Actually Chicago has deep tunnels, just like Milwaukee. Both cities have
combined sewers, so that sanitary waste and storm water go through the same
system. Before these cities build sewage treatment plants, all the waste went
out the same pipe into the lake or the river. When treatment plants were built,
their capacity would be overwhelmed by rain or melting snow, and the waste
would bypass treatment and go directly into the lake or the river.
The purpose of the Deep Tunnel projects is to provide storage capacity; when
storm water is flowing into the system, it is stored in the tunnels and treated
when it stops raining. Unfortunately, the tunnels don't have enough capacity
for really big storm events, like the ones we had this summer, so the excess
sewage ends up in the lake -- just as it did before they built the tunnels. The
Chicago Deep Tunnel project isn't finished yet, but there's no guarantee that
it won't have the same problems when massive storms hit Chicago.
As for the project to reverse the flow of the Chicago River -- it was an
amazing piece of engineering, but it didn't eliminate the turds. It did keep
the sewage out of Chicago's drinking water -- by sending it downstream (a
nicely capitalistic solution).
Anyway, none of what Eric says is relevant to my original point. American
cities used to be filthy and smelly and unhealthful, and it was reasonable to
try to escape from them. They're not that way anymore, and a lot of people who
could live in the suburbs if they wanted choose to live in cities instead.
From: "Eric Westhagen" <[email protected]>
To: "Mitchell Nussbaum" <[email protected]>, "BikiesSubmissions"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 5, 2010 6:53:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Bikies] Saving civilization]
To Mitchell,
Your story is compelling, but it depends just where your city was THEN AND NOW.
Not fifty or sixty, but well over one hundred years, Chicago stopped "turds"
floating along into Lake Michigan. But the GOVERNMENT PLANNERS of our own
Milwaukee had their own careful plan. Whereas the forward thinking people of
Chicago reversed the course of the sewers and all their "turds"; Milwaukee
built a works project of a deep tunnel which regularly sends the "t--ds" into
residential basements and an amount into Lake Michigan which is beyond
comprehension. Watch your kyaking there. Chicago's accomplishment was
considered just another of their engineering marvels of the age--after the
White City and their architecture.
Eric
Mitchell Nussbaum wrote:
Fifty or sixty years ago, cities were polluted and dangerous. The air was full
of coal smoke and industrial pollution, and the the rivers were vile (when I
was a kid, I remember visiting New York harbor and seeing turds floating in the
water...). In those days, it made sense to move out of the city, especially if
you were raising a family.
Things have changed since then. Heavy industry has mostly moved out of the
cities (and out of the country, in most cases), and the pollution sources that
remain have been forced to clean up their act by the (evil, coercive)
government. You can kayak in urban rivers (the turds are gone, and the rivers
don't burn any more), and a lot of people who grew up in the suburbs see cities
as reasonable places to live, and even to raise children.
But government subsidies of automobiles, and other policies that favor suburbs
over cities, tend to push people into the suburbs, whether they want to be
there or not.
From: "Eric Westhagen" <[email protected]>
To: "BikiesSubmissions" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 3, 2010 4:53:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Bikies] Saving civilization]
To: Hans,
But haven't you answered your own questions? So many of us came from city life
with a 30ft lot just off the "car line" (light rail streetcars) or an apartment
--but then chose to live "out of the city." We also chose to move our factories
and sweat shops from those "city neighborhoods" you wax long for--out to
industrial parks or industrial suburbs.-------IT WAS CHOICE--not coercion. Only
CHOICE will bring about a reverse or maybe at least "islands" of what you
envision as your ideal. And even some manufacturers were enlightened to build
delightful employee cities--with the likes of Port Sunlight and in our
State--Kohler. But what resulted--rejection by choice--and in the case of
Kohler, what did the Company get for their employee concern?-----One of the
longest labor strikes in history!
Eric Westhagen
Hans Noeldner wrote:
We will never salvage the project of civilization so long as we insist on
saving face. If we continue to deny our mistakes (our addiction to Happy
Motoring is a prime example), surely all will be lost.
Yet consider how wrenching it can be.
If the automobile is our primary means of access (i.e. we drive virtually
everywhere and then park), how do we admit that OUR lifestyle poisons our
community against ways of life based on walking and bicycling, rolling
wheelchairs and using canes, pushing baby strollers and pulling children in
Radio Fliers?
And if we drive everywhere because everything is “too far away” to use any
other mode, how do we digest the fact that choosing to live where we did was
not only a bad idea, but a lousy investment?
It takes courage to say, “Damn, I made a big mistake.”
It takes even more to advise, “If I put my house on the market, don’t buy it!
Not unless you plan to actually LIVE here rather than driving somewhere else
all the time.”
This is the kind of thing we must grapple with. Is there a “nice” way to bring
it up? Earth to Amerka: avoidance isn’t getting us anywhere!
Hans Noeldner
www.entropicjournal.blogspot.com
_______________________________________________
Bikies mailing list [email protected]
http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
_______________________________________________
Bikies mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
_______________________________________________
Bikies mailing list [email protected]
http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
_______________________________________________
Bikies mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
