Part 2: Creative and restorative ways of helping people learn to do what they should

[Ken]

Honestly, I think this is a MUCH bigger issue than simply teaching people how to do specific things. Often we are talking about things like common courtesies and not living in a selfish self-centered manner.

I attribute much of it to the society that we have built for ourselves. Since this is a spinoff from the parking thread a perfect example is cars. We have built a completely car-centric society and there is something very isolating and aggressive about living your life behind the wheel of the automobile. Not only are you isolated from face-to-face contact with other people but you are in control of an enormously fast, deadly, and powerful machine. I truly think it warps people's minds. I see it in my own wife who can be the sweetest person when interacting with other people face to face. But behind the wheel she can be an aggressive driver, calling out people who annoy her, etc. Cars are dehumanizing. How many Mennonite women drive like maniacs on the way to a church event? I know some.

The internet is another example of dehumanizing technology. Buying things online rather than walking into your local store and interacting with people face-to-face. Guns are another example. The people I know who are serious and devoted gun owners are universally more paranoid and cynical about the people around them, their neighbors, etc. Than people who don't own guns. Guns isolate us from either other too.

It is everywhere when you look for it. Which of these two streets is more humanizing and will have more engaging face-to-face contacts with other people? The first one with that could be anywhere USA with no pedestrians and every business with a drive-through? Or the second one oriented towards pedestrians?





The US didn't used to be like this before we devoted our built environment to the automobile. Here is a typical American town in the 1930s (Lexington KY) before we rebuilt our cities around the automobile



Now we almost have to pay to visit Disneyland to find this in most parts of the US

Much of the way that people interact with each other in our society is the result of the world that we have deliberately built through decisions large and small.

[Josh]

I attribute much of it to the society that we have built for ourselves. Since this is a spinoff from the parking thread a perfect example is cars. We have built a completely car-centric society and there is something very isolating and aggressive about living your life behind the wheel of the automobile. Not only are you isolated from face-to-face contact with other people but you are in control of an enormously fast, deadly, and powerful machine. I truly think it warps people's minds. I see it in my own wife who can be the sweetest person when interacting with other people face to face. But behind the wheel she can be an aggressive driver, calling out people who annoy her, etc. Cars are dehumanizing. How many Mennonite women drive like maniacs on the way to a church event? I know some.

Nobody's stopping anybody from choosing to live an Amish lifestyle, Ken. The fact is that very few people actually want that. They prefer to have their car, and then park as close as possible to the entrance to the building.

The internet is another example of dehumanizing technology. Buying things online rather than walking into your local store and interacting with people face-to-face. Guns are another example. The people I know who are serious and devoted gun owners are universally more paranoid and cynical about the people around them, their neighbors, etc. Than people who don't own guns. Guns isolate us from either other too.

I agree about the Internet. I'm not sure what guns have to do with this, though. Guns used to be much easier to buy (you could buy a machine gun in a hardware store, no questions asked.) I don't feel like guns isolate us from each other at all. I don't even know who is and isn't a gun owner. Perhaps you're personally paranoid / cynical about this?

It is everywhere when you look for it. Which of these two streets is more humanizing and will have more engaging face-to-face contacts with other people? The first one with that could be anywhere USA with no pedestrians and every business with a drive-through? Or the second one oriented towards pedestrians?

Are you asking for a return to more traditional society like we had in, say, 1930? That means:

- A return to divorce and marriage rates like we had in 1930
- Return to more traditional gender roles
- Return to ethnic segregation with solid ethnic communities instead of "diversity" where neighbours aren't related to each other at all and often are from opposite ends of the globe
- Major stigma on single motherhood, abortion, birth control, etc.
- Church attendance rates like we had in 1930, not 2023
- Relative uniformity of religion (virtually everyone identifying as "Christian")
- No acceptance of deviant lifestyles particularly homosexuality and transsexuality.

The simple fact is that if you don't want the above things, you have to have a highly industrialised, impersonal society with, yes, lots of cars and trucks, because to have the above things, human interaction must be minimised or else immense conflict occurs. The modern Western system is based on an identity that revolves around a lot of consumption and not much else, with a great deal of autonomy given to the "individual" to decide to do whatever they want. The automobile is an obvious realisation of that: you can go wherever you want to and don't have to deal with or interact with anybody else.

