These corporations sell hate, fear and death

 

The souped-up black car squealed its tires as it turned left from 2nd Street onto 4th Avenue. As the driver accelerated into the turn, the car began to slide to the right, towards the sidewalk where I was walking. The car skidded to a halt in front of the woman the driver was meeting. I trust she was impressed. (I doubt he ever saw me, much less was auditioning for the lead paragraph in this post.) 

Earlier the same day, I was crossing 12th Avenue when a northbound driver suddenly decided to turn right. Happily she saw me before she hit me, and to her credit she looked sheepish. Besides that one day, in the past few weeks cars or trucks have come way too close to me for comfort on 1st Avenue (I scrambled out of the way), 2nd Avenue (braked so hard on my bicycle I almost fell off), and 8th Avenue (jumped back). It did not seem that any of those drivers saw me at all.

And this is in a state rated by the NHTSA as the least deadly for pedestrians in the last five years (Dangerous By  Design 2022, pp. 51-52)!

So you can imagine I fail to see the humor in this ad proclaiming the brake-assist feature of the 2022 Volkswagen Atlas that keeps popping up online.

The title of the ad is "Those Guys," but it might as well be "Pedestrians are Idiots Who Deserve Death." The mangy fellow who will live to see another day thanks to the sponsor's product not only crosses the street oblivious to traffic, when the SUV brakes he indignantly indicates that he was ON THE PHONE! "What an a##hole!" chortled one commenter.

Not only is this not funny to those of us who daily deal with SUV drivers who don't see us, it promotes a hateful stereotype I hear all the time: conscientious law-abiding drivers who must deal with a world filled with reckless, lawless cyclists and pedestrians. (See also Furchtgott-Roth 2022.) Yeah, VW is not only culture warring here, it's taking the side of the powerful. It's stoking the flame of resentment at a time when road deaths of pedestrians (including wheelchair users) and cyclists have been steeply climbing for a decade. 2020 saw 6700 pedestrians killed on streets and roads, with considerably more (7485) estimated for 2021 (GHSA 2021). 

Source: Cogan 2022b. Used without permission.

Like most stereotypes, this one is partly true but mostly false. There are aggressive people using all forms of transportation, and everyone makes mistakes--including, alas, me. But crashes and traffic deaths are not random events. The new edition of Smart Growth America's annual report, Dangerous By  Design 2022, takes a deep dive into the factors in the rising numbers of pedestrian deaths. So does Angie Schmitt, in her impressive book Right of Way [Island, 2020]. Pedestrian deaths are associated with place, socio-economic status, and vehicle size.

In 2020, the vast majority (60 percent) of the 39,000 road deaths occurred on one type of motorway, for which Chuck Marohn coined the term stroad: wide lanes and high vehicle speeds, as well as substantial built environment with a lot of cross-traffic. The higher vehicle speeds make conflicts harder to anticipate, and resulting crashes more deadly (Dangerous By Design 2022, pp. 6-8). Because of the way we've built for most of the last 75 years, the United States is deadlier than Canada or much of Europe (Zipper 2022). 

Within the U.S., pedestrian deaths are overrepresented in those metropolitan areas that have grown the most since World War II, because that's when stroads became widely utilized. Those areas are in the southwest and southeast; the 20 most dangerous metros are arranged along a U-shaped line from Stockton, California (9th deadliest) to Greenville, South Carolina (17th) (Dangerous by Design, p. 26). Within those metros, Researchers Robert James Schneider and colleagues found 60 hotspots of pedestrian deaths over the years 2001-16, with by far the leader being US19 near Tampa, Florida (Cogan 2022b). These areas also showed the biggest increases in pedestrian death rates during the coronavirus pandemic, as auto traffic diminished and speeds increased (Dangerous by Design, p. 42).

It follows from where the deadliest roads are, the poor and BIPOC neighborhoods through which they were driven, and who would be walking on them, that the pedestrians killed are predominantly nonwhite, low-income, and older adults (Schmitt 2012, Dangerous by Design pp. 33-36). 

Disastrous stroads have existed for decades. So why the recent surge in pedestrian deaths? For that we need to look at trends in vehicle design. Mike McGinn of America Walks notes (Dangerous by Design, pp. 24-25) that SUVS and light trucks have in the last decade become taller and heavier. They  hit pedestrians higher, and provide the driver with less visibility (cf. also Schmitt 2021, Davis 2021). A lot of this is attitude-driven: a sampling of ads for Ford, Hummer, and Jeep suggest they're built that way in part to project the power of the driver (cf. also Powell 2019). Vehicles are also equipped with ever more distracting technology.

