Patty Berglund

I never read novels. In the last 20 years I may have read two or three long works of fiction. Many times I would start a book that my wife was reading, just to quit after a few chapters.

I had the desire. In high school read science fiction, and I had some great teachers that planted the reading seed. They had me read many classics that I enjoyed. However, later, in college I turned to non-fiction and stayed strictly in that camp with rare exceptions

So last fall, I saw a David Brooks article about Jonathan Franzen's book Freedom. Brooks thought Franzen's view was too bleak and was too demeaning to the American middle class. But Brooks made me want to read the book.

So for $12.99 I downloaded the book onto my phone. This was my first experience with reading lengthy works on my phone, and I found the experience immersive. Throughout the day, I would read sections so that for several weeks my mind was filled with Patty Berglund. I wasn't really sure why I found the characters so compelling. It had something to do with the current nature of their mindset. They are totally of this time, of my people, so to speak. And of course the writing was excellent. And while I found several faults with the plot and even some dislike for the characters, I had a strong longing to know them, really know them. I kept thinking, why do I care about Patty? She is immature and her looks aren't even really described, yet I think I fell for her. It was a strange feeling.

I read the book straight through ... and then I went back and re-read parts, sometimes several times. Then when I was burned-out on Freedom I moved on to some of Franzen's recommendations, such as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and The Great Gatsby (which I had read in high school, but didn't really appreciate). Then I read the Corrections, his novel from 2001. All of this on my phone, and each one a kind of immersive experience.

 

"They drive past Port Roosevelt and the valley of ashes where Mr. and Mrs. Wilson live and are stopped by a policeman. Gatsby flashes a card and they are on their way again over the Queensboro Bridge, passing a funeral procession, and across Blackwell's Island."

So, the commonality in these books is that they each capture the essence of the time in which they were written. Gatsby the roaring 20s, Gray Flannel Suit the 50s, the Corrections the 90s, and Freedom, the 2000s. They are also all written by upper middle class white men about the same. Another commonality I think is that they would all make terrible movies. Gray Flannel has a sappy ending which probably helped make it a semi successful movie in the 50s, but Gatsby's strength is in the spareness of the writing. Maybe it could be done kinda as a newsreel. Unfortunately, there is yet another Gatsby movie coming out this year.

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit:
Total War Total Living 

I plan on keeping on with the novels. I just finished the Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet, and found it very enjoyable. Not sure what is next. Suggestions welcome.

Middle Class Duany and the Environment

...What then is this world of the New Urbanism, and why is traditional architecture important to it? There are many reasons, but the primary one is that because traditional architecture is a common language of the American middle class... The enormous American middle class is the group that really matters, and yet they are the only consumers of architecture not addressed in the modernist schools or the professional periodicals.

...the middle, class unlike the poor, the market gives choice -- and given choice they choose traditionalism. Their ability to evade the modernist discourse (which the poor cannot do) confuses architects. But it does not confuse us. ... we enlist the middle class to our cause, which is to have them inhabit again a walkable, compact, and diverse urbanism.

... the lifestyle of the American middle class is the root cause of the environmental problems of the world today. It is that simple. It is the way we supersize our habitat, the way we consume as entertainment, the way we drive around to do ordinary things, the way we so freely allocate land to our use, and even how we choose to eat... It is this lifestyle, and now its export version ... which is responsible for the environmental problems we will all suffer...
-Andres Duany

Treadmill of Debt and Family Bankruptcy

I was referred to a lecture that Elizabeth Warren gave last year called The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class. I don't think most blog readers want to spend an hour listening to an economics lecture, but I found it very interesting, especially since she used as her reference point a 2 parent, 2 child family in 1970 and 2005. I grew up in the first (plus 2 more kids) and am parent of the second. And the gist is that today's family is on a faster treadmill, and much closer to bankruptcy than the same family in 1970.

She investigated expenses and found that in today's dollars, families now spend LESS on clothing, appliances and food but spend MORE on Health Insurance, Housing/ Education and Taxes (because the second income is taxed as supplemental to the first). She says children today are more likely to be in a family that experiences bankruptcy than a family that experiences divorce.

