The Internet is Weird and Google Analytics

The internet is one weird place.

Some months ago I read about Google Analytics. If on the odd chance you've never heard of it, Google Analytics keeps track of what's happening on one's website. It tracks such things as number of visitors, percentage of those that are new visitors, where they come from, what pages they visit, how long they stay on a page, etc. It really is pretty cool.

Of course I have no idea how to get Google Analytics up and running, but fortunately the firm that takes care of hosting my two websites has people much smarter than I. So for most of the last year I've used Google Analytics.

I have two web sites -- the one you're reading http://www.placeeconomics.com/ which is geared to my US practice and http://www.hs-intl.com/ which is the firm name of my international practice, Heritage Strategies International. And every few days I will take a quick check on the Google Analytics numbers for both of them.

Now my websites don't exactly draw thousands of people a day, but it is interesting where people are coming from, how they got there, and if they found the sites through some search engine, what was the keyword they used to get there.

The visitors to my site on average stay 2 or 3 minutes, which I guess is pretty good. But a couple of months ago on the HS-Intl site I noticed that there was a visitor who was there for 14 minutes. Well, that intrigued me, so I "drilled down" to find more about that visitor, and the first thing I looked for was where did he/she come from. The answer? Iran. Hmmm...that's interesting. How did they find me? Well, Google Analytics said they got there through a search engine. OK. So what was the keyword that was used? When somebody comes to one of my sites using a key word it is most often either my name, one of my firm names, or something like "economics and historic preservation". So how did my Iranian visitor get to me site? By typing in "Donovan Rypkema, CIA".

That was weird enough, but then this morning when I scanned the keywords that people used to find me yesterday, this one stood out. "Wayward girls in Seattle".

So just in case either of you come back....I do not now nor have I ever worked for the CIA...and if there are any wayward girls in Seattle I don't have the phone numbers of any of them.

The internet is a weird place.

Steve Mouzon and the Original Green

I don't usually write a blog that is simply a link to someone else's blog. But today I'm making an exception. Steve Mouzon established an organization called Original Green. His four characteristics of sustainable places (Nourishing, Accessible, Serviceable and Secure) and four characteristics of sustainable buildings (Loveable, Durable, Flexible, and Frugal) are a great way to start thinking about what sustainable development really is.

Steve's regular blogs are always worth a read. But today's entitled The Unburdening of America is particularly good. You don't have to agree with all of Steve's assumptions to find this a good way of thinking about how we are building today and how we should be building. Take a look.

Nature Conservancy, Anonymous Posts and Demolition

One of the first posts I made to this blog (May 2, 2008) was about the Indianapolis chapter of the Nature Conservancy building their new state headquarters. A newspaper story at the time quoted the state director as saying. "We're an international conservation organization. If anyone should be walking the walk of sustainability it should be The Nature Conservancy." But the Nature Conservancy's version of "walking the walk" is tearing down an 19th Century warehouse building so that they could build a new, LEED certified green gizmo building.

Here is the building they claimed they couldn't rehabilitate.You know those awe inspiring before and after pictures of historic rehabilitation projects? Well the picture above is the "before", here's the Nature Conservancy's "after".

A couple of weeks ago I got two comments, obviously written by the same person, who said they were "a person that [sic] is very familiar with this project". The poster said there was a "consensus" to tear the building down. Since there were numerous preservationists in Indianapolis who tried to assist the Nature Conservancy in figuring out how to reuse the historic building, I guess the "consensus" was among those already committed to demolition.

In response to my comment that another historic warehouse building in Indianapolis of about the same size was being rehabilitated for less than half the cost of the Nature Conservancy structure AND was going to be LEED certified the poster said, "Did you ever bother to ask what the building that is spending $68/s.f. is actually trying to obtain from LEED? I guarantee it is not LEED Platinum." So here we go, a prepubescent 5th grade playground mentality, "Your LEED is only Gold. Mine is Platinum." The idiocy of stars on spelling tests.

