For three of the last four years I’ve spent time during the summer working at my former employer, Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. I still do freelance work for ETS’s Test of English as a Foreign Language, and my stints back at the mother ship help to keep me “calibrated,” as they say.

Although I spent most of my time working, I did enjoy my trip. The area from Princeton west to the Delaware River Valley is a wonderful part of the country, and summer is a nice time to be there. This is a place that has managed to retain some of its rural character, even though it sits in the most densely populated state in the country.

How did they do that? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that some of it came through open space initiatives that involved land purchases by government; private trusts and zoning ordinances probably played a role as well.

I stayed in Princeton, not far from the university, and was rather awestruck at the building they’ve done on campus in the last several years, most of it on the southern edge, including Whitman College (named for Meg Whitman of eBay fame). This is what money will do for you.

During my trip, the high price of fuel was on people’s minds. I got a feel for high gas prices when I filled up my rental car near the Philadelphia airport and paid $4.13 a gallon. Perhaps prices will come down, but with higher demand around the world it feels as though we are crossing some kind of historic watershed and moving into unfamiliar territory, to use a geographic metaphor.

Now it is good to be back home in Minnesota. Our baby boy is six months old now and can sit up on his own - though he is still prone to toppling over. He is cuter than ever, of course. And I’ve been getting lots of hugs from our daughter, who says she missed me a lot. It is nice to have been missed, and better to be home.

I recently traveled for work to the East Coast, flying the thousand miles from Minneapolis to Philadelphia, then driving to the Princeton, New Jersey, area. I lived in Princeton or its environs for eight years, first in grad school and later working there and marrying my wife, and I’ve returned there several times since then. So it’s familiar turf for me.

My first stop after leaving the airport was South Philly, just south of downtown. I was happy to find it’s much the same since I first visited 20 years ago.

If you appreciate the urban Northeast or are interested in experiencing it, this is one place to get a feel for its teeming streets. And what streets! I approached the area from the south, first driving up South 10th Street, then 9th Street. On 10th Street I saw tiny, tiny one-level brick houses, and on 9th Street I made my way through a narrow one-way corridor, cars parked on both sides of the street in front of small row houses, apartment buildings, shops, and restaurants. To my eyes, accustomed to a small town in the Midwest, the density of the place, especially its buildings, was remarkable. The people, meanwhile, were out on the sidewalks or their front steps and porches, enjoying the evening air and the sights and sounds of the neighborhood.

I made my way north to the Italian Market, an Old World-style area of shops and sidewalk stalls that was featured in scenes from the movie Rocky. South Philly is still largely Italian, though today it increasingly includes Hispanics and Asians.

I stopped at Geno’s, famous for its cheese steaks and cheese fries, and ordered “one American with” - a steak sandwich with American cheese and onions. Though busy and vital, Geno’s seemed to be desperately trying to hold the area’s diversity at bay. It proclaimed its patriotism and nativism through displays of the American flag and signs proclaiming the necessity of speaking English. Just as prevalent were pictures of local police officers, nearly all of them white.

Meanwhile, across the street, Asian and Hispanic youth played basketball and seemed uninterested in the greasy fare that I was consuming. The future is ours, they implied with their quick movements and bouncy steps.

I was left wondering what would come of this tension of cultures, what would happen to Geno’s and the descendants of the Italians, to the newer kids jumping for the rim on the other side of the street. Some kind of truce, I hope, some kind of kind of blend that is born of acceptance.

We recently made our annual trip to visit my wife’s grandparents in Sun City West, Arizona, about an hour or so northwest of Phoenix. Sun City West is one of those Del Webb retirement communities, like the original Sun City (which is near Sun City West).

It’s a bit strange that Sun City West calls itself a “city,” since it really isn’t a city in the strict sense, as its web site explains:

Sun City West is a “city” in name only as it is an unincorporated community. As such, it does not have the usual city government structure. Maricopa County provides street maintenance, building and zoning codes, law enforcement and public health services.

