The Slumburban Asphalt Jungle

This Wednesday we were treated to a Washington Post article with a photo featuring a familiar sight from Connecticut Avenue Estates here in west Wheaton:  an ugly parking slab that used to be a front yard.

The Post article covers the county’s proposed measure to prohibit people from converting their lawns into paved parking lots.  Here’s an excerpt:

“The Montgomery County Council began considering a proposal [on Monday, May 4] by County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) to limit pavement in front yards and restrict who could park there.  Violators could be fined as much as $500 a day for each offense, potentially rising to $750 a day for repeat offenders.  No matter how small your lot, however, you would always be allowed to have at least 310 square feet of pavement, enough for two short, tightly parked cars.

The proposal also would forbid parked vehicles on grass in the front yard, forcing drivers to either park on pavement, gravel or stone in the yard or park on the street.  But it doesn't mention the back yard, which means that still could be paved over in most single-family neighborhoods.”

—“Montgomery Council Considers Limits on Front Yard Pavement,” Washington Post, May 6, 2009

What the article doesn’t mention is that people here often pave over their front lawns so they can cram more renters/boarders in these houses.  Residential overcrowding is rampant in Connecticut Avenue Estates.

For example, my next-door neighbor uses her house as a cut-rate motel and dive lounge with cheap beer and cheaper music.  Her “patrons” rely on her ample parking lot to store their wheels while they carouse at her tacky slumburban dive.  They can fit four vehicles in her lot, but they often manage to accommodate six when they park in front of our lot as well.

A fair number of households have four to six automobiles, a lot of which are large vehicles, such as work vans and trucks.  Many of them are commercial/company vehicles, often unmarked.

The county has had so many complaints about oversized vehicles in residential neighborhoods that MCPD will start enforcing a new code prohibiting street parking of oversized vehicles starting on July 1, as mentioned in the article.  But before you start plotting to flag your obnoxious neighbor’s pickup or van, you should know that this covers only very large commercial and recreational vehicles, with gross vehicle weight (GVW) of 10,000 lbs. or greater, measuring at least 8 feet high and 21 feet long.  (For details on the new law, click here [PDF, 238K].)

As far as the Post article and comments in reaction to the county’s consideration of the measure, I was somewhat surprised at the passionate “don’t-tread-on-me” style mini-diatribes defending the right to pave over one’s patch of suburbia.

All I can say is that neighborhoods like Connecticut Avenue Estates make HOAs look very attractive.  I realize how arbitrary and inflexible these groups can be, but it’s a slippery slope to slumburbia, and libertarianism works much better out in the wilderness.

In the article’s comments section, Aspen Hill blogger Thomas Hardman eloquently articulates the position of residents like me:

Thank GOD!

In the recent District 4 Special Election, this was the cry that I delivered for Aspen Hill, the cry against people who cut down all of their trees, pave their yards, and illegally park their work fleets on their paved yard, and give the neighborhood the appearance of an industrial park illegally renting out their shop spaces to families of illegal aliens.

It is an offense to the neighbors, to the neighborhood, to the Chesapeake Bay watersheds, and to the aquifers under Maryland.

It has to stop.

Thank you, Montgomery Council.

If you learn nothing from this Special Election, learn this:

Stop PAVING MONTGOMERY.  Stop trying to PAVE the BAY.

I leave you with my own photographic illustration of the phenomenon of paved front lawns.  This is a section of Valleywood Drive in Connecticut Avenue Estates.  Here we have three different parking lot substrates in front of four different homes.  During the height of summer this area is an unwelcome miniature heat island.  Valleywood Drive runs right next to a stream that is part of the Rock Creek watershed.

The county council will hold a public hearing on this issue on Tuesday, June 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the Council Office Building (100 Maryland Avenue, Rockville 20850).  The measure under consideration is called “ZTA 09-03, Home Occupations and Residential Off-street Parking.”  To give testimony, call 240-777-7931.

What the brick--?!?

In honor of “Script Frenzy,” I have written the following short dialogue, which takes place not far from lower slumburbia (southwest Wheaton, in this instance).

Boilerplate Disclaimer:  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and derives from heretofore untapped psychic powers.

INT. CONSTRUCTION SITE TRAILER - EARLY SPRING, DAYTIME

The contractor, JOE, sits on a broken swivel chair, looking over change order forms and other assorted paperwork.  ELMER, a construction worker, enters the room and stands there until JOE notices him.

ELMER

Boss?  My family is growing very fast and I need more space right now.  I want to ask you--

JOE

--what, buddy?  You lookin’ for another bonus?  Or even more overtime?!  You know, work slowed down a bit in the off-season and I think you should really take it easy.  (Pauses.)  Hold on, didn’t you move out of that roach magnet and into a new house in the suburbs not too long ago?  What gives?

ELMER

Yes, but, you see, this house is very small, less than 900 feet.  My wife wants all our boys to have their own rooms and she wants a new kitchen and we have a corner lot, so I--

JOE

--well, why didn’t you say so?!  You want to take that surplus off my hands?  That stuff left over from the jobs last season?  Help yourself, buck.

ELMER

Thank you; I owe you big, Mr. Joe.

