"Capitalism pays for socialism."

Says Alderman Mark Clear at the Madison City Council meeting last night, which denied Occupy Madison an extension of its permit to maintain an encampment on a city block which is slated for development. Full context at the end of this post.

ADDED: This seems like a good place to repeat that old Margaret Thatcher adage: "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

"I like fire escapes. To me, they're unintentional urban art forms."

"Think about West Side Story and the role fire escapes play in that production. Audrey Hepburn sang 'Moon River' out on a Manhattan fire escape in Breakfast at Tiffany's. How many spy thrillers have featured chases across rooftops and swings from fire escapes? Fire escapes are romantic. They're urban art, and they wait for adventure."

Citizen Dave (the erstwhile Madison Mayor Dave (Cieslewicz)) has an amusing intro to a column about a proposed project that would repurpose some elderly buildings on State Street near the Wisconsin Capitol. If you want to understand what opposition to new buildings looks like in Madison, Wisconsin, read the whole column.

It's funny the way Madison progressives revere tradition when it comes to buildings. I like the old things too, and I certainly wouldn't want to waste money on a rampage against fire escapes on the theory that they're a terrible eyesore. But it's quite another thing to reject urban development to preserve them.

It comes down to whether you can appreciate an urban aesthetic or not. It comes down to our tolerance for the grittiness of real urban spaces versus the idea of suburban tidiness — and the sterility that comes with it.

There's a continuum from the worst grit, which everyone wants to eliminate, to the most extreme sterility, which only makes sense to attempt in completely new development. The political battles take place somewhere along the continuum.

How should these battles be conducted? Do you like the "I'm urban, you're suburban/I'm gritty, you're sterile" gambit?

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens talks about his "most unpopular opinion" — Kelo v. New London.

The WSJ reports:

"I had people at a bridge game stop me and ask, 'How could you have written that opinion? We thought you were a good judge, but we learned otherwise,'" [Justice Stevens] said. "But you can't explain the whole law of eminent domain to your bridge opponents."

He particularly criticized the logic of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.... The O'Connor dissent "took the position that public use is required in all cases except cases where they were remedying harm, getting rid of a nuisance or, in the case of the Hawaiians, correcting an injustice," Justice Stevens said in the interview. But in the 1954 case, "the irony of it is that the department store was in perfect condition," he said. "Their distinction was very unpersuasive."

"The Peace Pole will consist of an organic-looking wooden pole with the message, 'May Peace Prevail on Earth' in four different languages on four sides,..."

They're sprucing up Lisa Link Peace Park.

Tom Link, son of Lisa Link, served as a planning committee member on the project for 2.5 years.

“My mother would’ve been comfortable with the type of people that use the park, but a lot of people can’t deal with homelessness and poverty,” Link said.

Do you think a multilingual pole will turn things around?

How about an ATM machine? That's also part of the plan:

[T]he panhandling ordinance of the city states that panhandling is not permitted within 50 feet of an ATM machine, a common activity performed by the park dwellers.

“There is a perception that this plan is solely is to discourage panhandling, and I don’t support that motivation in any way,” said an opposing commission member. “Now we’re looking at an ATM that I was not thrilled with and a social engineering aspect that could be very controversial.”

And very welcome!

IN THE COMMENTS: Chip Ahoy asked:

What four languages?

Hieroglyphic, demotic, Greek, and Algic?

Sofa King said:

What four languages?

Latin, Elvish, Klingon, and C++

"The families in will be trapped inside the 20' maximum security-looking wall for about three weeks."

A new reality show called "Block Party."

I happen to be reading a book that is in part about how suburbanites hole up in their individual houses and don't interact in the ways that people used to do when they were compressed in old-time city neighborhoods, so it amuses me to see a reality show that's about forcing them to do what the normal structure of their community allows them to avoid.

More about the book later. (I'm recording a diavlog with the author which I'll link to in due time.)

Hey, everybody! Let's raze Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.

The Obama administration is considering bulldozing parts of blighted, shrinking cities:

"The real question is not whether these cities shrink – we're all shrinking – but whether we let it happen in a destructive or sustainable way," said [Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, Michigan, where Flint is located]. "Decline is a fact of life in Flint. Resisting it is like resisting gravity."...

Choosing which areas to knock down will be delicate but many of them were already obvious, he said.

The city is buying up houses in more affluent areas to offer people in neighbourhoods it wants to demolish. Nobody will be forced to move, said Mr Kildee.

"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said.

Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution "defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again."

Nobody will be forced to move? People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow?

First, I'm sure people will be forced to move if this thing gets going.

Second, you can't just return to nature by removing the streets and buildings. What will these non-urban buffer zones really look like? Even if it is something like a forest — made of very fast-growing trees? — or meadow, what sorts of animals — rodent and human — will run wild there?

I don't mean to be completely negative. Just asking a couple obvious questions.