WE AIN'T DONE YET!

Help! I’ve fallen into obscurity and I can’t get up!

I might change the caption on this cartoon just slightly to read:

Help! I’ve aged into irrelevancy and I can’t get back! 

Reprinted from The New Yorker, Feb. 5, 2018

Chip and I went to a lecture Tuesday night.  The speaker came from Detroit, Michigan, and his talk was all about how he and his group, practicing “people oriented” planning, were changing the mean streets of his home town.  He showed lots of slides of streetscapes from around the world and Detroit, photographs crowded with shoppers and coffee drinkers sitting at sidewalk cafes while sunshine and festive pennants poured from above.  The speaker was sincere and enthusiastic.  Yippee-yay….

I hate to sound like an old fart but really? “People oriented?” “Pedestrian scale?” “Planned for autos=bad!/planning for people=good!” Uh…didn’t he read Jane Jacobs (any one of her books written after 1961 until she died two or three years ago?) Or study Christopher Alexander’s 1977 A PATTERN LANGUAGE? What about William Whyte’s body of sociology studies on city streets (1958 through 1988)? We covered all this territory in the 1980s and again 1990s.  The big difference between then=Rochester and now=Detroit? Detroit reached such a dismal scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel-low that big money has - in the last dozen years or so - poured in from every faucet and it’s no secret how pretty things can look with green wallpaper.

This man was the first speaker brought to town this season by the Community Design Center, a worthwhile organization that is in danger of death by boredom through repetition. During our years of involvement in civic planning, we’ve heard mayors, planners and architects tell us why their city is working - their town: Charleston, Nashville, Indianapolis, Nashville, Austin, San Antonio, Toronto, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle (those are just the ones I remember!) And here’s the thing: there are lecturers that do inspire a better life for city dwellers and city users. Curiously, they often look to transcend city limits and speak to broader humanity, even (gasp!) suburbanites! But first the script must be changed; the old 45 record is worn out…just ask us, the retired warriors. We may be out of the limelight but we still listen to PBS, NPR, TED Talks and we read!

Those of us old enough to serve as reminders of past lessons - unless we also hold powerful purse strings - are nearly always shuffled to the side seats during meaningful problem solving/creative initiative conversations. We are patted on the head and asked to volunteer as envelope stuffers or something equally menial. It is assumed that brain power resides in bodies under age 55. 

So are human beings meant to live this long? What are we good for after diminished muscle mass leaves us barely capable of picking up our shoes let alone a work load? After procreation, are we meant to climb aboard the U.S.S. Iceflow and wave good-by to all our still-fertile and viral friends and family? What about all that “free time?” Can it be bad for teen agers but anticipated as good for old age? Why? 

Most of us will not pull a Grandma Moses and discover a brilliant talent after passing 90. We probably will not run marathons, write a best selling novel or make a scientific discovery.  But neither do we care much about spending endless hours watching television or plotting charts of doctor visits. Don’t keep telling us to volunteer when the fact is that few of us find satisfactory volunteer positions.

We are the elders among you, with bodies that don’t work but brains that do.  For heavens sake, ask us for input once in awhile.  We’ve heard Tuesday night’s lecture - or its clone -  a dozen times but there are new voices with updated sermons that might inspire you as well as us. 

Let’s look for them.