them up (some little, like the cutaway, or a bike path of a hundred yards or so that links the Arkansas River path to O. J. Watson Park; some much larger and more expensive, like east-west extensions and bike lanes that connect the north-south routes), either aren't there or aren't yet there (more about the latter later). Mind you, I say this as one speaking from the perspective of someone who uses his bike for transportation purposes in a city whose bike system conceives of cycling in primarily recreational terms. The absent cutaway has the effect, intentional or not, of discouraging cyclists from riding on the streets. I wish that that were otherwise.

Anyway, in a moment of serendipity I stopped by Riverside Perk for an iced latte (how elitist of me, I know: a bike-riding college-educated white boy stopping not for coffee but for an iced latte) and found an issue of the Riverside Citizens Association's October newsletter; it so happened that at the September meeting my council representative, Sharon Fearey, addressed the Association about some cycling concerns, as well as neighborhood-related matters that to my mind should be of concern to cyclists. The path that runs along the Little Arkansas doesn't have either an official name or its own map on the bike paths web page; according to the minutes though, "[w]ork has started on continuing the path going north of 13th street at Minisa and Bitting Street allowing access clear from 21st to the entire Riverside Park System." That path presently runs along the west bank of the river and stops just north of 18th in Woodland Park, so I assume that the path will be extended along that side of the river. But when I looked at the bike paths map just now, it shows, as already existing, a route that crosses the river at the 18th Street bridge ad then follows the east side of the river up to 21st. I hadn't realized this before; in the next couple of days I hope to have a chance to investigate it.

The other bike-path news concerns the one that runs right by my apartment complex--it follows the river's east bank from Nims Street to Murdock. It is in very poor condition: in places, it's hard even to walk it, much less ride a hybrid or road bike on it, and when the river rises (more than a few times a year after heavy rains), parts of it are impassable for days. The city's options are to spend the estimated $700,000 to make the needed repairs and modifications or to abandon it to the apartments' owners and let it be their responsibility. It's a real Hobson's choice, especially given that the landlords are not exactly proactive regarding maintenance of their property. So far as I can tell from the minutes, the city hasn't made a decision. Speaking as a cyclist who happens to live next to this path, I would prefer to see it repaired, whether by the city or the landlords; right now it's an eyesore that has more appeal to gang members and vagrants of various sorts than it does to the residents who live next to it. But I'm not blind to the cost involved, either. Moreover, even if the path were repaired and improved, it still wouldn't really "go" anywhere: it basically helps speed up downtown people's access to the Nims and Murdock Street bridges leading into Riverside Park, which is nice, but it's no one's idea of a path that improves the functionality of the city's infrastructure for cycling.

Ms. Fearey also announced that several neighborhood revitalization plans have been adopted by the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission and the city council and are now officially part of the City and County Comprehensive Plan. Here is the list of all the various neighborhood plans; below, I've linked directly to the plans for the neighborhoods I live in or near or pass through on my commute route:

Delano Neighborhood Revitalization Plan

Midtown Neighborhood Plan

South Central

21st Street North Corridor Revitalization Plan

As I hinted at the beginning of this post, there's nothing in these plans that speaks specifically to bike-friendliness as part of their respective sections on improvements in infrastructure. The Delano District's plan does mention converting a railbanked easement into a combination bike/pedestrian path and greenbelt space. But, as I also said at the beginning, it may very well be that bike-friendliness is already included in these plans as part of larger, city-wide objectives and so isn't explicitly mentioned--at least, not in those sections I looked at today. But I don't know for sure. As time permits, I'll be sending out some e-mails to see what I can find out. Also as time permits, I would like to dig into these plans more deeply--especially the Delano plan: it differs from the others I've linked to because it operates from the proposition that it is less a neighborhood than a community, part of but, in its essence, distinct from Wichita. I'm very much in agreement with that sentiment, as I've stated before; what I'll be looking for and posting on will be how the Delano District plan proposes to develop and enhance its sense as a community unto itself.
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An addendum now: Back in July, you may remember, I posted a link to a WAMPO survey asking people to rank transportation priorities. If you're curious, here are the survey results.

The case for walkable cities

My day for counter-intuitive arguments . . .

Yesterday over in the right gutter I posted but didn't announce a link for WalkScore. WalkScore is a Google Maps app that attempts to show how walkable a neighborhood is: it shows you how close to you things like libraries, grocery stores, parks, pharmacies, etc. are.

