The original essay appeared in shortened form as a Counterpoint in the Greensboro News-Record, June 11, 2008.
For the purposes of discussion, Mr. Noer raises important questions ("Dogpatch or Gotham? Rate Greensboro's Future", Greensboro News and Record, June 1, 2008) in an engaging way. However, the answers are conditioned by the way he's framed them. Suggesting that Greensboro's future lies somewhere between Green Acres and New York distorts the likely choices we face. For example, we're past the provincialism of yesteryear, when eating "ethnic" meant going to Italian-American or Chinese-American restaurants of lowish quality or when (this being the South, it is hard to ignore) “White” and “Colored” signs neatly arranged society into those whose opinions did and did not matter. Since Dogpatch choices are in the past, let’s remove them from the list. Asking readers to rate themselves as Local Yokels or Global Citizens is amusing and thought provoking but ultimately misleading to those seriously thinking about the city's future. Localism does not result from individual citizen's choice; it's a condition, the result of geography and history. Many Greensboro residents and leaders were opposed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the completion of the Civil Rights Museum remains years off. The region continues to have an uneasy relationship with its past. It refuses to affirm it; it cannot reject it since it's in the history books. But residents can choose to resent it —and over the years, many have. This is not the kind of choice Mr. Noer wants to present to readers. He probably knows it's psychologically impossible for us to move forward without a healthy acknowledgment of the past. It's a difficult task that unless resolved has tremendously negative implications for Greensboro's future.
Mr. Noer's challenge has another problem, too. Imagining the future is pretty much based on the reader's imaginative — that is, creative — abilities. Most of us can only imagine what we see and what we see in our immediate environment is mediocre or sub-average. Our visual surroundings are dominated by buildings and homes which rarely form an integrated whole and that's no surprise; these are the architectural visions of builders, developers, and real estate investors. With the exceptions of its parks, most of Greensboro's public spaces are failures. The new downtown park and Central Library should be studied and copied as rare successes, ones we need more of. Mediocre design isn't just tolerable and lousy design isn't just visually displeasing. They are inefficient, expensive, and there with us for decades. In a consumerist society, quality of life, aesthetics, culture and economics are all boiled down to mere matters of individual choice and taste, not about the serious issues Mr. Noer would like to tackle. We need critics who explain why some public spaces succeed and others do not, why unchecked growth affects everyone's quality of life, and why the middle class should care about what happens outside the limits of its neighborhoods. Most well-intentioned, well-educated middle class adults simply cannot imagine lifestyles that do not include SUVs and gated communities, and the building industry has consistently offered them ugly hodgepodge styles of MacMansions outfitted with Viking ranges and great rooms. Ask the middle class to envision the future and they will show you an expanded version of itself, an alarming proposition in a time of relentless energy demand and soaring fuel prices. If the original model of homeownership brought stability and security to families entering the middle class, the current model has been exploited by homeowners who've used their equity to prop up endless buying habits and by realtors, banks, and financial markets who've caused the recent housing bubble to explode.
Ideas about living — true innovations — rarely come from the middle. They come from the lower class (rap, hiphop, Nascar), from oddballs, eccentrics, loudmouths (think artists, scientists, innovators, garage tinkerers), business people prepared to take very large risks, and the occasional daring official (think General Greene). If we count on consensus — that wonderful, time-honored and time-consuming goal sought by all earnest, hardworking committees — to determine Greensboro’s future, we will probably wind up with heavily protected suburban developments, gently regulated sprawl, and an ongoing, unresolved and undiscussed divide determined by race, education and class. That is, more of the same, only more so — a model which is unsustainable and unfair and which results in a living environment barely distinguishable from any other middle-sized city in America saturated with Starbucks, MacDonalds, Target, and the like. Surely Greensboro deserves better.
I think there are at least two considerations that I'd like to see more of in the debate about Greensboro's future. One is about using art, that is, envisioning alternative urban experiences based on aesthetics, imagination, architecture, and good design matched with appropriate technology. Art has a powerful rhetorical component that has the ability to communicate on a nonverbal plane, flying under the radar of well-worn political arguments and polarizing language. Skillfully used, it can change minds and behaviors by the force of its presence. The other consideration is behavioral economics as a method for offering choices to neighborhoods, citizens, and voters and guiding them towards the right end. Behavioral economics, if I understand it correctly, accepts that homo economicus does not make decisions based on objective criteria but on immediately available information and personal experience, current needs, and emotional perceptions. So if rational citizens did make rational choices, the Civil Rights Museum would have been built years ago. If voters made rational decisions, we would have had better infrastructure, development plans, and public transportation. But we don't. Ask a framed question he's ready for and the reactionary resident has a framed answer also ready and waiting. No amount of argument, open discussion or facts is likely to change his perceptions. Put the screws on him — drive the price of gas up to four and five dollars a gallon — and he will grudgingly make changes. But this is an expensive method for social change. The costs are high and resentment lingers. If the alternatives were more aesthetically attractive ("cool") and easy to make, the choice to use mass transit or some other efficient mode of commuting and travel would be more natural and acceptable.
Since we're a long way off from developing a regional green aesthetic, I suggest Greensboro take on what is within reach of its collective imagination. Nibbling at the edges of the problem won't solve it, but it would keep people engaged. We can all stand to lose a pound, we’d all benefit if we installed a rain barrel, we’d all gain by driving less. Let’s get some Reality TV-like competitions going, with individual, street, neighborhood, church and office prizes provided by the medical and insurance industries and local businesses. Small achievements could give citizens more confidence and willingness to take on and pay for bigger, critical changes. Tacky? Yes. Engaging and fun? You bet. And possibly, a way forward.