Again, anyone who doesn't like that can choose to join an Amish community or another horse and buggy community.

[Ken]

I attribute much of it to the society that we have built for ourselves. Since this is a spinoff from the parking thread a perfect example is cars. We have built a completely car-centric society and there is something very isolating and aggressive about living your life behind the wheel of the automobile. Not only are you isolated from face-to-face contact with other people but you are in control of an enormously fast, deadly, and powerful machine. I truly think it warps people's minds. I see it in my own wife who can be the sweetest person when interacting with other people face to face. But behind the wheel she can be an aggressive driver, calling out people who annoy her, etc. Cars are dehumanizing. How many Mennonite women drive like maniacs on the way to a church event? I know some.

Nobody's stopping anybody from choosing to live an Amish lifestyle, Ken. The fact is that very few people actually want that. They prefer to have their car, and then park as close as possible to the entrance to the building.

The internet is another example of dehumanizing technology. Buying things online rather than walking into your local store and interacting with people face-to-face. Guns are another example. The people I know who are serious and devoted gun owners are universally more paranoid and cynical about the people around them, their neighbors, etc. Than people who don't own guns. Guns isolate us from either other too.

I agree about the Internet. I'm not sure what guns have to do with this, though. Guns used to be much easier to buy (you could buy a machine gun in a hardware store, no questions asked.) I don't feel like guns isolate us from each other at all. I don't even know who is and isn't a gun owner. Perhaps you're personally paranoid / cynical about this?

It is everywhere when you look for it. Which of these two streets is more humanizing and will have more engaging face-to-face contacts with other people? The first one with that could be anywhere USA with no pedestrians and every business with a drive-through? Or the second one oriented towards pedestrians?

Are you asking for a return to more traditional society like we had in, say, 1930? That means:

- A return to divorce and marriage rates like we had in 1930
- Return to more traditional gender roles
- Return to ethnic segregation with solid ethnic communities instead of "diversity" where neighbours aren't related to each other at all and often are from opposite ends of the globe
- Major stigma on single motherhood, abortion, birth control, etc.
- Church attendance rates like we had in 1930, not 2023
- Relative uniformity of religion (virtually everyone identifying as "Christian")
- No acceptance of deviant lifestyles particularly homosexuality and transsexuality.

The simple fact is that if you don't want the above things, you have to have a highly industrialised, impersonal society with, yes, lots of cars and trucks, because to have the above things, human interaction must be minimised or else immense conflict occurs. The modern Western system is based on an identity that revolves around a lot of consumption and not much else, with a great deal of autonomy given to the "individual" to decide to do whatever they want. The automobile is an obvious realisation of that: you can go wherever you want to and don't have to deal with or interact with anybody else.

Again, anyone who doesn't like that can choose to join an Amish community or another horse and buggy community.

Many other places in the rest of the developed world have managed to create more human-centric environments without becoming Amish or reverting to 1930s society and economies.

And it isn't always about what people want or don't want. Every year around this exact point in time Americans send cards to each other depicting wistful scenes like these and say they would love to live in these places. When streets like these would be illegal to build from scratch in virtually every town in the country due to zoning, parking requirements, and so forth.




What our laws actually REQUIRE we build in much of the country is this:



And what have we done with cities to be able to drive and park at the front door of every building?

Here is a map of downtown Kansas City

[Josh]

What our laws actually REQUIRE we build in much of the country is this:

Actually, the laws in our country allow people to live an Amish lifestyle, if they want to. It is significant that the picture above has a horse and sleigh in it (although I note there are no horse pies visible in the drawing). But the fact is, most people don't want an Amish lifestyle when it comes down to it.

Sorry.

My main point was that it is very difficult to teach people how to interact with each other in civilized and considerate ways when we have built a world in which that actually rarely happens.

I think this is an exceedingly cynical view of man. People can be respectful of each other and still drive cars. They can have human decency and respect property boundaries and not do things like trespassing. They can even do so with parking lots.