You are certainly welcome to go back to the earlier entry and read the comments that were posted in their entirety. I have the integrity to allow such comments to be posted. The writer of this one, however, had neither the integrity nor the balls to use their own name and posted as "Anonymous." Quite a bit of courage that takes.

But don't despair, the historic warehouse remains. Here it is.

So, congratulations, Nature Conservancy. You not only are going to get a Platinum Plaque for your Porch from LEED. I'm also awarding you a Titanium Triangle for lacking the imagination of how to use a century old building which would have been the ultimate in recycling.

For those of you who contribute to environmental causes - pick someone else. The hypocritical and disingenuous Nature Conservancy doesn't understand what sustainable development really is.

PLT, Black history, and Heritage Tourism

I have written before about PLT (July 3, 2008). PLT stands for Preservation Leadership Training, and is one of the best programs of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Each year (sometimes twice a year) 30 or 35 preservation professionals at various points in their careers will assemble for 8 days of VERY hard hand-on work/study somewhere in America.
PLT includes 8 hours a day of interactive lectures, and then another 8 hours a day working in teams on a local case study. But these case studies aren't just academic exercises. More often than not the reports of the PLT participants will serve as the framework for local preservationists to tackle the challenge after the visiting preservationists have left town.
The most recent PLT was in Birmingham, Alabama in January. Priya Chhaya who coordinated this event wrote a couple of excellent blogs as the week progressed.
The case study in Birmingham was the Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons of Alabama. This Masonic Temple, built in 1922, was (and still is) the home to Birmingham's African-American Masons. But that's not the half of it.
The building itself always had retailing on the ground floor and professional offices (in addition to the space the Mason's required) on the upper floors. It was largely from this building that much of the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham was directed -- on both the streets and in the court rooms.
Birmingham's first major gathering of Civil Rights activists took place in the building in 1932. Over the years a variety of Civil Rights advocacy groups were housed in the building including the Southern Negro Youth Congress, the International Labor Defense, the Jefferson County Negro Democratic League, the Right to Vote Club and the NAACP.
It was also the office of attorney Arthur Shores who played an important role in dozens of court cases and lawsuits regarding voting and education. It was upon many of the cases Shores was involved with that the legal foundation for the end of segregation in America was built.
The building has architectural importance as well and was designed by a Black architect and built by a Black construction firm.
During the week David Flemming of Main Street Birmingham and I did a local television interview about the building and PLT. And it was while we were standing across the street from the building waiting for the intervew to begin that this thought occured to me:

• Once the world economic chaos begins to regain balance, international tourism will begin to recover. And here's what's going to happen, first among Europeans and Japanese and then among Africans. They will ask the question, "How is it possible that a country in barely 50 years could go from a Black man being denied entrance to a restaurant to a Black man being elected President?"

What a wonderful question! But standing across from the Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge the obvious (which more often than not eludes me) became clear - the Civil Rights movement in America is not one giant story. It is a million little stories, each moving us a small step closer to having elected Barack Obama. It will be to learn those little stories that will draw international tourists to America. The rapidly rising middle classes in China and India will come to learn that story as well.

And where will those million little stories be told? In a million different places. A dozen different rooms in the Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge hold a dozen individual stories. Historic buildings are the physical manifestation of history. And those historic buildings with ties to the Civil Rights movement are where the million steps that brought Barack Obama to the White House were taken. That's where the stories should be told.

I've been meaning to write on this subject since I was in Birmingham a month ago. Why today? Because of a newstory this morning about how the physical manifestations of Black history are being lost in Davenport, Iowa.

It's natural to think of a place like Birmingham and its conntection to Black history in this country. Afterall it was Kelly Ingram Park (half a block from the Masonic Temple) where, in 1963, the world watched in horror as Bull Connor unleashed firehoses, dogs, and billyclubs on Civil Rights marchers. But places like Davenport also have their own stories in this epic, and sadly they are being lost at the exact moment when world wide interest in those stories will build. That's a sad story socially and culturally, but also economically.

But perhaps the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge will regain its important role in telling its story and demonstrating its contribution to making Barack Obama the President. If it succeeds, at least some of the credit should go to the participants in PLT whose excellent reports point the way.

