I just returned to Orange County from a trip to the Eureka
redwoods. I forgot that I was on the
freeway traveling near 80 up there because these ancient giants paint the
scene. Freeways in southern California
are starkly divided from regular life.
You feel glad to be in the safety of your car and not “out there.” After stopping for an evening in the gourmet-littered
streets of San Francisco and a boring ride on Interstate 5, I find myself back
on the seemingly deserted streets of Irvine. (The streets bloat with cars at the evening
and morning commute hours when the residents dare to leave their self-absorbing
homes.) After filling up my car’s belly
with regular unleaded, I decided to walk to the closest post office to send a
letter. It didn’t look too far on my
smartphone map; just a couple of blocks!
Google reminded me that those two blocks actually spanned 1.2
miles. 1.2 miles? Never wanting to be outdone, Orange County
design makes the sizable Redwood dimensions seem quaint. It takes me 30 seconds to just cross the
intersection. I decide to take the quieter street to avoid vehicular
fumes. The sidewalk is forgotten on this
street. To make the best of this
situation, I play “tightrope” on the curb.
I’m assured I’m not drunk since I can successfully balance my clumsy
self half a foot above the street.
Eventually, one of the usually out-of-sight lawn maintenance workers
obstructs my catwalk, so I jump off. I
saw several of these landscaping manicurists on my walk. One was even blowing leaves out of the
bushes, as if it was an offense for a bush to be a little unkempt. The dedication to keeping everything under
control is something Irvine excels at, including its people. I only passed three other walkers on my
round-trip 2.4-mile stroll. You almost feel
weird being a foot-based commuter here.
This town was made for wheels, and we really admire you if you have
fancy ones.
My quick displacement from the irrepressible jungle of San
Francisco to the asphalt plains of Irvine made the contrast all the more
vivid. In my 4-block walk, I noticed how
the businesses (no homes were intermingled in this zone) keep each other at
arm’s lengths. Perhaps they are
protecting their trade secrets, or their secret trades. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from,
just as long as you have it! The streets
are so clean of debris that few birds bother to visit to find a random treat.
A friend of mine here loves the planning of the city. No ugly electrical wires, big open spaces,
discrete zones for businesses and residences.
Like the cupboard of someone with OCD, every thing has its proper
place. Orange County has everything you
could need: malls, chain stores, chain
restaurants, churches, cineplexes, a grand arts center with family-approved
productions, and plenty of medical offices.
There is a small rough-around-the-edges Artists Village in Santa Ana
with a distinctly more progressive urban streak to it, but as long as it is
contained in that community, the rest
of OC doesn’t have to worry. Irvine, and
Orange County generally, make people feel safe, secure, and comfortable. There is a lot of predictability here, which
is why Occupiers were so upsetting to some people. That kind of thing is only supposed to happen
elsewhere. Even though Orange County has
a wonderful range of ethnic, linguistic, and culinary diversity, it doesn’t
have the conspicuous expressive range that is typical of more diverse
communities.
It’s the damn streets!
While well designed for cars, with their insulating effect on everyone’s
psyches, they are not conducive to social mixing. It’s rare to “happen upon” an interesting
spot here. On your way to work, school,
grocery shopping, or a friend’s house, you just see more of the same. I still
get slightly confused driving in Irvine sometimes because the visual referents
we normally rely on are all so similar as to make them unhelpful. On a hike in
nature, or in a city, it’s almost impossible to just see more of the same. The surprising giant clovers creeping out
around the trail’s turn or the gilded embellishments on a SF home grab your
attention. They are distinctive. In
these spaces, you are forced to walk, and at that slower pace, you bump into
all kinds of unexpected life.
Orange County must be overrun with communists since they
have surrendered themselves to top-down central planning! Oh that’s right, those are just inciteful buzzwords
to scare the thinker away. Any planning
project, whether broad or narrow in scope, will create an effect that is in
large part determined by what the intentions of the project are. What are the values that the planning is
serving and promoting? Some communities
are planned to foster mixing. Some
communities assiduously plan to provide every home with water, others
don’t. Some communities plan to maintain
social stability by using rent control. Orange County doesn’t. Orange County bends over backwards to attract
businesses, and makes a less heroic effort to provide low-income housing for
workers that those businesses don’t pay enough.
The funny thing is that all organizations, large, small, private, governmental,
and non-profit all do planning. Even the
ever-experimental Google plans its playtime for employees. Planning, like technology, isn’t inherently
dangerous. It’s the motivation behind it
that matters.
What might a society that used planning to make our lives
better, socially and physically, look like?
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