There aren't major impediments to building pedestrian malls, bike paths, walking trails, etc. and in fact there are lots of incentives to do so. None of those things will change the fallen state of man, and indeed many of those things become unusable in an area with lawlessness since walking trails aren't very safe once a criminal element shows up. (It's easier to adopt defensive positions in a 2,000 lb. car; it takes quite a spike in lawlessness to hit Central American levels where you start having to fear armed carjackers, although America is well on its way to getting there.)

I used to enjoy going to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, where the original Boudin's is. The last time I went there, there was a noticable increase in lawlessness in the area. (It's a place you walk around after finding a (paid) parking lot to park in.) Unfortunately, many of the businesses were closed. A lot had their windows smashed. There are people openly fighting on the sidewalk. One woman pulled off another woman's wig and then started pulling her hair. People were openly using drugs. I could smell marijuana and smell other things I didn't recognise.

Later on we went to an area controlled by private security. Many businesses were closing early. The private security was busy chasing rebellious youths who were refusing to leave when ordered to. It seemed like an situation that could escalate out of control and is not pleasant to be around, nor is it safe to be around.

That's not an environment I want to be a pedestrian in, nor an environment I want to expose my family to. (Later on, that area became notorious for car breakins and window smashing, so I would definitely avoid the area now.)

Allowing this kind of lawlessness destroys the kind of pedestrian environment you seem to want to have, Ken. To get back the kind of idyllic environment you want, you need to first answer Ernie's question: how to help people learn to do what they should? I can go over a few people that day who needed lessons:

#1. Two women on the street shouldn't be fighting, screaming, and pulling each other's hair.
#2. People should not be using drugs and definitely not using them on the street.
#3. Youths should comply when a private property owner tells them they need to leave the premises, not give chase and try to hide.
#4. People shouldn't smash in the windows of businesses.

[Ken]

I think this is an exceedingly cynical view of man. People can be respectful of each other and still drive cars. They can have human decency and respect property boundaries and not do things like trespassing. They can even do so with parking lots.

I don't think it is a cynical view of human nature. I think it is the opposite.

I don't think it is anything innate in human nature that results in so much of the social dysfunction we see today. I think we have created a built environment that allows us to rarely interact person to person in the public spaces outside of work, church, school, etc. And that people would respond differently to each other if we lived in a different environment where we interacted more.

Much of our built environment (at least post WW2) requires us to drive everywhere and in response we have created a byzantine network of laws designed to preference automobile use and made it possible to never leave your car with drive-through banks, restaurants, pharmacies, coffee shops, florists, liquor stores, convenience stores, etc. And the internet has made it possible to never leave your home with Amazon, DoorDash, UberEats, InstaCart, etc. That pandemic worsened many of those trends but they go back decades.

The picture I posted of a downtown department store with Christmas display windows? That would be illegal to build from scratch in most towns and cities in the country because it lacks parking, street setbacks, and so forth. In most cities a new store of that much square footage would require a Wal-Mart sized parking lot if built today and that is why most retail built in the past 20-30 years requires acres of parking and gets sited in big box greenfield developments on the edges of towns. Virtually every retail building in the US that looks like that was built before WW2. Perhaps that is exactly what people want. But we also prohibit them from even having a choice in the matter.

[Josh]

The picture I posted of a downtown department store with Christmas display windows? That would be illegal to build from scratch in most towns and cities in the country because it lacks parking, street setbacks, and so forth.

This isn’t actually the case. Just the biggest cities regulate this. Where I live there aren’t any of these rules at all. One nearby town has some such rules, the rest aren’t incorporated and don’t have any such rules.

In most cities a new store of that much square footage would require a Wal-Mart sized parking lot if built today and that is why most retail built in the past 20-30 years requires acres of parking and gets sited in big box greenfield developments on the edges of towns. Virtually every retail building in the US that looks like that was built before WW2. Perhaps that is exactly what people want. But we also prohibit them from even having a choice in the matter.

No, we don’t. Someone could come where I live and build a Wal-Mart sized store and not put in any parking.

There are lots of areas with new development done in a “new urbanist” design. A few examples are Crocker Park in Cleveland, virtually everything built in New Albany (a Columbus suburb and former small town) in the last decade, and some new pedestrian mall in Columbus. At least, these developments seem to be pretty common in Ohio.

