[Paul] Barker begins his book by watching a tower block in Hackney being blown up. He ends it by reflecting that scarcely any semis have ever been demolished, except when they stood in the way of road-building schemes. The sourest critics eventually succumb. John Betjeman, after all, began as a modernist, but by 1940 had repented to become the laureate of the suburbs. Even Slough forgave him in the end. But the orthodoxy was strong. Stationed in the Middle East during the war, J. M. Richards wrote a homage to the suburbs, Castles on the Ground, but on his return to the Architectural Review he toed the modernist line.
The planning laws in their present rigid state give rise to the only serious corruption in British politics: they enable landowners to capture enormous unearned profits; even in a time of prosperity such as we have just enjoyed, they cause crippling housing shortages. Above all, in an age when thousands of acres are no longer needed for agriculture, they prevent ordinary people from living where they would most like to live (and from fostering biodiversity in their back gardens). As the Treasury report on land supply pointed out in 2003, current policy is bringing about “an ever widening economic and social divide”.
Paul Barker does not press these lines of argument too far. He stresses that he is not proposing to “concrete over” the English countryside; he is as keen as anyone to protect the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. He argues only that “”˜positive’ planning is best done with the lightest of hands”. He urges too a gentle bias towards preserving the streets as they are, for they are a city’s memory bank. But none of these things should be achieved at the cost of preventing people living the life they wish to live….
It’s not so much what people flee to in the suburbs that so irritates the intellectualoids. It’s what people flee from. The ‘small-minded’ flee the big city with its regulators and its planners and its high population density and its crime and its high taxes. They move to the suburbs and [i]they take their money with them.[/i] It sets up a dynamic where tax base becomes a commodity for which cites must compete. It’s just not an ideal situation for the would-be commisars who want a people to control, and the money to do it.
The middle class is supposed to be a resource to be mined for the benefit of the intellectual classes. It is supposed to be a herd of sheep available for the social experimentation of the intellectual classes. And that can’t happen if the sheep insist on running away before they can be sheared or vivisected. Stupid sheep! How dare they refuse to take their place in the natural order of things. How’s an intellectual supposed to live if the city can’t tax the middle class to raise his salary? How is he supposed to find meaning in life if he doesn’t have a population available to prove out his latest theory of social organization? The offense is mind-boggling.
carl
It’s not so much that people flee to the suburbs that irritate the intellectualoids of the Big City. It’s that they take with them their Walmart Superstore and their Costco outlets, the real revenue generators for cities.
Huh. I might be offended by #1’s comment, but I’m not sure. It depends on whether, in his schema, I am an “intellectual” or a member of the “middle class.” I thought I was both.
You’re right, Ross. That is a confusing juxtaposition of ideological and economic metaphors.
RE: “It depends on whether, in his schema, I am an “intellectual†or a member of the “middle class.†I thought I was both.”
I believe that you are confusing the concept of “middle class” with “makes a reasonably/moderate amount of money but not enough for me to be rich.” But that is not the definition of “middle class” — “middle class” in the way that Carl was using it, was that section of peoples that have all of those middle-class, bourgeois values that the intellectual class so despise.
Judging by your comments here, I’d put you in the intellectual class. It should be noted that the intellectual class — again in the way that Carl was using it — should also not be confused with the definition “having an educated, informed, and powerful intellect.”
; > )
#5 Sarah:
Ah. I knew I had to be on the wrong side of carl’s schema somehow, but I was confused because I imagined he was using the terms “middle class” and “intellectual” in ways that were related to their definitions. Thank you for clearing that up.
As for your last sentence, as you yourself have often advised, I consider the source and take that as a compliment 🙂
RE: “but I was confused because I imagined he was using the terms “middle class†and “intellectual†in ways that were related to their definitions . . . ”
He was — you just — oddly — claimed to be unaware of those standard class definitions. ; > )
However, I should note that I did not state that you yourself did not have an “educated, informed, and powerful intellect.” I merely pointed out that being a member of the intellectual class to which Carl referred did not *necessarily* mean that you did have such an intellect.
But there — I do heartily agree with your closing take, to be sure.
It is always good to be aware of the broad and deep chasm between the holders of the two gospels within TEC and it is good to see that you and I are both thoroughly aware of it.
Two gospels. In one organization. Spells long-term warfare, dissension, decline, and division.