Matthew Yglesias, a scary-smart center-left political blogger, strong advocate for mass/alternate transit solutions and high-density development, and an avid cyclist, makes a compelling case for making more parts of more cities more walkable. Referring to a map showing Washington, D.C.'s, walkability, he says:

If you know the city at all, you'll see that being pedestrian-friendly is a strong correlate of being prosperous. This reality sometimes tends to confuse the debate over planning for walkers. Because walkable neighborhoods tend to be inhabited by well-off people, the whole topic gets construed as a concern "for" well-off yuppies. But really that's backwards. Walkable areas tend to be full of relatively rich people because they're relatively rare and relatively desirable -- their scarcity means that the less prosperous are priced out of these areas, but if we shifted policy to increase the supply of areas with good pedestrian access, people of more modest means would be able to afford them.

I don't think it's absurd to push this a bit further and say that the more people you have walking in a neighborhood, the more likely they are to trade with neighborhood businesses (if they're there), saving them time and money and helping those businesses prosper--and, perhaps even attract more businesses there.

Those are, of course, long-term occurrences. But a city with a long-term vision, willing to be patient to see the results, could stand to benefit more of its citizenry in this relatively inexpensive way.

Cycling in the rain; or, defying the cultural logic of Late Capitalism

Friday evening, I had my biking all planned for the next morning: a trip downtown to the Farmers' Market and thence to Bicycle X-Change on West Douglas to buy a set of hex wrenches for my bike (I should have thought of this back on that heady day when I bought the bike, I know), and maybe even a trip over to the art museum (Saturdays are free admission). But. As I begin writing this, it's early sunrise on Saturday and it's pouring down rain: there's thunder and lightning, and--continuing this getting religion metaphor--my fledgling faith is being sorely tested as we speak. Stay in and say The hell with it, or saddle up and say The hell with it? Or triangulate the matter and blog about it?

Heh. You lucky people.

Earlier this week I rode a fair distance in a moderate, steady rain (I wore a windbreaker but no poncho) and, aside from being absolutely soaked through didn't mind that at all (I was concerned about wet brakes, but that wasn't a problem). But this . . .

Prior to today, my thinking about how weather would affect my cycling was chiefly confined to the winter. There will be a fair number of days from November through early March where cycling will be just too cold and/or too risky an option. But I frankly hadn't thought through the equally-basic truth of Wichita weather that the summer is extremely changeable. Thunderstorms usually pop up in the afternoon and evening, but since (for now) I don't plan to ride at night, those didn't worry me too much. What I hadn't thought through was the psychological impact on me of such things as trying to pedal head-on into a steady 20 mph wind (no freakish thing in Wichita) or, this morning, looking forward to some morning cycling only to wake up to a downpour like this.

To the dedicated cyclist, as to the farmer in his/her way, weather--Nature, more generally--matters. That would seem to be so obvious as to go without saying, except that for the past long century or so Western culture has been resolute in doing what it can to render Nature into something of no consequence. That's the source of the discontent (in a Jamesonian spin on Freud's sense of the word) I feel this morning: Nature is Mattering in a most hellacious way this morning, and I don't want it to.

Here's Fredric Jameson himself to explain what I mean by that:

In modernism, . . . some residual zones of "nature" or "being," of the old, the older, the archaic, still subsist; culture can still do something to that nature and work at transforming that "referent." Postmodernism is what you have when the modernization process is complete and nature is gone for good. It is a more fully human world than the older one, but one in which "culture" has become a veritable "second nature." Indeed, what happened to culture may well be one of the more important clues for tracking the postmodern: an immense dilation of its sphere (the sphere of commodities), an immense and historically original acculturation of the Real[.]. . . . So in postmodern culture, "culture" has become a product in its own right; the market has become a substitute for itself and fully as much a commodity as any of the items it includes within itself: modernism was still minimally and tendentially the critique of the commodity and the effort to make it transcend itself. Postmodernism is the consumption of sheer commodification as a process. (Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, pp. ix-x)

All this is a long way of getting to something that I came to realize this morning: that resistance I was feeling to saddling up and saying To hell with it was both a reminder of the truth of Jameson's argument regarding Nature's having been refined out of existence (that was the "resistance" part) and, on the other, my recognition that cycling repudiates that very argument. Nature matters after all. Or again, depending on whether you think of cycling as a return to some simpler, more elemental way of performing a job of work, or as an implicit critique of The Way Things Are.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, cycling does both.

