Post No. 550: Now what?

I'm movin' out

Last month I retired from full-time teaching after 37 years, two of them at Western Illinois University and 35 at Coe College. Retirement has been more of a process than a clean break: I am scheduled to teach a political theory class in the spring, I am maintaining an office on campus, and I'm writing this at the "summer office" in the New Bohemia District I've been using the last few years.

I am nevertheless standing at the cusp of something new, of which I have only the vaguest idea. In that sense, I resemble America! It too is standing at the cusp of something new!! The future is always uncertain, but seems especially so now; just think of the questions that loom over the next 10/20/50 years: 

So much vacant office space, along with recent inflation and AI
are among causes of economic insecurity

• What will happen with work? The unemployment rate is a manageable 4.0 percent, but that masks uncertainty about career stability inflation, and future volatility, as well as the distortions produced by income-wealth inequality. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, living as I do in the non-profit sector, but even as we manage a "soft landing" after the pandemic, there are a lot of causes for worry, especially among young people.
• How will our lives be impacted by the changing climate? Despite the 21st century's return to the city which was inspiring the creation of this blog, most people remain in car-dependent situations, vulnerable both to climate emergencies and any public policy efforts to forestall them. As climate impacts multiply, they will set off causal chains affecting migration, financial stability at every level, public health, resource availability... you name it. Things could get really interesting, in the not-very-nice sense of that word.
• Can American democracy survive? The United States has through history survived such awfulness as the Civil War and the Great Depression, but that's no guarantee we're ready for the next big challenge, or even that we won't self-destruct on our own. We are so polarized we can't agree on basic facts, much less common objectives. Our leading political figure, Donald Trump, thrives on chaos and division. A second Trump administration would be unrestrained (cf. VanderHei and Allen 2024), but as the events of 6 January 2021 showed he doesn't need even to win the election in order to sow destruction. And the U.S. Supreme Court apparently will ensure there are no consequences for those who sow that destruction (Marimow 2024).
  
• On a more practical level, what will happen with government? Seeing my city and state double down on what Strong Towns calls "the suburban experiment" makes me wonder when the fiddler will need to be paid. When does the struggle to meet obligations become more visible, and who will suffer when it does?

Widening Mt. Vernon Road between Wellington Heights
and Oak Hill Jackson, because cars

We will all be dealing with these mega-questions in the years and decades to come, whether or not we are urbanists. Pete Saunders speculates one way they and we might evolve in the coming decades:

Urban Revival Period (2020-2040): rebirth of cities actually does take hold nationally, as... Interior cities will tout their assets and amenities and become cheaper alternatives to the coasts

Urban Suburbia Period (2035-2055): Suburbs will begin a period of adaptation largely based on their proximity to urban growth areas....

 Exurban Retrenchment (2050-2070): ...many revert into a semi-rural form, since we'll discover that their current form is economically unsustainable.

My town, Cedar Rapids, contains some of each of those elements, and will face each of those challenges.

 

Screw the transect! We want a casino!! (Source: Peninsula Pacific Entertainment via cbs2iowa.com

)

Meanwhile, as I prudently choose activities to fill my retirement, I too will be dealing with these questions, only not in the capacity of college political science teacher. I may not be much help building websites or building houses, and I'm nobody's activist leader, but in a world of uncertainty some sound analytical thinking might come in handy. That's justification enough to keep blogging, even as I mostly am trying to sort out all the incoming information for myself.

I published a book once

Is there a book hidden somewhere in this blog? Michelangelo (I think) used to say that he started sculpting with a block of stone, and kept chipping at it until the sculpture emerged. 550 posts averaging 1037 words apiece--an estimate based on the total word counts of ten randomly selected posts from 2013-23--means I've piled up over 570,000 words along the way. That's a sizable block of stone--according to the website VelocityWriting,com, a non-fiction book will run 25,000-150,000 words--and I am daunted by how much chipping will be required to find any presumed book. Do I have, somewhere in there, a message the public needs to hear (other than bike to work good, sprawl bad, casino also bad)? Moreover, I've already written two books, one published (The New Republican Coalition: The Reagan Campaign and White Evangelicals [Peter Lang, 1994]), one not, so I'd need a more solid purpose than just to do another one. We'll see.

Top posts of the 2020s

Hearts across the pandemic, April 2020

1. "The Hearts of Cedar Rapids," 11 April 2020
2. "Black Friday Parking 2021," 26 November 2021
3. "The Kind of President Joe Biden Could Be," 3 July 2020
4. "Move More Week Diary," 10 October 2022
5. "Even a Pretty MedQuarter Isn't Right," 12 September 2023
6. "Hy-Vee is a Symptom of a Deeper Problem," 23 May 2024
7. "What Should Go into Brewed Awakenings?" 31 July 2020
8. "More New Less Bo?" 4 July 2022
9. "Cycling to Marion," 15 August 2023
10. "The Urbanest Places in Cedar Rapids?" 16 July 2020

Undiscovered posts of the 2020s

MPO Riders on the Sac and Fox Trail

1. "MPO Ride 2024," 11 May 2024
2. "Bike to Work Week 2024," 12 May 2024
3. "Riding the Districts 2024," 11 June 2024
4. "10th Anniversary Post: West Side Greenway," 3 June 2024
5. "FY25 Budget," 13 March 2024
6. "Book Review: City Limits," 5 June 2024
7. "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Day," 24 March 2024
8. "10th Anniversary Post: Preservation or Demolition?" 1 May 2024
9. "Post No. 500: Transition," 29 May 2023
10. "The Future of American Democracy," 25 May 2024