JOE

Sure.  Hey, you want those pallets of cinderblocks for cheap?  I really need to free up the space for some new shipments.

ELMER

Yeah, I take those.  Also, I see you have very many leftover yellow bricks--

JOE

--go ahead and help yourself to those, too.  And you’ll need some mortar mix.  Y’know, I’ve even got some manufacturer mortar dye samples you can play with, if you want ’em.

ELMER

Oh, very good!  Thank you, man!

JOE

No problem, charlie.  Show me some photos once you get things going.

ELMER

I will!

The result:

A Lower Slumburbia DIY McMansion —
Fugly Supersized Rear Addition / Re-McModel Variant

That’s right, folks, it’s just your average slumburban

“Surplus Supply Shotgun Special” :



Now let’s examine this aesthetically-challenged architectural hybrid from hell:

1. On the right we have an original Dutch colonial brick-and-frame duplex with a quirky mansard roof, circa 1950.

2. On the left we have a brick-and-block millenial monstrosity, circa 2000-2003.

Exterior Side Wall (Northeast Exposure):

Let’s call this creative color scheme “Adobe Sunset” (or perhaps “El Dorado ” or “La Casa Puesta del Sol ” if we’re marketing to Spanish-speakers).

This wall features:

• 1/5 pink brick with white mortar

• 2/5 pale yellow brick with pink mortar

• 2/5 pale yellow brick with dun mortar

• flimsy builder-grade windows/doors

The spouse calls this ample annex the “Pink Elephant.”  I’ve gotta admit that it does kind of resemble a pink elephant, with its rosy coloration and ear-like frontal overhang.  And if I were one of the itinerant neighborhood drunks, it might make me do a double take, too.



Check out the decorative bricklaying 8-9 feet above grade.  The manic masons decided to lay down a course of “soldiered” bricks just above the first floor windows and side entry door.  The outer ends of the lintel blocks are flush with the corners of the windows, so they provide absolutely no structural advantage over the standard running bond brick pattern, which would have been functionally superior in this case.  (These corners should be fine as long as they used steel lintels, but they really squandered an opportunity to combine form and function in the masonry here.)

The railings look like they’re interior-grade, untreated wood that is supposed to be primed and painted, or at least stained and sealed.  Using this interior millwork for entryways seems to be very popular here in lower slumburbia.  Hence, you tend to see split and rotting wood railings (sometimes with missing balusters) that were installed just within the last 5-10 years.

Exterior Rear Wall (Southeast Exposure):

(If this vivid spectacle is not yet seared into your brain, feel free to scroll back up to reference the top photos again.)

• cinderblock painted a dullish custard yellow

• more cheap builder-grade windows/doors

Other Tidbits:

• assorted junk, typical of casual slumburban living, including the obligatory molded plastic patio chairs

• rebar-embedded cinderblock retaining wall, topped off with a layer of cement (Quikrete or somesuch)

• not pictured: generously proportioned shed/outbuilding, free-roving collie

WASCally Wabbits, Cheap Chickens, and Bad Eggs...

No, that’s not my version of early Easter tidings.

Maybe this is, though:

(apologies to neb & fury)

WASC  ==  White Anglo-Saxon Capitalists

It’s a trendy slur in our era of global economic meltdown triggered by malfeasances committed in financial megacenters like New York and London.  (We won’t bother to get into the other end of the spectrum of deceit and delusion just yet, such as the shady dealings that took place in sketchier corners of American slumburbia.)

If you’ve been checking out news/commentary programming outside of the U.S. mainstream media these days, such as the BBC, you’ll occasionally hear a few veiled and not-so-veiled incriminations against WASCs.  Leftist Continental Europeans and others will sometimes carry on about how the delicate machinery of our global economy was tampered with and eventually wrecked by heartless “Anglo-Saxon” capitalists run amok.

A web search turns up a typical screed from a leftist heaping abuse on transatlantic Anglocentric Caucasian capitalists, sampled below:

“Just for the record, the portliness of most Americans is testimony to their malnutrition caused mainly by the ‘GDP-ization’ of every single possible activity including Motherhood by our White Anglo Saxon Capitalists.  The end result of malnutrition is generally a degenerative disease –a more or less slow and painful death — of which most all cancers, heart disease, arthritis, Alzheimer’s etc. are examples.  (I believe but cannot prove, although the facts tend to support such, that beginning with Henry VIII’s barons takeover of the commons and the putting of their farmers on the road to make way for sheep and wool, leading to the British effort to run a navy on rum and salt pork which was only saved with the discovery of limes and proceeding to America’s unlimited faith in magic pills and medical intervention, that the ruling elite is committed to filling the hoi polloi with non-descript fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, all seasoned with sodium chloride — feaux [sic] food — with magic bullets to be supplied on the fly as they are found.)  The only real solution is real, unadulterated food.”

—some liberal named “Lee” on some conservative website

(While I agree with some of this food-fixated fool’s basic sentiments, this “Lee” person’s leaps in logic make you wonder whether he/she maybe needs to start hitting some “non-descript” carbohydrates after all, before his/her blood sugar runs down too low and deprives his/her brain of all coherent cognition.  I oughta know, after all.)

