Big and Small Things in the Bay Area

摘要

I will give a rather different talk from Harrison Rue that I hope is complementary, because his was quite practical and hands-on. Mine is a bit more philosophical and more in the vein of trying to challenge some of the assumptions that I think underlie this debate about smart growth. I believe it is possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Sometimes, that is just fine and we ought to get away with life's messy little compromises and move on. But I think the case of smart growth is such a tough uphill climb that if we are carrying too many untested assumptions on our back, we are going to make it a lot harder. We are also going to give more ammunition to critics who already have plenty of ammunition. So I think it is important to do the right thing for the right reasons, and that is why I'm going to try to highlight some of those points.