It doesn’t seem to have changed the character of people at all.

[Ken]

The picture I posted of a downtown department store with Christmas display windows? That would be illegal to build from scratch in most towns and cities in the country because it lacks parking, street setbacks, and so forth.

This isn’t actually the case. Just the biggest cities regulate this. Where I live there aren’t any of these rules at all. One nearby town has some such rules, the rest aren’t incorporated and don’t have any such rules.

In most cities a new store of that much square footage would require a Wal-Mart sized parking lot if built today and that is why most retail built in the past 20-30 years requires acres of parking and gets sited in big box greenfield developments on the edges of towns. Virtually every retail building in the US that looks like that was built before WW2. Perhaps that is exactly what people want. But we also prohibit them from even having a choice in the matter.

No, we don’t. Someone could come where I live and build a Wal-Mart sized store and not put in any parking.

There are lots of areas with new development done in a “new urbanist” design. A few examples are Crocker Park in Cleveland, virtually everything built in New Albany (a Columbus suburb and former small town) in the last decade, and some new pedestrian mall in Columbus. At least, these developments seem to be pretty common in Ohio.

It doesn’t seem to have changed the character of people at all.

Really? How do the crime rates in Crocker Park and New Albany compare to the overall crime rates in Cleveland and Columbus? That would be one measure to use to determine if a different built landscape affects behavior.

In any event, both are actually still car-centric suburban developments with just some "new urbanism" style elements thrown in. And Crocker Park is just a mall, not a town. It is in the city of Westlake which most definitely has rigid parking requirements for every kind of retail (and every other land use as well: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/w ... -0-0-23592 A typical Super Walmart has about 250,000 square feet. If you build one in the city of Westlake the code requires 60 parking spaces for a 10,000 square foot retail building plus an additional space for every additional 125 square feet of retail space. For a large Wal-Mart that means a parking lot with 1,960 parking spaces and so we are back to big box stores in a sea of parking. And a department store with store windows on the street of the sort I pictured above is completely illegal to build in Westlake OH.

As you can see, neither are any kind of traditional downtown sitting within traditional neighborhoods of walkable homes.

New Albany



and Crocker Park

[Josh]

And a department store with store windows on the street of the sort I pictured above is completely illegal to build in Westlake OH.

As you can see, neither are any kind of traditional downtown sitting within traditional neighborhoods of walkable homes.

Crocker Park has a housing development that is a very close walk to all the shopping (hundreds of units, both detached homes and town houses), and then the businesses have upstairs apartments.

The stores have store windows on the street. There is street parking with meters and the streets have “traffic calming” to discourage thru traffic. Trucks etc go on alleyways to avoid pedestrians. The big parking lots are a fair way away or have paid multilevel garages (paid once it’s over an hour or two).

So no, it’s not “completely illegal” to build in Westlake.

New Albany requires new builds to be facing a sidewalk and a street with parking confined to areas behind the buildings as to avoid pedestrians.

Pretty much any developer that wants to build something like this, can. The housing there went for pretty high prices (definitely out of my price range.) Of course, I live in a place where you can build literally anything you want. The only regulations you’ll have to tangle with are state level septic/sewer and flood plain issues.

Down in Amish country. There isn’t zoning either and mixed businesses and homes are everywhere. Somehow I doubt mixed residential-business somehow changes men’s hearts.

[Ken]

Down in Amish country. There isn’t zoning either and mixed businesses and homes are everywhere.

Wanna bet? Like in all older towns and cities there's lots of non-compliant old historic buildings grandfathered in. But new construction has similar zoning codes to most of the rest of the United States. Here are the Millersburg Ohio Minimum Parking Requirements as specified in the city zoning code: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/m ... -0-0-13649

Build a new SuperWalmart in Millersburg or any other similar-sized large retail establishment and you'll be required to put in a MINIMUM of 1,250 parking spaces. You get about 175 parking spaces per acre. So that a required minimum of over 7 acres of parking plus all the additional space for traffic lanes.