This year a second PLT is going to be held in Deadwood, South Dakota in June. If you're interested in being a participant, the registration deadline is in March. If you're a professional preservationist, it will be well worth your time, effort and money. And like the previous PLTs, your efforts that week will reap rewards for the host community as well.

Small town, small college and NORCs

I spent Thursday driving about an hour and a half from where I live in downtown Washington to Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Shepherdstown is West Virginia's oldest community having been established by Thomas Shepherd in 1734. Today, 275 years later, there are still members of the Shepherd family living in the community.

This is a town of around 1100 people, but what a great place to visit and to live! There is a strong arts community, year round cultural activities, some wonderful shops and restaurants, and an extraordinary inventory of historic buildings that make up the living fabric of the town.

Also in Shepherdstown is Shepherd University, a state school of around 4000 students. It was an invitation from Keith Alexander to give a lecture at the University that brought me to Shepherdstown. Keith is the coordinator of the historic preservation program at Shepherd. Most degree programs in historic preservation are in schools of architecture, or history, or American studies. The Shepherd program is within the Institute for Environmental Studies. That's a splendid place for a preservation program to be, and I don't know of another case - either graduate or undergraduate - where that's the case.

The Institute takes a multidisciplinary approach to environmental issues and clearly recognizes that historic preservation is a multidisciplinary activity as well. That was manifested by where Keith was able to raise money for this event. Within the University he secured funds from the Institute for Environmental Studies but also the Department of Economics, the School for Natural Science and Mathematics, and the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies. He also raised funds off campus from the Corporation of Shepherdstown and the Friends of the Shepherdstown Riverfront. That riverfront is spectacular, by the way. Shepherdstown overlooks the Potomac River as it makes its way to Washington.


I give a fair number of lectures on campuses, but this one was a first for another reason. The President of the University, Dr. Suzanne Shipley, not only showed up to welcome me, but sat through the entire presentation. That's not, I would suggest, becuase my lecture was particularly important, but rather a reflection of President Shipley's commitment to support the activities of her faculty and the larger community of Shepherdstown.

Prior to the event on campus I got a great tour of the town and surrounding area by Keith and local activist Lois Turco. Lois and her husband Fred had careers in the Foreign Service, much of it in the Middle East, until they retired to Shepherdstown in 2001. It was while chatting with Lois and Fred at dinner that I recalled an acronym that I learned at Notre Dame last week (see blog of 2/9) from a presentation made by Dr. Shannon Chance of Hampton University. The acronym is NORC -- Naturally Occuring Retirement Community.

Shepherdstown is definitely a NORC. Fred told me that the twice annual luncheon of retired Foreign Service professionals draws 30 or 40 people, all from the immediate area.


What makes Shepherdstown such a desirable place for professional retirees? Most importantly, it is a wonderful small town and extremely walkable. The college and associated cultural and intellectual activities provide a degree of sophistication and world-view that most towns of 1000 people don't have. The proximity to Washington -- an hour and a half away -- certainly adds to the appeal, as does the fact that both Amtrak and MARC (the Maryland commuter rail system) have stops in nearby Martinsburg. And 10 miles away is the historic town (and National Landmark) Harpers Ferry.

Shepherdstown is within Jefferson County which has a population of around 50,000, but a disproportionate number of PhDs. Some of them have chosen the area as a NORC. Others are affiliated with two Federal government training centers in the immediate area - The Eastern Management Development Center of the US Office of Personnel Management and the National Conservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

But there was one great disappointment in the Shepherdstown visit - Ferry Hill. This is an early 19th century property owned by the National Park Service. It is a wonderful structure sitting on the hill across from Shepherdstown and overlooking the Potomac. From 1979 until 2001 Ferry Hill served as the headquarters for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.



This is an incredible asset. And what is the Park Service doing with it? Ah, well, that would be nothing. "We don't have the money to do anything with it" they say. OK, I understand that. Then put the property in the hands of another entity - public, private, non-profit - who will come up with the money.