I was reminded of the surge in anti-WASCism when I heard a French journalist mention this lament on NPR’s “All Thing’s Considered” on Thursday evening during a segment covering the G20 summit.


And then I noticed Hardman’s post on his campaign blog on Thursday evening, where he mentions the wane of WASPs (among many other things).

For those of you who aren’t avid loco Moco politics hags, Hardman is from Aspen Hill and is running as a Democrat for the District 4 County Council seat.  (The seat was left vacant when well-respected civic activist and sitting District 4 Councilman Don Praisner died suddenly in January, following the passing of his predecessor, his own wife Marilyn — another tireless veteran county leader — by less than a year.)

The District 4 special election has turned out to be a pretty lively race with a rather broad array of candidates.

In his recent post, Hardman takes issue with a local politician’s statement endorsing the front-runner in the District 4 Council seat special election.

The sitting councilmember who extended the endorsement, the cherub-faced Mr. George Leventhal, is a Democrat holding an at-large seat on the council.  Leventhal resides in Takoma Park, an historic aging streetcar suburb in the far southeastern corner of the county that has a lot of verve and character.

For those of you unfamiliar with the county, Takoma Park is a very liberal enclave that extends into the District (somewhat like Chevy Chase).  Some Takoma Parkers even label their city the “Berkeley of the east” because of its liberal atmosphere.  (If they can make that ridiculous claim, let’s just call nouveau Silver Spring the “SF of suburban Maryland” and Wheaton can be MoCo’s own “Little Oakland” to round things out.)

Leventhal is endorsing a school board member who has unprecedented resources (seasoned campaign staff and funding) compared to most contenders in the District 4 field.  The majority of the county’s solidly left solidarists (who wield the lion’s share of the power in east-county politics) have effectively anointed the school board’s candidate as the new council member.

Leventhal included this appeal in his endorsement:

“We must do more to understand the needs and concerns of working and lower-income families, our younger population, and our Latino and African American population.  Although they represent the future of Montgomery County, they are badly underrepresented in our county’s political dialogue.”

To me this sounded like tired old rhetoric pushing the usual bromides of patronizing liberal tokenist tolerance, barely worthy of a yawn or a ho-hum.  But it elicited this pointed response by Hardman on Maryland Politics Watch:

“So, according to Mr Leventhal, Ms Navarro's most important qualification is her ethnicity?

Wow.

There's nothing left to say.”

* * *
Now, I grew up nestled pretty comfortably in the lap of luxe-liberalism here in MoCo, so I sometimes still find it difficult to turn a dispassionately critical eye on any local group of sympathetic solidarists.

However, Leventhal’s description is a very clumsy demographic caricature of the “future” of this county, which is genuinely diverse in many different aspects.

If I identified as latino/hispanic or African American, I might actually take offense at being singled out in this way, hastily categorized in the same breath as “working[-class]” and “lower-income” residents ripe for representative political affirmative action.

There are plenty of middle-class and affluent residents of Latin American and African American heritage thriving in this county.  They are busy creating prosperity for themselves and their children, with or without special ethnically targeted assistance from county government, business, and non-profit leaders. 
(Of course these folks may or may not wince at this Democratic party rhetoric as much as I do.  Maybe they really do hunger for these sorts of statements; I’ll have to leave it to them to express their individual reactions to this treatment.)

But there’s also the inevitable exclusion by omission that underlies Leventhal’s appeal.  I don’t mean to pick on Leventhal personally; after all, his statement is a very typical expression of current Democratic Party outreach agendas.  Hardman points out the inevitable exclusion in this cherry-picking endorsement, demanding:

“If that's the plan, where do the wealthy professionals fit in?  How about wealthy Asian-Americans?  Wealthy Indian-Americans?  What about Arab-Americans of whatever level of education or income?  What about the this-or-that-ethnicity?  Or, maybe since there aren't all that many of them, they don't need a voice?”

He pretty much nails it here.  I would go on to mention Caribbean Americans (whether they identify as hispanic or not), African immigrants (west, central, and east), eastern and central European immigrants, and so on.  And of course the middle class, including the rising middle class.  But this proliferation of diversity is too bewildering for many liberal Democratic party liners to wrap their heads around; they’d rather focus on the simpler demographic pigeonholing they’re used to.

I think it’s pretty clear that many liberals would prefer to analyze and court a very few massive ethnocentric voting blocs rather than embrace a broader array of diversity.  By that I mean an expansionary diversity that would be more international in scope and that also draws from various defining qualities beyond the obvious divisions of race/ethnicity/culture and gender.

These other facets might include, for instance:

• income level, educational background, socioeconomic class and level of mobility, trade/industry/profession

• age group, generational identity

• culture/continent of origin, immigrant generation

• political, philosophical, or spiritual orientation

• lifestyle arrangements (marital/partnership/relationship status/orientation, household size & features)

* * *

“Another ideal for which we fought was ‘equal justice for all.’  Somehow the history books in Country schools will tell you that the majority of the victorious Union army was ‘poor newly arrived immigrants’ but they don't tell you much more.  But college-level history texts, especially those written right near the time of the conflict, will tell you that the majority of those ‘immigrants’ were fresh off the boat from the Germanies, and some of those history books will flatly declare that the slaves of the Confederacy were freed by the point of German-American bayonets.  And for this, we don't get to be part of the future.  Now that's gratitude for ya.