Because Nature matters to cyclists, they become different sorts of consumers of their world. Topography and weather and their bodies' and bicycles' needs, not fantasy, shape their choices--indeed, those factors reacquire an immediacy that, Jameson argues, postmodern culture had assumed for them. The local and immediate are what catch and hold their attention. Theirs are pragmatic sorts of choices, and being compelled to make such choices has a way of revealing just how superfluous and self-indulgent most people's choices are. This, of course, is something the vast majority of manufacturers, marketers and merchants would prefer we not dwell on too thoughtfully or for too long.

I'm not arguing that serious cycling is at its heart anti-capitalist but, rather, that it goes against the grain of how consumerism has come to shape our thinking about wants and needs and how to meet them. It thus opens up a space for the individual to see him- or herself relative to those dynamics and respond with a bit more autonomy than s/he might otherwise have.

Over at In Medias Res, my friend and fellow Wichitan (and cyclist and thinking-locally advocate) Russell Arben Fox has been thinking recently about late capitalism's effects on food production and has a typically rich and meaty post up on the subject. I encourage you to read the whole post, but it's in the paragraph below, a critique of a comment in an interview made by Michael Pollan, best-known for his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, that Russell makes a distinction that gets at the sort of autonomy that I mean above:

There is much wisdom in that passage, with its invocation of Burke's "little platoons" and its slam on Friedman's "flat," globalized economy. It is properly suspicious of corporations and respectful of localist "economies of place." So what's the problem? Nothing really...except that, in the end, it seems to posit the revival of such localism in terms of "resistance" to a government invariably corrupted by various industrial and "expert" interests. The goal is local "autonomy," which--unless one wishes to get all philosophical and argue over different interpretations of Kant--is, politically at least, another way of saying local "independence." And I've nothing against independence. But an independence that does not address how that locality is not just supposed to become free, but also how it is to be sovereign--that is, able to establish itself, govern itself, exercise authority over its place and build something lasting there--is not really going to be able to pull off the kind of cultural transformation John [Schwenkler, in an article here advocating that "renewing the culinary culture should be a conservative cause"] wants to see happen. He speaks, to be sure, of nurturing self-government, but also of resisting government--which is sometimes necessary, but which also leaves the door open to libertarian assumptions that I do not think are helpful to his--to our--cause. (Russell's italics)

In the comments section for Russell's post, I noted that it seemed to me that his distinction between independence and sovereignty could be extended by analogy to discussion of neighborhoods

in urban areas that themselves are diverse economies in miniature--here in Wichita, for example, I have in mind the Delano District, which lacks only (and thus could use) one of those small "corner" grocery stores (not a convenience store, and not some fru-fru gourmet food store) to achieve a kind of economic sovereignty relative to Wichita. Compare Delano, though, to the Hispanic/Asian neighborhoods just to the north of downtown Wichita, which have numerous "corner" stores of just this sort.

I went on to mention that, at least in those cities I'm most familiar with that are encouraging people to move into urban centers to live, developers are building shops and restaurants like crazy . . . but no corner grocery stores. The effect is something like a bedroom community turned inside-out: now, people have to leave the neighborhood not to work but to buy food to prepare and eat.

No: cycling can't make corner markets appear in a neighborhood. But I think that cyclists, by being alert to and patronizing their neighborhoods' products and services, can play a role in affirming the community as a place unto itself, with a measure of (economic) sovereignty relative to the city that surrounds it. To tar with a broad brush: cars encourage us to leave the immediate area, to perhaps even see that space as in some way lacking, and don't encourage us to get to know the neighbors--they insulate us from a community's "weather," from its nature. Bicycles encourage their riders to take stock of that same area's resources and, at least in my own brief experience as a cyclist, to see it as richer than they once thought it to be. Far from being "flat" economically, the business topography of healthy communities is varied and often surprising.

As it turned out, the rain let up enough that morning that I was able to run my errands without feeling as though I was riding through a car wash. At the bike shop, when the clerk saw the hex tool set I'd selected, he said, "Oh--we have a less-expensive one over here." He walked over to the display rack to find it, gave it to me, rang up the sale, and I went out to my bike to tighten up some bolts. He was happy, and I was happy. And I'll be sure to go back.