Hedeke Misery

Hanging on the roof of Clifton Natural Foods:

Einstein on Destructive Schooling

"...It is little short of a miracle that modern methods if instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry, because what this delicate little plant needs most, apart from initial stimulation, is freedom: without that it is destroyed. ... I believe that one could even deprive a healthy beast of prey of it's voraciousness, if one could force it with a whip to eat continuously whether it were hungry or not...". - Albert Einstein as quoted by Carl Sagan in "Broca's Brain" pg 25

Yurt Compared to Longhouse

A picture of a yurt from the 1915 color photos of Russia:

yurt close girl on carpet

yurt2

Compared to the Algonquian longhouse reconstruction seen at Jamestown:

YOu ave to wonder if the reconstruction is made to look especially shabby, ie authentic. I mean we don't have any actual photos of Powhatan architecture, right? These are American reconstructions based on 500 year old European descriptions. I wonder if we had color photography in 1607, if the longhouse would have looked even more like the yurt?

longhouse reconstruction phot of the interior:

Costs of Washington Park (ing)

Cars are a twentieth century reality, and so far, they continue to be a reality in this century. And as long as personal autos are the dominant form of transportation, then we must have places to park them. In the city, this often results in demolition for surface lots or construction of ugly garages.

And in any form, parking spaces are expensive. The expense is two fold: first is the actual money required to build and maintain parking spaces, and the other is the waste of land. In order to avoid the latter (the creation of huge wastelands of parking around places of public assembly such as sports stadia or places like Music Hall), garages are required.

A simple suburban asphalt parking lot is more expensive than many people think. First there is the cost of the land itself. Then the preparation of the land, the gravel base and the asphalt and lighting. Also there is the drainage. Large parking lots require lots of collection and detention of stormwater, and this system requires design and maintenance. The result is that suburban surface parking lots often end up costing $5,000 per parking space.

But when garages are required, then the numbers really start to get high. $30,000 is a standard quoted amount.

So all of this has been in my mind as I was hearing about the development of underground parking at Washington Park. The area that will get the underground parking was the location of Washington Park Elementary. It now is a large gravel lot and our local swimming pool, which sits empty this year.

At Washington Park, they are building 450 parking spaces for a cost of 27 million. The park itself is estimated to cost 20 million more, with a total of $47 million. But look at that number for the underground parking. If my math is right, that is $60,000 per parking space. Think about the numbers for a minute. At that rate, the cost of the Cincinnati Streetcar is equal to about 2,000 parking spaces!

I am not saying parking under Washington Park is a bad idea. I'm certainly not saying the streetcar is too expensive, but just look at the comparison. Cars are very expensive, and in this discussion we are just talking about the spaces to park them when they are not in use! Nevermind the insurance, gas, environmental destruction, the wars for oil etc etc. This is just parking them somewhere!

My only point is that parking is not free. Someone pays for it. In the city, users must pay for it by paying a usage fee. In the suburbs, it is paid for by the stores owners. But who pays for the sheer ugliness of a 10 acre parking lot? There are many parking spaces at shopping malls that only get used once a year. But the land is ruined for all 365.

I read somewhere recently that "the cost of all parking spaces in the U.S. exceeds the value of all cars and may even exceed the value of all roads."

Parking costs billions of dollars a year.

And all we want is an option. An option to walk and an option to for transit that supports walking and biking.

On a related note, click here to view an expensive underground car park in Budapest.