Another ideal for which we fought was the ‘separation of church and state’ and ‘freedom of religion.’  Oh yes, Mr Leventhal.  Not just for the Amish and Mennonites and Methodists and Lutherans, but for the Catholics and Jews as well.  But, hey, we're dinosaurs, we aren't the future of Montgomery County.  And when at last we're gone, who will be left to fight for your religious freedom?  Nancy Navarro?  Can you even say ‘religious freedom’ in Spanish?”

I don’t know about the Councilman, but I think I know how to say “religious freedom” in Spanish, thanks to the county’s above-average public school system.  (That would be libertad religiosa, or something to that effect.)

It’s somewhat ironic that a number of young adults whose parents brought them to the United States illegally end up signing up for military service in order to secure U.S. citizenship, often after many frustrating years of living dual lives.

If we still engaged in wars that impressed the majority of Americans as urgent and imperative, wars that young people didn’t feel so deeply conflicted or apathetic about, then this might not be so tragically absurd.

* * *

And as far as the talk of “dinosaurs” and “extinction” goes, this recalls unsettling dichotomies of “winners”-vs-“losers,” “new”-vs-“old,” “vigorous”-vs-“weak,” “prolific procreators”-vs-“others” and the like.

These dynamics and the reactions they provoke get at the heart of the politics of population growth, rapid demographic change, and mass immigration.  All of this is very treacherous territory for Democrats, whether they admit it or not.

With the accelerating liberalization and democratization of public education throughout the United States, many children who attended public schools after the 1970s experienced very different visions of America and the world than the lessons and narratives presented to previous generations.

For instance, in suburban Maryland public schools, I learned a great deal about the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Olmecs, and the Incas.

I hardly learned anything about the Cherokees, the Navajos, the Chippewas, or the Sioux.

Over and over again during human history, those in power have found it expedient to marginalize or even eradicate cultures and subcultures under the mantle of political, economic, or social “progress.”

* * *

It’s also a bit quirky how Leventhal channels his inner Lloyd Bentsen at the beginning of his statement of support of Nancy Navarro:

“Much has been said about how best to carry on Marilyn Praisner’s legacy on the County Council.  I served with Marilyn Praisner.  I knew Marilyn Praisner.  Marilyn Praisner was a friend of mine.”

You half expect him to conclude this little progression with, “Delegate Kramer, you’re no Marilyn Praisner.”

(For those of you who don’t/can’t remember the late-’80s, this is lifted from the 1988 vice presidential debate where Senator Bentsen memorably dissed Dan Quayle for comparing himself (Quayle) to JFK.)

* * *

Alright, enough of all this rehashing of neoliberal identity politicking and precarious exercises in multi-culti tightrope-walking.

I’ll leave the “progressive” pissing contests to the pundits of MPW and MoCo’s coterie of bright-eyed MySpace/Facebook/Twitter Young Democrats.

For now, I’ll just throw my moral support behind the gutsy underdog politicos east of I-270 who still venture to be honest and open about the divisive leftist strategies and policies that contribute to chronic fragmentation and anomie in our suburban ’hoods.

Maybe I should start a new, unofficial pro-diversity PAC called Montgomery County Citizens for Left-handed Radical Centrist Pagan Tree-hugging Scientific Agnostics.

Here’s a stab at a campaign slogan:

“It takes a Hardman to tenderize so many soft-touch Democrats.”

(This goofiness is styled after the ’80s & ’90s ad campaign that featured Maryland’s poultry dynasty, the Perdues.)

Here in lower slumburbia we’ve had quite a few mom-and-pop poultry entrepreneurs who’ve launched their own ambitious chicken husbandry ventures from their humble slices of suburban gothic.  It got so crazy around here circa 2005 - 2007, that I really should’ve made a low-budget horror film about this phenomenon, titled something like Enter: The Conquering Chicken*, The Eggs-orcist, or Poultry-geist, of course.

Actually, it appears that some wise guys penned a script for an obscure indie horror film project called Poultrygeist: Attack of the Chicken Zombies as early as 2002, so it looks like that chicken has already flown the coop.

Whoa, Nelly...


Wow....  Longest... and Most Discursive... Post...  Ever!

If I were in a foamcore fantasy band...

I just ran across this local blog, “Foam Core Fantasy.”  I discovered it because the author (who goes by Cyndy) sometimes comments on Scenic Wheaton’s blog.  (My running joke about the difference between my own Wheaton blog and “Scenic Wheaton” is that mine could easily be titled “Splenic Wheaton.”)

When I first saw the phrase “Foam Core Fantasy,” it struck me as an excellent name for a band.  The band’s sound would be something like mildly spacey effects-heavy synth pop backed with hair metal guitar.

Like some unholy fusion of Esqu¡vel, Erasure, Pet Sh0p Boys, Def Leppard, and Poison, maybe.

It turns out that the foam core in question actually describes something along the lines of engineered pre-fab construction panels with extraordinary R-values.