This is too important a property just to sell. But there are plenty of ways the Park Service could transfer possession of the property and generate long term income, without giving up ownership. And there are plenty of legal and transactional tools available to assure the property is treated the way an important historic property should be treated.

The National Park Service should know this principle better than anyone - the best form of preservation is occupancy and use, and the parallel principle - buildings that sit vacant are properties that deteriorate.

And what's the Park Service's grand strategy? Well, here's what they say on their website, "Historic Ferry Hill Place still stands in an idyllic location proudly overlooking the Potomac River, waiting for the next stage of its life to begin."

There's an imaginative, entrepreneurial, creative solution for you! If you remember Becket's Waiting for Godot, at the end of the play Vladimir and Estragon are still waiting. Surely you can do better than that Park Service.

Mortgages for Big Macs

OK, this is the last one about the stimulus plan. It's going to pass in some version this week so it's too late for anyone I know to make any difference.

What the hell, I'm not going to live long enough to have to pay any of this money back. But my grandchildren will spend their working lives repaying what Congress is going to appropriate in the next 3 days. I teach a class at Penn where the students are mostly between 23 and 28; my daughter is 34. Their generations should be absolutely outraged at this.

First a set of givens:

1. The world is in economic chaos


2. The "market" is not going to get us out of this. In fact a good case can be made that it was a vastly under-regulated market (and way too many 27 year old MBAs on Wall Street way thinking that actually knew something...and apparently without any adult supervision) that got us into this mess.


3. The federal government is the actor of last resort so has to take the lead.


4. THERE IS NO CASH SITTING IN THE NATIONAL SAVINGS ACCOUNT! So all of this stimulus money is coming from borrowed funds.


5. It is not McCain or even Barack Obama who will have to repay this debt but it will be their children, grandchildren, and in McCain's case great grandchildren.

So if we're going to burden at least two and probably three generations to pay for this, the money ought to be spent for long term assets, so at least they get some use out of what they are paying for.

And Obama's words seemed to suggest that was going to be the case - infrastructure, building weatherization, rebuilding schools, etc.

The poor guy just got torpedoed by Nancy Pelosi and her myopic, self-serving colleagues in the House of Representatives.

Here's my back-of-the-envelope calculations:

57.8% of the money is going to be spent on operating expenses and cash distributions, the impact of which will be entirely in the next 12 months.

Another 14.8% will be spend on short term assets -- those that have a life of 5 years or less.

17.4% of the money will go towards assets with a useful life of between 5 and 20 years.

Leaving only 10% of all that money invested in long-term assets.

Put it another way, 90% of what the money is being spent for will be entirely gone while 70% of the bill will yet to be paid. This is exactly the same as buying and consuming a Big Mac, but financing it with a 40 year mortgage.

If I were the age of my daughter I'd start an impeachment campaign for every member of Congress in both parties in both houses.

And lest you think the Republicans are any better than the Democrats - absolutely not! The only answers they have are "No" or "Tax Cuts". And they say, "Let's cut taxes, and give the money back to taxpayers...afterall it's their money". Bullshit! You're giving me a tax refund that my grandchildren will have to pay.

And speaking of the litiny of bullshit that all of them are using:

"Create or save" 4 million jobs. Both Obama and Arlen Specter one of the three Republicans who supported the "compromise" in the Senate used that phrase. "Create 4 million jobs" is one thing. How many jobs exist now? How many exist in a couple of years? Is it more or less than 4 million more jobs? That, at least, can be measured. But "save jobs"? Rhetorical nonsense. There is no way to demonstrate that. In three years there could be no more jobs than today and one could still say, "Yeah, but I saved 4 million jobs" and there is no way to disprove it.

And what it a "job" anyway? I'll tell you what is being used. Various econometric multipliers that calculate jobs based on output..."how many jobs are created when $1 Million is spent building a highway" for example. But look at the fine print. A "job" is defined as one full time equivilant job for one year. So let's say a guy who finishes concrete is now going to have a job building highways for the next 4 years. That's not one job. That is 4 jobs!