You won’t find any schools in this community of 26,000 people, nor will you find many playgrounds, because, according to a representative at their visitors center, to live here one person in the household must be 55 years of age or older, and no one younger than 19 can visit for more than two weeks at a time.

One benefit of these rules, at least for those who live here, is that property taxes are low. “Many of our homes do not even have a school tax,” their web site boasts. Their page on fees and taxes states this:

Local school taxes can often be a major part of property taxes but most of Sun City West was removed years ago from the surrounding school district. As a result, a typical property tax on a $395,000 home are less than $1500. annually.

An age-segregated community such as Sun City West raises some questions. What is lost and gained when we separate the generations? How ethical is it for people to avoid paying school taxes, particularly people who have benefited from public education themselves?

There is an element of racial segregation to the city as well, given its special character and history. According to the 2000 census, 98.71% of the residents are white. Of course a large percentage of the workers are not white.

Finally, I should say something about the picture above. Sun City West bills itself as “Arizona’s finest golf retirement community,” and as the picture attests, golf carts are a common vehicle for transportation. Many streets have a narrow outside lane that they can use. This, at least, is something that I’d like to see other cities - oops, communities - embrace as well.

To understand why so many people sing the praises of Davis as a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly community, see this Streetfilms video, “Davis, California, a Platinum Bike City.”

An e-mail from the League of American Bicyclists recently educated me about how Davis, California, became the “bicycle city.” It contained an obituary notice for Frank C. Child, former chair of the economics department at the University of California-Davis, who was a key player in the development of the bicycle network in that city.

Mr. Child’s story, summarized below in an obituary from the Sacramento Bee, is a testament to the role that citizens can play in transforming their communities:

Mr. Child joined UC Davis in 1962 and became the second chairman of the economics department the following year…. [He] arrived in Davis after living for four months in the Netherlands, where bicycles were the dominant transportation mode. Eyeing the city’s flat terrain, he and his wife, Eve, launched a grass-roots effort in 1964 to establish a system of bicycle lanes on Davis streets.

The couple organized a core group of citizens who lobbied, collected petition signatures and backed successful City Council candidates who supported bike lanes. In 1966, the Davis council voted to create the city’s first bike lane, spawning a national transportation movement.

“All the bike lanes in the United States today are descendants of what started in Davis,” said Ted Buehler, a graduate student at the UC Davis Institute for Transportation Studies.

The action delighted Mr. Child, who sold his second car and bought six bicycles for his family to get around Davis. He also helped persuade UC Davis Chancellor Emil Mrak to close large portions of the campus to automobile traffic to promote cycling.

“My father had a three-speed Raleigh with a wire basket for his briefcase on the handlebars that he rode for years,” Bill Child said.

I just learned of this September 4 New York Times article about New York City, “To Ease a City’s Traffic, Shifting from 4 Wheels to 2.” I’m impressed that the Big Apple is going so far as to make make provisions for bicycle parking, including zoning changes requiring indoor bike parking in large commercial buildings.

Below are some excerpts. The full article includes comments by some drivers and residents who aren’t so enamored of the changes:

Read the rest of this entry »

I stumbled across this nice list from Metropolismag.com. I’ve included the headings only, so see the first link for more complete descriptions of each step.

COPENHAGEN’S 10-STEP PROGRAM

1. Convert streets into pedestrian thoroughfares.

2. Reduce traffic and parking gradually.

3. Turn parking lots into public squares.

4. Keep scale dense and low.

5. Honor the human scale.

6. Populate the core.

7. Encourage student living.

8. Adapt the cityscape to changing seasons.

9. Promote cycling as a major mode of transportation.

10. Make bicycles available.

My summer break from blogging went on longer than I’d planned. A week after returning from Washington and Oregon, I was in Princeton, New Jersey, working at Educational Testing Service, my former employer, for 12 days. What with visiting old friends and working, and also lacking a laptop, I was either too busy or unable to post.

What follows is a brief review of my summer travel. Read the rest of this entry »