I have no idea where the foam core blogger’s house is located or even whether it’s in Montgomery County, for that matter.  A few of the exterior photos suggest some semi-rural suburban gentrification haven like Olney or Burtonsville.  The house pictured exudes a sort of 21st-century farmhouse exurban boho chic.

I’ve stumbled across other similar blogs while searching for home improvement keywords and FCF falls under what I might call the “home remodeling fetish” blog genre.

Due to our current circumstances, I personally favor the “Xtreme DIY” blogs that get into the nuts and bolts of home improvement materials and practices.  The XDIY blogs are good sources of know-how and inspiration for people who can’t (stand to) pay other people to perform improvement & reconstruction work for them.

Anyways, the FCF blog inspires me to put more home “improvement” stuff up here in this sprawling blogspace, once the spouse and I get back into the low-budget demolition & seat-of-our-pants “design-build” renovation work later this spring.

More pictures + less blogorrhea  ==  less echo-chamber diarist blogging

(I was originally going to embed a video of “If I were a carpenter” in this post.  Ultimately, I just couldn’t bring myself to inflict any of the cheesy versions of that song on the few hapless souls who stumble on this junk heap of blogging damage.)

Pokin’ fun at the usurer suspects...

Happy April Fool’s Day, folks.


I hate practical jokes because I tend to suspend disbelief with alarming ease, particularly when I’m off my meds.

There are so many fools in this world that we definitely need to claim a day all our own, if not an entire week or fortnight.  In that spirit, I present you with this silly post from this weekend that I almost neglected to stick up here.

Following the financial/banking “series” from last week, below are some words to the effect that bankers are wankers.  If you are in the banking industry and you are not a wanker, then please forgive me for these cheap shots.  They are, of course, aimed at your unsavory colleagues, not you.  I’ve thrown in a couple of curiosities and non sequiturs for variety.

And if you are unfamiliar with colorful cockney vernacular (e.g. wanker), maybe try renting a few choice episodes of “Only Fools and Horses” or something.

These nugatory nuggets are presented in vainglorious Comic Sans MS (where installed) for your general irritation and vexation.

“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”

—Anonymous

(often attributed to Mark Twain, probably erroneously)

“Banks have a new image.  Now you have ‘a friend,’ your friendly banker.  If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?”

—Alan King  (1927 – 2004),

American comedian

“Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made.”

—John Berryman  (1914 – 1972),

American poet

“bank’s closed”:  Slang from the 1920s that meant no kissing or making out was allowed.

great halls of power

just as the most important people in the city
are complete and utter bankers
the most important people in the army
are the absolute highest rankers

—Michael E.  (b. 1967),

British wag

(This guy is likely riffing on British rhyming slang vis-à-vis wankers.)

Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer

This is a song to celebrate banks,

Because they are full of money and you go into them and all you hear is clinks and clanks,

Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills,

Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills¹.

Most bankers dwell in marble halls,

Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits and discourage withdrawals,

And particularly because they all observe one rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it,

Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don’t need it.

I know you, you cautious conservative banks!

If people are worried about their rent it is your duty to deny them the loan of one nickel, yes, even one copper engraving of the martyred son of the late Nancy Hanks²;

Yes, if they request fifty dollars to pay for a baby you must look at them like Tarzan looking at an uppity ape in the jungle,

And tell them what do they think a bank is, anyhow, they had better go get the money from their wife’s aunt or ungle.

But suppose people come in and they have a million and they want another million to pile on top of it,

Why, you brim with the milk of human kindness and you urge them to accept every drop of it,

And you lend them the million so then they have two million and this gives them the idea that they would be better off with four,

So they already have two million as security so you have no hesitation in lending them two more,

And all the vice-presidents nod their heads in rhythm,

And the only question asked is do the borrowers want the money sent or do they want to take it withm.

But don’t think I’m against banks,

Because I think they deserve our appreciation and thanks

for eliminating the jackasses who go around saying that health and happiness are everything and money isn’t essential,

Because as soon as they have to borrow some unimportant money to maintain their health and happiness they starve to death so they can’t go around any more sneering at good old money, which is nothing short of providential.

—Ogden Nash  (1902 – 1971),

American wag

1.  While this line sounds outlandish to us today, thousand dollar bills (with Grover Cleveland’s likeness) were around when Nash penned this poem.  The U.S. Mint ceased issuing larger denominations after World War II and they were retired from circulation entirely in 1969 to help thwart organized crime rackets.

2.  Nancy Hanks was Lincoln’s mother, so “one copper engraving of the martyred son of the late Nancy Hanks” would refer to a penny, naturally.  This might have been more obvious had you grown up way back during the early 20th century like I did.  Truly I am an “old soul.”  Okay, now you know I’m yanking your chain.

* * *

Below you’ll find my stab at an Ogdenashy ode.  Only I take aim at a very 21st Century set of targets.  This is clearly more jeer than jeremiad, inveighing against influential and irresponsible media figures with churlish cheekiness.  However, the underlying target is really their employers, the mainstream media outlets that featured personalities who indulged in chatty cheerleading during the bubble and splenic spluttering during the bust.

Business media personalities are just like anybody else, except they have unusually exorbitant hair & makeup allowances

This is a verse to celebrate every silly talking head,

Who lulls with such fatuous chatter the most easily led.