And, speaking of highways, here was a once in a generation opportunity to shift from our sprawl inducing, environmentally disasterous, health impairing, overdependence on cars, and shift to enhancing public transportation, particularly rail. And that's what Obama sounded like he wanted to do. Instead the amount going to highways is 10 times what is going to rails and public transportation. It ought to be the other way around.

I'm all for using tax credits. We should give tax credits for people to wean themselves from so much automobile dependence. Even a 15% reduction in automobile miles traveled would have an incredible impact on air quality, commuting times, and fuel consumption. Instead, the idiots in the Senate added a tax incentive for buying another car!.

Dean Michael Lykoudis of the architecture school at Notre Dame had what I though was an excellent suggestion. He pointed out that at the beginning of World War II in six months time the US automakers shifted their entire production facilities from making cars to making tanks and other equipment to fight the war. If we're insisting on helping General Motors, argues Lykoudis, then say, "We'll help you retool to make passenger rail cars, subway cars, and other mass transit vehicles." Great idea.

The Republicans are saying, "This is too much". The reality is, no one knows. The issue is not the size of the stimulus but its composition. It is almost all very short term expenditures with no lasting impact at all. And it sure as hell isn't sustainable development by any measure.

Poor Obama came to the White House genuinely believing, I think, that he could change how Washington worked. But this stimulus package is exactly how Washington has worked (or rather why it hasn't worked) in the past - no set of underlying principles; pandering to constituencies; hanging Christmas tree ornaments on every spending bill; thinking not a day past the next election.

We have to have a stimulus bill.

The stimulus bill that is about to pass is irresponsible, myopic, selfish, vote-buying, self-serving and reprehensible. It is a gigantic "screw the next generations" piece of legislation. Our grandchildren will rightfully curse this Congress and us for electing them.

Not only are the French smarter, so are the Norwegians

Earlier this week I wrote about the incorporation of $132 million a year for the next four years for the restoration of historic buildings in France. That was a specific part of President Sarkozy's economic stimulus plan for France. Like the US, France is suffering its most severe recession since the end of World War II.

This morning I get an email from my friend Terje Nypan who is in the Culture Ministry of Norway. Much of the national budget in Norway is dependent on oil. So when the oil price drops from $140 per barrel to $40, it obviously has a big impact.

So the Norwegian government has adopted what they call their "Crisis Package" in the amount of about $685 million dollars. (If that number seems low compared to the $780 Billion stimulus package here, remember that the population of Norway is around 4.6 million versus 304 million for the US. )

But unlike the United States where the only criteria to make the bill seems to be having a friend on the House Appropriations Committee, in Norway they actually had a set of principles upon which their decisions were based. And here they are:

• The measures must have a speedy effect on the labor market
• The measures must have specific target objectives
• The measures must be limited in time
• The measures shall strengthen the Government in its policies for the environment and income distribution.

I happen to think this is an excellent set of principles. But others could have a different list. The trouble in the US is that there is no set of principles upon which we are encumbering 3 generations to repay.

And how did Norway commit their stimulus money to be consistent with these principles?

• Measures for increased energy efficiency $183,529,000
• Repair and development of railway system $198,976,000
• CO2 cleaning $147,129,000
• Footpaths/sidewalks and bicycle roads $ 76,471,000
• Nature management and Cultural Heritage $ 52,000,000
• Environment research on sea wind turbines $ 11,471,000
• Charging stations for electric cars $ 7,647,000
• Bio Energy $ 7,647,000

The Cultural Heritage portion of that was around $34,000,000 and was divided as follows:

• Rehabilitation and maintenance of privately owned, protected property $11.6 Million
• Technical and industrial heritage, vessels and centers $6.9 Million
• Rock art, archeology, and universal access $3.8 Million
• Fire safety for historic wood buildings, medieval and important churches $11.8 Million

Why did they do this? Because they learned in the last recession that: a) it worked putting people back to work and training workers for the future; and b) it met the principles they established.

Virtually all the line items in the Norwegian stimulus package are long term investments. Almost none in the US stimulus package are.

One more blog about the stimulus package then I'll let it go. What the hell, I'll never live long enough to have to repay any of it.

