To Mitchell,
As they found in the gulf to what seems the surprise of the science
community, an ecosystem has organisms which thrive on wastes of other
organisms. The reverse flow of the Chicago water ways kept the Lake
clean in the immediate time and the system cleansed on its flow to the
Mississippi. Maybe you would not have wanted to go boating on the "N.
Branch" of the Chicago river, but I would expect that you could have
done so before the Mississippi. And isn't that basically how treatment
plants work? As far as the air pollution between coal and oil and gas,
I cannot say. But assuming that plain old soot is not all that
hazardous, the other results of combustion must be compared. We fired
with coal as nearly everybody did until I was mostly through college
and it was little trouble and I had my dark room and my Dad had his
woodworking shop in the basement not far from the furnace and coal
bin. Those choosing trendy urban living these days might be compared
with those who have always chosen urban living--those on Aster Street
and Lake Shore Drive? Yet, as you know I am for choice and if
attractive development is built in the urban setting for the
twenty-first century, that seems desirable to me. But choices should
not be subsidized. Yet I do understand that real estate interests have
always promoted some forms of subsidies. My Dad's PhD dissertation
from Northwestern was AN INDUCTIVE STUDY ON THE OBSOLESCENCE OF
BUILDINGS. The largest legal tax case in the history of Chicago had
made the files open to examination and the root causes for demolitions
were the object of the study. Certainly the layouts and routes of "car
lines" were a factor in those days which lead to real estate
desirability.
Eric
________
Mitchell Nussbaum wrote:
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
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