Most fashion-plate correspondents sit in Herman Miller Aeron chairs

And affect light conversation and smiles that draw willing viewers’ stares,

And particularly because they all observe one rule, and their fans do a great deal to support it,

Which is you must never deliver news or analysis unless it is dumbed down and distorted.

Fiend, you forsook to foresee the financial fiasco, forsooth!

Objectivity: FAIL, you fraudulent Wall Street mouthpiece herald!

If we worry about our savings is it your duty to deny us the reverse of the coin of truth,

Even if it costs us some more numismatic portraits of the martyred son of the late Rose Fitzgerald?!

While your ink-stained betters lose their shirts despite all their toil,

You still prosper while peddling your infotainment snake oil.

But don’t think I’m against air-brushed personalities,

With their packaged presentations and banalities,

Because I think they deserve our full gratitude

for helping to cultivate our dull attitude

Besides which, we'd be hung higher and drier

And find ourselves even more out-of-lucker,

If our culture failed to be a supplier

Of the latest, greatest model of sucker

—Publius Ignominius Stuporis Slumburbius

(two-bit American wag)

Joey ♥ Maria

* * *

Gabba gabba hey...  To make up for that kind of lame Ram0nes song, I feel compelled to include a classic from 1977’s R0cket to Russia  LP.  “Teenage Lobo†omy” keeps up the brain damage theme (albeit sans zombies), complete with Lego stop-motion action.  Hey, these little dudes play air guitar better than I do, and I have the luxury of articulated elbow and wrist joints.

Foreclosure Fallout in the Mid-County

A foreclosed home on the corner of Turkey Branch Pkwy & Independence St in lower Aspen Hill.
This neighborhood is not included in the county’s new focused revitalization program.
(Saturday, March 28.)

The Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs (DHCA) held a community “charrette” for its new Focused Neighborhood Assistance (FNA) program last night at Wheaton High School.  This was basically a public feedback and discussion session.  Evidently the term “charrette” comes from urban planning circles; it was originally applied mainly to creative sessions run by planners, policy-makers, designers, architects, and other experts.

In the March 31st meeting, any experts in attendance mostly acted as facilitators and observers, except during the introductory and wrap-up speeches, where county leaders treated us with enthusiastic exhortations such as “Be a squeaky wheel!” and “Be an informed wheel!”  (I grew up in this county and I have to say that the shrillest “squeaky wheel” residents can be exhausting and occasionally mildy terrifying to put up with.  Maybe having a comfortable salary and an advanced degree in some optimistic field like urban planning makes dealing with the restless rabble more tolerable.  The planning/housing eggheads at the meeting certainly seemed to be perky, perpetually positive-thinking types.)

For information on the FNA initiative, visit the county housing authority’s informational webpage:
“Foreclosure Prevention”

Most of the maps listed on the DHCA webpage link to large, rasterization-intensive PDFs (>1.5MB each).  These graphics were generated in February based on information released by real estate data clearinghouse RealtyTrac.  If you open up the countywide map (~2.85 MB), you’ll see that the greatest concentration of foreclosures occurs along a southeast-to-northwest axis.  This pattern closely aligns with many declining neighborhoods that tend to attract lower-income residents, as well as those blocks hit particularly hard by recent population destabilization and densification.

If you’re interested in the incidence of foreclosures throughout the entire state, check out Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) website for its Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), which features a map color-coded by foreclosure impact level.  A sum of $26.7 million has been allocated for this program; it’s unclear how much of that will find its way to Montgomery County.

The statewide residential stabilization program falls under Maryland’s Neighborhood Conservation Initiative (NCI), first rolled out in tandem with former governor Glendening’s statewide “Smart Growth” program.  Ultimately, Maryland’s push for “Smart Growth” fell far short of living up to its name, as Environment Maryland outlines in their sobering report, “Not So Smart: Land Consumption in Maryland after a Decade of Smart Growth.”

And yet even today, pro-growth advocates still caricature the opposition as “slow growth” obstructionists who stand in the way of economic “progress” and social “progressivism.”  This smear is pretty astounding, given the overwhelming evidence that the pro-development crowd that has dominated government and local politics over the last two decades has rammed through policies that have degraded quality of life measures throughout the county.  This trends have hit densely populated regions like swaths of the mid-county, as well as rapidly developing exurban regions that used to be more rural and rustic in character.  When pressed, a lot of long-term residents agree that this county has become a considerably less appealing place to live for much of the rising middle class.

And yet when you look at the District 4 Special Election, the few candidates in favor of more active measures to achieve residential population stabilization and safeguard the local environment are constantly sidelined and marginalized by the most well-funded Democratic campaigns, as well as local politics beat journalists.  It appears that the aggressive staffers and volunteers enlisted in these slicker campaigns have transferred much of the rhetoric, tactics, and funding streams used in the national political theater to a humble local council race.  They are counting on members of the usual lock-step, pamphlet-ready Democratic voting blocs to usher in their anointed candidates and shut out all of the other worthy contenders, many of whom are long-term residents and civic activists who have a much more direct ground-level appreciation of the history of this area and the steady decline many of these neighborhoods have experienced for decades.