Why the French are Smarter than us Americans

Yeah, we have to have a stimulus plan. And one will pass this week. The latest iteration is the one crafted by a moderate Republican (Susan Collins of Maine) and a moderate Democrat (Ben Nelson of Nebraska). And as a militant moderate myself, I have to commend them for at least making some adjustments to the bottomless barrel of pork written by the Democrats in the House and the equally irresponsible "just say no" or "just say more tax cuts" approach by the Republicans.

In this morning's Washington Post Senator Arlen Specter, one of the three Republicans likely to vote for this latest version, said that the $780 Billion Dollar package would create or save 4 million jobs. (As an aside "create or save" used by both Specter and President Obama is bullshit...why? It means you have already defined success for yourself. If not a single new job is created you can still say, "Yeah, but I saved 4 million jobs" and it's impossible to disprove that.)

But bullshit aside, make the calculation. $780 Billion divided by 4 million jobs equals $195,000 per job.

Now France has as big a case of economic chaos as we do. Their economy shrunk last year the most since World War II and their unemployment is expected to reach nearly 11%.

So, of course, President Sarkozy had to introduce his own economic stimulus plan. But here's a big piece of his approach - committing 100 million extra Euros per year ($130 million) for the restoration of historic monuments in France for the next 4 years. So about 1.5% of his stimulus package is going toward heritage conservation. By the way Sarkozy isn't the only one. In March there is going to be a hearing in Brussels of the European Union on using heritage conservation as a counter-cyclical economic development strategy.

So what if we took this approach as part of our stimulus plan? Of course in the US we are much more likely to use tax incentives to attract private investment rather than direct public funding. And we've done this effectively with the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit.

So let's double the tax credit for the next 4 years (from 20% to 40%) and let's assume that costs the US taxpayers the annual equivalent of $130 million per year. What would that mean? Nearly 20,000 jobs per year for each of the next 4 years. (Also, by the way, when economists and politicians say "job" they mean one full time job for one year. So if a stimulus package creates one job in the highway building business, for example, that lasts for the next four years, that will be counted as 4 jobs).

The cost to the US taxpayer of historic preservation as stimulus? $6875 dollars per job...for the same amount of money that is required to create 1 job in the rest of the stimulus package, 28 jobs would be created. And this would represent less than 1/10 of 1% of the stimulus spending, not France's 1.5%.

Furthermore, this is Sustainable Economic Development! A tax credit to encourage Americans to buy even more cars isn't.

France might not produce the best armies, but they are better at wine, better at cheese, and sure as hell better at figuring out a stimulus plan than we are.

Notre Dame, New Urbanists, and List Servs

I wrote it in the first blog entry I made and I'll write it again -- I have by far the best job in America. I get to do all kinds of cool things. And this week was one of them.

The School of Architecture at Notre Dame University held a three day symposium entitled, Sustainability and the Environment: The Original Green. What a great learning opportunity for me!

The speakers for the symposium were (myself excepted) a Who's Who of the Congress for New Urbanism. This isn't so surprising, since when, every two or three years, some ambitious student posts to one of the New Urbanist list servs the question, "I want to practice traditional architecture and town planning, where should I go to school?" The answer from the New Urbanists is nearly always the University of Miami (where CNU co-founder Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk is dean) and Notre Dame (where classicist and New Urbanist Michael Lykoudis is dean). Further, it was New Urbanist founders Plater-Zyberk and her husband Andres Duany who a couple of weeks ago received the Richard H. Driehaus Prize which is awarded annually by Notre Dame.

Dean Lykoudis had a wonderful response in anticipation of those who would claim that traditional building design stifles creativity. He said, "Classicism is free will nurtured by tradition."

Here was the symposium line-up:

Tom Lowe, Director the North Carolina office of DPZ. Tom talked about the principles of Light Imprint design for communities.

Steve Mouzon, principal of the New Urban Guild. Steve is always great about translating what others try to make complicated into simple, understandable, straight-forward concepts. Steve avoids the mumbo-jumbo, technical definitions about sustainability and defines it as "Can you keep it going for a long time into an uncertain future." What a great definition! Steve, by the way, is the originator of the phrase "The Original Green".

