Vision for Sebastopol’s future

[bobbeauchamp]

Our current General Plan updating carries an importance that reaches well beyond what it may seem. Our future today is on a very shaky threshold that will present unprecedented challenges that could easily alter our cherished, habituated lifestyles in profound ways. As we proceed with such 20-year policy setting, we must endeavor to leave “no stone unturned” in our quest for ultimate strategies. In this light, I suggest that we not lose sight of the following concerns:

• Vision. The ability to recognize and understand the deeper, broader, less obvious issues that relate to a problem and to follow up with creative, innovative, often bold resolutions that assure their realization, describes, to me, what is truly visionary. It is fragile, easy to compromise, and/or lose entirely. Ironically, however, it is invariably essential to achieving effective results.

Sebastopol, despite its “global vision” characterization, has not been impressively visionary. Our primary urban dysfunctions — our incessant vehicular gridlock, the sweeping life-threatening pedestrian experience, or the absence of any meaningful efforts to create a viable town center — name a few. They all languish in an almost perpetual inaction, while we seemingly find solace in small stopgap measures that are as simplistic as they are ineffective. It’s not getting better and we’re running out of time.

• Centrality. The daily interactions that we have, or yearn to have, with others, and the rich satisfaction it brings, is a fundamental human psychological need. The particular structure of an urban community — the varieties of primary and secondary shopping/office/housing facilities, their appropriate relationships to each other, in close pedestrian-scaled proximity, in a strict, pedestrian-centric environment as well as a central position within the community, have almost everything to do with its eventual social success. Too many communities today, often the result of misguided, profit-driven, auto-centric thinking, utterly fail and abandon citizens to some form of collective detachment that robs them of the normal connectedness they inherently deserve.

Sebastopol today suffers deeply from forces that increasingly threaten urban disintegration. Moving the Art Center to Ives Park, the already existing, haphazard locations of our government services, or the plan to move our Farmer’s Market (currently our most successful, three hours per week, community-wide centrality) to the Barlow, are examples.

The Barlow itself, our brand-new sub-community starting from its onset with a soon-to-be outmoded traditional, suburban, auto-centric layout, is especially disturbing. They are all in conflict with fundamentals of a truly healthy, functioning community as they all call for “multi-stop shopping,” perpetuate our dependence on the automobile, and separate us from each other.

Centrality, as with vision, is a fragile endeavor that is equally easy to compromise and lose. It can only be achieved when we stay fully informed, alert, while holding steadfast to the genuine manifestation of its fundamental needs.

• Professional participation. It is definitely meaningful, and certainly democratic, to foster community participation in the policy setting for our General Plan. The resulting data can be an important resource of citizen’s concerns, and its utilization can directly serve our highest welfare.

This is not, and never will be, however, the whole story. While we certainly “know best” when it comes to the fundamental functionings of our community, no amount of input from those who are inexperienced can ever hope to replace the eventual need for a competent Urban Planning professional.

Some issues are as elusive as they are essential, and can only be seen, understood, and properly addressed by those with the wisdom, the expertise, to properly resolve the subtle intricacies of elegant urban design. We will need outside help.

If we can ever expect such a thoughtful, comprehensive, body of community policies, we will need to address all the issues, including those that run deeper, are perhaps uncomfortable, and/or politically, traditionally incorrect.

Robert Beauchamp is a Sebastopol resident and member of Sebastopol’s Design Review Board.

[spam1]

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This is not, and never will be, however, the whole story. While we certainly “know best” when it comes to the fundamental functionings of our community, no amount of input from those who are inexperienced can ever hope to replace the eventual need for a competent Urban Planning professional.
Robert Beauchamp is a Sebastopol resident and member of Sebastopol’s Design Review Board.

Ah..."we know best". Thanks, but no thanks.

A foolish "urban design professional" is far worse than a wise citizen.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

THAT should be taught in every civics class, and posted at the consideration of every law and ballot measure.