“Growth is good” is about as sound a statement as “Money quells all ills” or “Poverty is ennobling.”

“Smart” growth in Montgomery County quickly devolved into shortcut growth-at-all-costs expansion and an explosion in construction/renovation projects driven by developers who seduced politicians and residents with their visions of economic invigoration and a transformed metropolitan landscape.  A lot of residents, particularly in the west county, have profited handsomely from these policies.

The decline in rising middle-class neighborhoods like mine has been swift and dramatic during the 2000s.  Top-down policies and planning measures that catalyzed fast growth starting in the late 1990s rapidly created thousands of low-end jobs with depressed/stagnant wages.  Loosening credit standards, misleading leftist political rhetoric, and an ever-expanding stock of cramped and crowded slumburban rental units and sub-units helped paved the way for this steady race to the bottom.

And unlike in places like northern Virginia, broad economic development and job growth hasn’t kept pace with the residential overpopulation and densification bubble in Maryland.  Now that county employees are increasingly missing out on perks like cost-of-living adjustments, they may finally develop a deeper appreciation of what so many other residents are struggling with right now.

And yes, “densification” appears to be a legitimate word.  Using it here only invites obvious slurs about the stupefication of local leaders and residents during the Dumb Money decade.  (Hey, I sipped half-heartedly at the Kool-Aid, too, until about 2004 or so.)

Well, well.  Google tells me that British tunesmith Graham Parker once wrote a song titled “Stupefication.”  This minor associative tidbit gives me the perfect pretext for including my gratuitous music vid embed of the day, an early new wave gem from three decades back:



This song — from Parker’s 1979 acclaimed LP Squeezing Out Sparks — arguably has a quasi-suburban feel to it, especially since the accompanying vid features plenty of goofy girl-next-door Londonettes along with the come-hither caddishness of Mr. Parker.

Ahem, now let me return to the weighty subject of mid-county suburban decay.

* * *

The county’s revitalization program targets a few key areas hit hard by foreclosures, including one upcounty region (Germantown).  Their mid-county target area is Glenmont.

I wish I could say that this is merely a pilot program, but it looks like county officials are being very cautious about the initiative because of their depleted budget and re-shuffled policy priorities.  Ms. Cantor of the Mid-County Regional Services Center used the word “scant” at least twice while describing the level of funding available for the effort.  Speaking for County Exec Leggett, one official emphasized that local priorities are currently ordered as follows: “public safety, education, and safety net services.”

It looks like Montgomery County has been monitoring preliminary and active residential foreclosure trends for several years, along with the socioeconomic and other demographic data they normally compile and analyze for policy guidance.

I excerpt one of these maps below; again, the data was current as of February.

This is a snapshot approximating foreclosure activity in west Wheaton and Glenmont during the 4th quarter of FY 2008.

FNA = Focused Neighborhood Assistance
CAE = Connecticut Avenue Estates

For the original maps this graphic is extracted from, again, see the DHCA’s foreclosure resource webpage.

The area surrounded in blue is the mid-county zone being targeted by this program.  The vast majority of people within this area identify as Glenmont residents.  (Glenmont and Wheaton share the same census-designated place, or CDP.)

My household falls within the triangular area outlined in red, which roughly comprises much of the the “Connecticut Avenue Estates” (CAE) legal subdivision.  (Portions of “Connecticut Avenue Park” and “Montgomery Highland Estates” are cordoned within this red boundary as well, albeit unintentionally.)  There are at least a thousand households with the CAE subdivision designation; at least a couple of hundred of them are located in the southern region of the county’s targeted area, north of Randolph Road.  CAE is an aging high-density subdivision that the county has targeted before in combatting mid-county suburban blight.

Too Little, Too Late?

We’ve got a mid-county landscape studded with foreclosures and overshadowed with many other manifestations of creeping suburban blight.  These trends have been worsening for the past fifteen years or so, accelerating during the last 5 - 7 years.

While we are grateful that the county is finally addressing these long-developing patterns after all these years of decay and neglect, it’s frustrating that officials can only muster up the resources to focus on this very circumscribed area for this latest round of revitalization efforts.  Even with these well-defined constraints, DHCA officials made sure to repeatedly temper residents’ expectations about the project at Tuesday night’s meeting, which is certainly a good idea during this lean fiscal era.

If anybody has any other ideas about how or why county leaders arrived at this particular targeting decision, I’d really like to hear it.  I think they may have been chosen in part because of an emerging groundswell of civic involvement within that neighborhood.  Congratulations to the men and women behind the new Greater Glenmont Civic Association (GGCA).  The county is obviously looking to capitalize on the energy and “human resources” within these neighborhoods in its FNA initiative.  Incidentally, GGCA seems to tilt toward the southeastern portion of the region highlighted in the map above, which is centered on the subdivision known as “Glenmont Village” near the Glenmont Metro station.  The western regions of the neighborhood seemed somewhat isolated from this civic movement (e.g. portions of “Glenmont Hills,” “Connecticut Avenue Park,” and “Stoneybrook Estates”).

Those of us in neighboring communities (e.g. west Wheaton, Aspen Hill & north Kensington) really ought to redouble our own efforts to resurrect and support our own flagging and oft-neglected neighborhood groups.