CNU member and Hampton University professor Shannon Chance talked about the ongoing research about the relationship between the urban environment and health...particularly among both ends of the chronological spectrum - children and the elderly.

David Thurman is a senior associate in one of the country's other most prominent new urbanist architecture firms - Moule & Polyzoides of Pasadena. David effectively made the case (that was subsequently echoed by others) that building sustainable communities is a decidedly multidisciplinary approach.

I was particularly pleased that the Notre Dame organizers understood that historic preservation is at the core of sustainable development. Hence their invitation to me, but also to Mark Thaler, a principal in the firm Einhorn Yaffee Prescott. Particularly valuable to the audience made of primarily of architecture students, Mark gave examples of the techniques to make historic buildings more energy efficient without diminishing their architectural character.

Bruce King is the Founder of the Ecological Building Network. Bruce made a stunning and extraordinarily witty presentation about the magnitude of the ecological crisis - peak oil, global warming, population explosion - that we have to face...and face sooner (like yesterday) rather than later.

Alan DeFrees was the only faculty member, other than Dean Lykoudis, who made a presentation at the symposium. But it was a fascinating story about the natural cooling and ventilation systems that housing types from all over the globe had until we decided that a thermostat and an HVAC system would solve all our problems.

Michael Mehaffy is one smart guy. Michael is Chair of US INTABU the International Network for Traditional Architecture, Building and Urbanism. As would be expected Michael is an unwavering advocate for traditional building typologies. But instead of making that case on some sentimental urge for nostalgia, he effectively makes the case that the understandings emerging from complexity theory (that chemists, physicists, and biologists are developing) support the underlying logic of traditional buildings and neighborhood patterns. His long association with Christopher Alexander is certainly evident here.

And the symposium was wrapped up by urban journalist Neal Pierce, the unquestioned best of columnists who both write about AND understand the nature of cities. His organization the CitiStates Group is composed of writers, thinkers, and practitioners who address cities from a metropolitan region perspective. The weekly Citiwire Net is a column by Pierce and another by one of his associates, and is a useful read for anyone interested in cities.

Another of the New Urbanist intellectuals who was in attendance for the entire time and asked probing questions, but did not make a formal presentation was Philip Bess, a faculty member at Notre Dame. I've loved over the years reading Phil's postings on various New Urbanist listservs because he views the issues through the lens of philosophy and theology...neither of which I know much about but the perspective is always intellectually challenging and intriguing.

And the organization and logistics for all of this was superbly handled by Kara Kelly, the kind of staff person every university department wishes they had.

I don't know if the students realized what a huge learning opportunity the School of Architecture provided them, but I certainly did. I learned an incredible amount in three days.

But one of the great lessons was independent of the formal lectures. Over the years I've been a bit of a critic of the New Urbanists. While I never had much of a quarrel with the underlying design principles, I was often offended by the incredible egos and by the seeming intolerance for the slightest deviation from the dogma. Dissent - even by those who were 90% in agreement - was dismissed as not only erroneous but treasonous.

Well, maybe it's because the movement has matured, maybe because they are today confident enough in their impact that gargantuan egos and suppression of dissent aren't needed any more. The New Urbanists at this gathering - Steve Mouzon, Michael Mehaffy, Michael Lykoudis, Tom Lowe, Shannon Chase, Philip Bess, David Thurman - are vastly more modest and humble than their expertise would warrant.

Further, there is now a degree of objectivity in what New Urbanism is and is not doing. Steve's presentation, in particular, spelled out in clear fashion, "Here's what we New Urbanists are doing right; here's where we still have quite a ways to go."

Many of the people at this conference I only knew previously because of their postings on listservs. Getting to know them in person was a great pleasure.

Oh, by the way, if you happen to be a student considering a career in architecture - talk to them at Notre Dame. They won't just teach you how to design buildings...they'll teach you how to love cities. And that's vastly more important.

I do have the best job in America.