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[Ben Brunk <brunkb AT ils.unc.edu>]

You folks crack me up, so I just had to make a comment.  I find it 
hilarious that everyone is getting behind this new kind of carefully 
micromanaged sprawl now that the older kind has become such an obvious 
failure.  Hasn't anyone noticed that sprawl was a direct result of the 
zoning ordinances and top-down control?  I hear people blaming the 
developers and calling them money-grabbers.  While that may be somewhat 
true, don't forget it was the local politicians who restricted the kinds of 
development that could take place to begin with.  That's why most people 
can't walk to work--the control freaks said it wasn't right to put houses 
so close to the factory!

I've looked around Southern Village several times.  Whenever I have 
visitors, we often take a drive through there in our car.  Frankly, it 
looks more like a movie set than an actual place where people live.  I have 
visions of Stepford wives and evil humanoid robots.  People glare at you if 
they don't recognize you, they don't take kindly to strangers poking 
'round.  And why the hell do all the children have helmets on, anyways?  Is 
every adult there obsessed with safety or what?  In my opinion, for 
Southern Village to be worth anything at all in the long run, it should 
disincorporate from Chapel Hill and become a village of its own and walk on 
its own two feet.  Without that, Southern Village is just a big subdivision 
for hipsters who like to act holier than thou.  And yeah, "new" urbanism is 
elitist--the Harris Teeter hidden over in SimCity, er, I mean Meadowmont is 
snobtown writ large--I parked my pickup between two Mercedes, but then 
decided I wasn't dressed well enough to actually go inside, so I hit the 
Food Lion out of 54 instead.  Fascist corporations?  How is corporate 
structure of Wellspring any different than Food Lion except in your heads? 
It's all Madison Ave.

As far as "light rail" the other anointed savior of all things utopian, one 
need only watch the old Simpson's "Monorail" episode to see what a crock 
that idea is.  Very few light rail systems ever turn a profit, they are a 
perpetual drag on nearly every community that commandeered all that private 
property in order to install them.  For example, this article about LRT in 
Minnesota:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/1/5/210125.shtml
Pretty funny that some of you folks believe in conspiracy theories about 
how car manufacturers killed light rail.  Yeah, right!  Technology 
advanced, and rail systems couldn't compete.  And just remember, if you can 
get to Raleigh in 15 mins. (would that be on the express?), the homeless 
drug addicts with TB can get to your house just as quickly. Think about 
that the next time you send your kid out to play wearing their helmet. ;-)

If there is any hope for us as America gets more and more crowded, it will 
be in deregulation, allowing entrepreneurs to solve these problems and many 
of the others that we face nowadays.  It seems to me that the "New" 
Urbanism is just a flawed rendition of what was done in major cities during 
the mid-20th century, which is provide affordable places to live for 
average people.  Now, however, there are so many laws, as well as people 
who need to get a cut, it has taken on an authoritarian and "instant, just 
add water" taint.  Some progress.  Thanks, but no thanks.



Ben Brunk