OutTakes
by Edd Merritt

“The best society for growing children, past the age of dependency, is other children, older and younger by easy grades.” Paul and Percival Goodman in Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life

We’re headed for the third and final meeting of the minds among residents and those interested in helping develop a reasonable planning process for East Charlotte village. October 15 will do it. So, I want to put in my cent and a-half beforehand. Call it chutzpah if you wish, but I do have space to fill in the paper, so why not pick an item close to home? Give it a little local flavor? After all, I do live near to what is currently designated as the border of the village, and I’m a Spear’s Store regular who has seen elements of change in the area over the past 20-plus years we’ve been rooted here.
Besides, I like the idea of planning. However, I admit to not having studied the process thoroughly (I think I fall into this category with most of my neighbors.). Still, I’m willing to extend my neck, tempt an attack of foot-in-mouth disease, and display my thoughts on the table with ketchup, fries and a side order of onion rings to either inspire tummy terrors in myself or discourage those who disagree.
Even though Paul and Percival Goodman revised their book on planning a community nearly 50 years ago, the questions they ask seem to be still appropriate:
What technology are we looking at, and what does the plan say about our attitude toward it?
How does the plan address the relation of work and leisure?
What about domestic life?
How does it handle education of children and adults?
What is its esthetic character?
How does it envisage political initiative?
What about economic institutions?
Finally, how practical is its realization?
The last question I leave up to the experts. But some of the others I’ll tackle under my own conditions.
I was rather fascinated with a quote in a recent New York Times’ article on, of all things, a dying Texas panhandle town held together through high school football. Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting we use football to create any sense of identity for East Charlotte. I believe more strongly in the dangers of Friday night lights than in their attributes. What struck me in the quote from the Canadian, Texas lady, though, (Canadian is the name of the town, not its location.) was her desire to create her own world rather than “be of the larger one.” The owner of a sandwich shop in town, she says, “You can be of this world or have your own. We choose to have our own.”
To my mind, this is a good way to enter East Charlotte’s planning process. We shouldn’t be hobbled by paradigms. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t ask meaningful questions. In generating answers, though, we should continually ask ourselves what prompts them. Are we tied to an existing model? If our response often rests on, “that’s the way it’s always been done,” then, maybe it is time for a paradigm shift. If for no other reason, such shifts point out assumptions that rule our thinking.
In his wonderful book entitled Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson shows the limitations of such assumptions in the trial of a Japanese American accused of murdering a fellow fishermen off the coast of a small island in Puget Sound. Both the accused and his wife, as well as the prosecution and some of the island residents resist, or, in fact, blank from their minds details that might figure into the fisherman’s death. The author suggests that some of this resistance is due to the nature of living so closely together over a period of time and relying on one another for well-being and happiness. Set shortly following Pearl Harbor, some of the assumptions encompass racism against one who looks like the enemy. The other side of the table believes that all non-Japanese are biased against them, and, therefore, no matter what you say, your word is tainted – best to remain stoic.
In either event, it limits the discovery of full truth.
Anyway, my desire is that we should throw caution to the winds as we continue East Charlotte’s process. We’ll worry about practicality later.
Density of the village presents an interesting question. One of my assumptions when asked recently how I felt about it, was, “Sure, increase the density, because in my older age, I’m becoming less mobile and more social. I walk to the store, chat unmercifully with any patron who either doesn’t know me or is polite enough to listen to my blather. So, how do we create greater opportunities to socialize? Where should it occur? Is it strictly a domestic phenomenon? Is it learned? Part of education? Is it valuable to advance enterprise? Should there be an esthetic value placed on how and where it happens? Does technology play an increasingly differing role in socialization? If so, what does it mean for our design of physical space? And, can we design something now that recognizes the inevitability of change yet maintains the basic elements?
Growing up in a Midwestern town, my friends and I used alleys to get from place to place, to collect in and converse, to form the basis of our fantasy lands. Garages became castles, trash cans provided bunkers for war games. You never rang your friends’ front door bells – practically speaking the back door almost always opened into the kitchen. Within bicycling distance we could escape to the wonders of nature – the woods and meadows into which we could lose ourselves or change from Spanish moors of the city into Native Americans and cowboys.
All was close enough so that our domestic life at day’s end was easily reachable. The community provided our habitat to which we added imagination. I would later call it education. My parents at the time simply called it play.
My family and I moved back there briefly 30 years later. Some elements of the community’s layout had evolved to enhance this learning. Others had not.
I think we are at a stage in planning for East Charlotte’s future where we can benefit from thinking creatively. We’re like a charter school for sane, integrated development. And in the process of forming the “school,” we can appreciate and enjoy each other in ways that we probably will want to incorporate into our “building.” See you on the 15th.