The metropolis is not without its indigenous allure, MacKaye admits as much. He suggests, though, that this indigenous urban element suffers from persecution by the exogenous modern machine. It seems to me, though, that the exogenous superstructure is what provides the platform of cosmopolitan exchange occurring in our largest cities. Prior to the industrial revolution, foreign contact and trade was carefully isolated and controlled by a select mercantile and political elite; not until the mature phase of the industrial revolution has the option of seeking fortunes in the city—including partaking in “culture"--been available to those of limited means.
Just because this is the system we have does not mean that the only way to support cosmopolitanism is through metropolitanism, or that such intensity is a good idea as either a means or an end. Regardless, its attractiveness is as primal as John Muir’s mountains. Even the ancient Greeks built growing cities.
MacKaye starts right and ends, if not wrong, somewhat misguided. He recognizes that a subconscious desire for something better, perhaps more authentic, is awakening in the people. He further recognizes that, in order to satisfy that need, we need a reconnection to place (or space), to eternal history, and to each other. And he recognizes that before humanity can move into the solution, it must be able to see where to go.
He then moves awry. Does he not notice that Nature does not plan? We can forgive him, he is writing as an engineer in 1928. Nature, however, moves according to potentials. His solution to regional planning involves blocking potentials—building levees to prevent the spreading waters. We may clearly see, literally along the Mississippi, and figuratively in L.A. and in Chapel Hill, NC, that levees don’t work in the long run, and create problems of their own.
Chapel Hill embraced MacKaye’s ideas, and created around itself a rural buffer. It worked: it is now a beautiful small city surrounded by a rolling paradise, truly the southern part of heaven. Its beauty masks its troubles, however. The expense of building upward and inward forced housing prices to rise. The tools of industry moved elsewhere. Finally, many of the indigenous--artisans, farmers and loafers—were forced to leave.
A community that removes (or prices out) some segment of its pre existing population is no longer authentic. Pre-existing is part of the definition of indigenous, and MacKaye and I agree that indigenous is valuable. We must find a way to integrate all of us into our decisionmaking and valuation processes.
As one drives away from the city-state of Chapel Hill and arrives into the county of Durham, suddenly surrounded by hazy parking lots and cacophonous signage, it is easy to sympathize with MacKaye and Chapel Hill’s fathers. This metropolitan sprawl is, however, the work of planners who thought they were containing a blight.
MacKaye does recognize that the truer calling of the engineer is to listen to what Nature would have us do, rather than impose our own will. But that process needs to be more detailed, more organic, and more democratic.
As some thinkers have suggested, and experience bears out, the most satisfyingly livable cities are those that have grown organically, piece by piece, according to the numbers and desires of its peoples, and their ability to adapt to local environments in creative ways. Perhaps MacKaye’s approach of primeval levees necessarily fosters that adaptations be more creative and imaginative. All that we lack, then, is some mechanism with which to be more inclusive.
Most of my life has been spent less than hour’s drive from the Appalachian Trail. That we should jealously preserve that monument, and vigorously expand wild and working lands, is an ingrained piece of my personality. I especially hope that those lands are not relegated solely to lands that serve no other intensive use. I am skeptical, however, that any of us are smart enough to know how best to design or implement any kind of development plan. Instead, we must not only listen to, but be, Nature.