She also says that car ownership is NOT more expensive but that now, 2 cars are a requirement, not just an option:

"With an [inflation-adjusted] income of $42,450, the average family from the early 1970s covered their basic mortgage expenses of $5,820, health-insurance costs of $1,130 and car payments, maintenance, gas, and repairs of $5,640.
...
"With both people in the workforce, the family spends more than $8,000 a year on its two vehicles."

Instead of 3 classes (poor, middle, rich) she says it is more appropriate to classify people into those on the treadmill of debt, and those who are healthy and maybe childless, who stay debt free.

I had never heard of Ms Warren before yesterday, but she is apparently widely read and appears often on talk and news shows. If you google her, you will get many results. She was recently appointed to the Chair the Committee that will oversee how the government spends that $700 Billion bailout of the banking industry.

Middle Class Neighborhoods Vanishing

Personal observation tells me that neighborhoods are becoming more and more segregated. I see it all the time: a new subdivision is proposed and the developer promises that all the houses will be priced from $250-350. This way people will be completely surrounded by people in their exact income bracket, not higher, and certainly not lower. A partial answer is a return to the mixed-income, urban neighborhood.

Middle-class neighborhoods, long regarded as incubators for the American dream, are losing ground in cities across the country, shrinking at more than twice the rate of the middle class itself.

In their place, poor and rich neighborhoods are both on the rise...

"No city in America has gotten more integrated by income in the last 30 years" ...

...a sorting-out process is underway in the nation's suburbs and inner cities, with many previously middle-income neighborhoods now tipping rich or poor.

... increased residential segregation by income can remove a fundamental rung from the nation's ladder for social mobility: moderate-income neighborhoods with decent schools, nearby jobs, low crime and reliable services.

...
For people who do not want to put up with aging, troubled neighborhoods and have the means to do something about it, escape is remarkably easy -- in Indianapolis and across much of the country.

The housing industry in the Midwest and the Northeast routinely floods local markets with new, ever-larger houses. In greater Indianapolis, more than 27,500 houses were constructed between 2000 and 2004, even though the population grew by only 3,000.

In the process, older houses and many older neighborhoods -- such as McCray's -- have become as disposable as used cars.

...
"As upper-income Americans are drawn to the new houses, neighborhoods become more homogenous," he said. Echoing the Brookings study, he said: "The zoning is such that it prevents anything other than a certain income range from living there. It is our latest method of discrimination."

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer

Columbus - downtown kids article

The Columbus Dispatch : City kids

Still, as their daughter prepares to enter first grade, the Maniaces, including father Jim, are contemplating a move to Bexley.

"This building is wonderful, but it's not set up for families," said Mrs. Maniace, who noted that Alison sleeps in a converted den.

The couple would like to stay Downtown, in housing better-suited to families.

"We're looking to see what is out there," she said.

With more than 4,300 Downtown-area units constructed or planned since 2002, the choices would seem to be plentiful.

Yet the lofts and multistory condos that make up many new projects cater mostly to empty nesters and childless professional couples.

"Buyers have one thing in common: no kids," said Marc Conte, director of research and information for the Downtown Development Resource Center.

Perceptions of high crime rates and substandard public schools make the Downtown market a tough sell to families, according to developers.

The impressions about crime and schools don't match the realities, parents and developers said.

Stacey Blasko, who lives in Victorian Village with her husband and three children younger than 7, heads Midtown Parents and Kids, a play group that provides support and companionship for more than two dozen families.

"Our kids are the only ones their ages on our block, so it's hard to find playmates for them," she said. "If we lived in Bexley, we would probably have a half-dozen families on our block.

"Our goal is to help people stay in urban neighborhoods. We would have been much less likely to stay without friends who were also parents going through our same issues."

Play-group members Antony Shuttleworth and Janet Aski live with their 4-year-old son, Julian, near a bar in Victorian Village.

"The noise sometimes wakes him up at night and exposes him to behaviors and language we'd rather not have him see or hear," Shuttleworth said.

"Otherwise, we like it here and see it as a child-friendly place."