Urbanism and Class

I’ve been involved in several urbanist groups for many years now, from Transportation Alternative to Open Plans to even starting some groups of my own, such a Neighbors for A Safer Austin Street. I’ve done a good amount of advocacy work; gone to hearings, joined my Community Board, talked to elected officials, written letters, you name it; all in the name of urbanist ideas: bike lanes, open streets, open spaces, housing, etc. There are many, many more people who have been doing this for way longer than me who I’ve spoken to and have told me how by and large, I’m doing what they’ve been doing this whole time, what I call the Urbanist Advocate cycle:

1. Go to elected official/group/community board hearing
2. Present data backing whatever it is you’re pushing
   1. Bike lanes are actually good for business
   2. More housing can decrease housing costs
   3. Building safer streets are better for everyone
3. Get push back by people who don’t provide any actual data, just feelings
4. The elected official/Community Board votes against your idea, or you idea gets massively scaled down

Now maybe you get the mayor or DOT to push forward anyways (eg. DeBlasio and Queens Blvd) but more often than not, that doesn’t happen.

I’ve thought long and hard about why this happens. We tend to say that these people are just “confused” or “car-brained” or something like that for why they oppose something so simple and so well backed by data. But I’ve come to realize there’s a deeper, darker aspect to this that is most urbanist advocates are blind to: we assume that everyone wants more housing, more alternative modes of transportations, more open spaces that are free for everyone, but that’s not true.

You’ll often hear urbanist talk about how car dependency is awful, about all of the negatives it incurs on society and individuals who are car dependent. Opponents of urbanist ideas will even use car dependency as an excuse for why parking spaces shouldn’t be removed to make spaces for bike lanes and bus lanes. And while I’m sure many who live in car dependent areas see car dependency as a curse, we need to realize that for many more, car dependency is a gift: the gift of class segregation.

We don’t normally hear this aspect of car dependency, but it comes out in pieces. From when a merchant mentions that “car drivers buy more stuff that bikers/bus riders” even if that’s not true, to when an elected official talks about how bikes bring crime to their neighborhoods, these are all examples of an underlying class warfare going on in our transportation system, a class warfare that is at the root of every Community Board hearing, elected official meeting, and every random conversation you have with someone who just doesn’t want to hear how bike lanes are better for workers than car lanes.

This is why I do not think it is enough for us, Livable Cities folks, to simply advocate and vote for “progressive” or “pro-bike” or “pro-housing” politicians. Such politicians may have a good heart and care about these issues, but they’re not going to attack that underlying class struggle that drives so much of the opposition we see.

No, I think the only way we get the livable, safe, sustainable cities we crave is to push for Socialism.