Not so far from the madding crowd...

“Never follow the crowd.”

—Bernard Baruch  (1870 – 1965)

American financier, speculator, & public figure

¢ $ ¢ $ ¢

Gratuitous embedded music video of the day:

“Who wants honey, as long as there’s some money?”

B¡lly C0rgan of the Smash¡ng Pumpk¡ns,
“¢herub R0ck,” S¡amese Dream  (1993)

¢ $ ¢ $ ¢

Here are two token positive quotes about market investment and speculation.

“A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs.”

—Bernard Baruch

“If there were no bad speculations there could be no good investments; if there were no wild ventures there would be no brilliantly successful enterprises.”

—Francis W. Hirst  (1873 – 1953)

British economic journalist

¢ $ ¢ $ ¢

In keeping with the times, the rest of the observations I include are inevitably more circumspect, cautionary, or outright negative.

“The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.”

—Bernard Baruch

“There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.”

—Mark Twain  (1835 – 1910)

iconic American writer

“Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honoured by the name of ‘speculation’; but which ought to be called Gambling.”

—William Cobbett  (1762 – 1835)

British journalist & reformist thinker

“[T]he stock market has not come down to historical levels: the price-earnings ratio as I define it in this book is still, at this writing [2005], in the mid-20s, far higher than the historical average. … People still place too much confidence in the markets and have too strong a belief that paying attention to the gyrations in their investments will someday make them rich, and so they do not make conservative preparations for possible bad outcomes.”

—Robert Shiller  (b. 1946)

prominent American economist,
Irrational Exuberance, 2nd ed.  (February 2005)

This graph shows the recent housing hypervaluation
that helped to dramatically inflate 2000s securities values,
as derived from data included in Shiller’s 2005 book.
(The graphic was skillfully assembled by Wikipedian “Frothy.”)

“October.  This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in.  The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.”

—Mark Twain

The hunt for dread October...

I cannot find the original context for Twain’s quip.  Of course, he never lived to see the most spectacular stock market crash of the twentieth century, spanning October 24 – 29, 1929, (or the “roar” that preceded it, which he likely would have laid waste to with his wit).

However, the 1907 stock market panic, which traced many of its roots to the previous year, unfolded dramatically in an October.  It also overlapped with a sudden monetary contraction and a widespread banking panic.

If you mention the “Panic of ’73” today, some baby boomers may think of the supply shock crisis that began in mid-October of 1973 when OPEC began waging a campaign of punitive crude oil pricing against the U.S.  From its period peak in January 1973 to its relative nadir in early December 1974, the DJIA lost almost half of its value.
[ (577.60_12/6/74 – 1047.59_1/5/73) / 1047.59  =  –44.86% ]

The “Black Monday” nose dive of October 19, 1987 was the largest single-day percentage market loss.  (Oddly, the related recession didn’t set in until a few years later.  Even now, the reasons for the speculative volatility of the latter ’80s and subsequent late-onset stall in the economy remain opaque, especially compared to other recent recessions.)

“Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.”

—Henry Ford  (1863 – 1947)

American industrialist

“The speculation economy is one in which business management focused on production is replaced with business management focused on stock price.”

—Lawrence E. Mitchell

business/corporate law expert,
The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed Over Industry  (2007)

“The short-termism of the late 1990s and early twenty-first century simply is an exaggeration of a quality that was embedded in the American economy a hundred years ago.  The typical public corporation we know today, what I will call the giant modern corporation, was created during the merger wave of 1897 to 1903.  It gave birth to the modern stock market.  As it did, it transformed speculation from a disruptive game, played by a few professionals and thrill-seeking amateurs that from time to time erupted into a major frenzy, into the very genetic material of the American stock market, American business and American capitalism.”

—Lawrence E. Mitchell

The Speculation Economy ...  (2007)

“Now, speculation — in which the focus is not on what an asset will produce but rather on what the next fellow will pay for it — is neither illegal, immoral nor un-American.  But it is not a game in which [the vice chairman] and I wish to play.  We bring nothing to the party, so why should we expect to take anything home?

The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs.
Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money.  After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball.  They know that overstaying the festivities — that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice.  But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party.  Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight.  There’s a problem, though:  They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.”

—Warren Buffett  (b. 1930)

American executive, investor & philanthropist,
FY2000 Chairman’s letter to Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

“In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do.  We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”

—Charles Mackay  (1814 – 1889)

Scottish journalist & writer,
“National Delusions,” Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds  (1841)

“Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes.  Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.”

—Charles Mackay

“National Delusions,”
Extraordinary Popular Delusions ...

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”

—Charles Mackay

“National Delusions,”
Extraordinary Popular Delusions ...

“Some in clandestine companies combine;
Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line;
With air and empty names beguile the town,
And raise new credits first, then cry ’em down;
Divide the empty nothing into shares,
And set the crowd together by the ears.”

—Daniel Defoe  (ca. 1660 – 1731)

English writer,
orig. publ. context unknown
(quoted by Mackay)

“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer.  But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”

—Henry David Thoreau 
(1817 – 1862)

American naturalist &
Renaissance man, Life Without Principle  (1854/62)