1175.08 SCHEDULE OF REQUIRED OFF-STREET PARKING SPACES.

NUMBER OF REQUIRED SPACES

(b) Commercial.
(1) Professional, administrative and business One (1) for each 400 S.F. of gross floor area
(2) Food, department, general merchandise, hardware, drugs, or other retail sales One (1) for each 200 S.F. of gross floor area
(3) Eating or drinking establishments without drive-through facilities One (1) for each 100 S.F. of gross floor area
(4) Eating or drinking establishments with drive-through facilities. One (1) for each 75 S.F. of gross floor area plus additional spaces in the drive-through lanes equal to twenty-five percent (25%) of the required number of parking spaces
(5) Personal services, including banks, savings and loans, and repair services without drive-through facilities. One (1) for each 200 S.F. of gross floor area
(6) Personal services, including banks, savings and loans, and similar services with drive- plus additional space in drive-through lanes equal through facilities to eighty percent (80%) of the required number of parking spaces One (1) for each 200 S.F. of gross floor area.
(7) Barber and beauty shops Two (2) for each work station
(8) Gasoline and service stations, automobile service Two (2) for each service bay plus one (1) for each pump, plus one (1) for each employee during the main shift
(9) Self-serve laundries One (1) for each three(3) washers
(10) Medical and dental offices, human clinics Four (4) for each doctor or dentist
(11) Veterinary clinics, animal hospitals Three (3) for each doctor
(12) Hotels, bed-and-breakfast establishments One (1) for each sleeping room plus one (1) for each employee during the main shift
(13) Funeral homes One (1) for each 400 S.F. of gross floor area

The existing historic downtown business district built over 100 years ago would be illegal to replicate anywhere else in Millersburg. That is why all the newer parts of Millersburg look like this. They are required by law to build this way: https://maps.app.goo.gl/SioyC7GpDu9gsdQGA Immense amounts of parking are required by law along with big setbacks. But no sidewalks. Priorities.

[Josh]

Down in Amish country. There isn’t zoning either and mixed businesses and homes are everywhere.

Wanna bet? Like in all older towns and cities there's lots of non-compliant old historic buildings grandfathered in. But new construction has similar zoning codes to most of the rest of the United States. Here are the Millersburg Ohio Minimum Parking Requirements as specified in the city zoning code: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/m ... -0-0-13649

Yes. I used to live in Amish country and the place where I lived had no zoning.

Build a new SuperWalmart in Millersburg or any other similar-sized large retail establishment and you'll be required to put in a MINIMUM of 1,250 parking spaces. You get about 175 parking spaces per acre. So that a required minimum of over 7 acres of parking plus all the additional space for traffic lanes.

Most of Amish country is not within Millersburg city limits, and most Amish people don't live in a city or village. For whatever reasons, the non-Amish people who live in Millersburg like having lots of parking spaces and like zoning laws.

The existing historic downtown business district built over 100 years ago would be illegal to replicate anywhere else in Millersburg. That is why all the newer parts of Millersburg look like this. They are required by law to build this way: https://maps.app.goo.gl/SioyC7GpDu9gsdQGA Immense amounts of parking are required by law along with big setbacks. But no sidewalks. Priorities.

You could, however, replicate it out in the townships, which is exactly what many Amish people do.

You know, Ken, you keep on hammering this point home even when I point out over and over how this doesn't apply and how there is lots of stuff built that doesn't match your bogey-man of zoning. I could, if I wanted to, reconstruct a downtown in my front yard. (I'm not sure if I'd get anyone to come visit it, but I could certainly build it.) The nearest town to me is in the township, no village government, and is entirely unzoned. People often put up "interesting" structures with no regard to setbacks.

The simple fact is that virtually everyone who isn't Amish prefers to orient their life around the car, and they choose to live in cities that are designed around cars. As I've said earlier, someone who wants to revolve their life around walking, horses, and bicycles would do well to locate where other Amish people live, yet very few such people actually do that. Instead, they are far more likely to be found on Internet forums (not this one, specifically) complaining about government regulations. In a sense, they're kind of like certain libertarians - everything is the fault of government tax policy, and if you bring up anything about taxes they just start ranting about how "taxation is theft".