The stereotype of the irresponsible pedestrian to which VW is pandering has several roots. In a dangerous world, it's some comfort to think those whose lives were cut short somehow had it coming, that we who behave responsibly are safe. Jessie Singer, author of There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster--Who Profits and Who Pays the Price [Simon & Schuster, 2022], told Marin Cogan of Vox:

Seemingly random horrors and tragedies are terrifying. As a result, victim blaming, or even perpetrator blaming, is a comfort because it's a way of feeling in control of an uncontrollable siutation.... The urge to blame victims is a way to say, "Not me, couldn't happen to me. I wouldn't have made those decisions." It gives us quite a bit of space from this thing that terrifies us. (Cogan 2022a)

There are additional factors at work. The vaster part of the U.S. is solidly auto-normative. Pedestrians, cyclists, and particularly wheelchair users must operate in a world that was built for motor vehicles. Everything that has been done to facilitate the movement of cars and trucks makes it difficult-to-impossible for everyone else. Also, speaking as someone who's been watching the culture wars for decades, the world is full of people who deal with difference by looking down on the other, and thinking the other would be better off they would just be more normal. 

So VW and its fellow auto manufacturers are not only promoting a stereotype to sell products, they're encouraging hatred towards the other as an alternative to taking responsibility either for street safety or the environment. That's not funny. It's despicable. And dangerous.

By the way, the SUV in the VW ad brakes when the mangy pedestrian is directly in front of the car. The driver should have seen him crossing much earlier, and had plenty of time to brake without the assistance of fancy technology. What was he paying attention to, instead of what was in front of him on the road?

Maybe if you just read the title of this post you would expect me to talk about gun manufacturers. But while guns kill 30,000+ annually in the United States, motor vehicle crash deaths topped 40,000 in 2021. This is not to exonerate gun manufacturers, though. This week a House Oversight and Reform Committee investigation found assault weapons makers pitched their version of hate, fear and death to young men and racists, and reaped $1.7 billion-plus over ten years. The report cites examples like Palmetto State Armory and Daniel Defense offering a floral print similar to the Boogaloo Boys logo, Daniel Defense's catalogue picture featured a Valknot tattoo, and the infamous Bushmaster "man card" ad pictured above (Karni 2022). As with traffic deaths, the cost of corporate profits falls heaviest on the poor and nonwhites (Love and Vey 2019). State legislatures and courts have simply acquiesced to the corporations' political power.

America is the land of SUVs and automatic guns. The rest of us just live here.

SEE ALSO: 

"Summer Reading from Island Press," 8 June 2021 [includes review of Right of Way by Angie Schmitt]

"Violence, Fear, Guns and Our Common Life," 7 December 2015

Ben Kaplan, "Mount Vernon Road is Dangerous by Design," 21 June 2021

Charles Marohn, "Do We Really Care About Children?" Strong Towns, 12 September 2016

Marching for Our Lives

My Washington semester gave me the chance to be present at the March for Our Lives, the massive rally against gun violence organized in the wake of yet another mass shooting, this one at Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Parkland students spoke movingly of their experiences, both at the rally and in media interviews. Attendance estimates ranged from 200,000 to 800,000--Washington Metro reported their ridership on the day at 558,375, comparable to a presidential inauguration-- but whatever it was, it was a lot.

My own experience was rather prosaic. I've been attending a Lutheran church in DC, and local Lutherans met up at a church near the site. From there we walked down Indiana Avenue, joining streams of pedestrian traffic that merged to become rivers, until we could make no further progress.

I stood there for an hour or so, hearing some of the speeches and the music, but mostly drawing energy from the crowds around me.

Everyone seemed happy to be there, though they might have preferred a better vantage point. White and black, groups and individuals, Washingtonians and those who came to town for the event were gracious to each other; we'd occasionally move a little to allow a line of people through, either in hopes of finding some Northwest passage to the front, or else to get water. Signs and shirts were not entirely, but predominantly positive. Eventually, after about 90 minutes, I caught one of the lines and surfed it out of there. If you watched on TV you saw and heard more than I did.

I'm glad I went anyway, partly for the historic nature of the event--this might be the biggest thing I've ever been part of--but mostly to stand up and be counted. I'm not just curious; I am angry. Guns have never been central as an issue to me or to this project like economic opportunity, environmental sustainability, community inclusion and place-making. But maybe it should be. A community must be safe to be successful, and people need to feel safe as a basic prerequisite for any community.

So is common conversation. The issue of gun violence has for decades lacked an inclusive conversation; any policy suggestions are met with surly badassery, cultural clannishness to the point of paranoia, and legislative stonewalling. The March for Our Lives gave people--a lot of people--in Washington and around the country the opportunity to demand an end to this, and instead opportunities to discuss the terms for living together.

I wrote this about gun politics 2 1/2 years ago, and don't have much else to say. I don't have a brief for any specific policy measure. A 2017 New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof contains a number of specific proposals suggestions which would make reasonable starting points; I'd also like to look at civil liability for private sales. I am dubious about the efficacy of local ordinances, given the porousness of city boundaries. But as Justice Robert H. Jackson said, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." We as a country can do a lot better, and it's way past time to start.

P.S. I was nonplussed by a quote in the Post article (cited below) from Robert Johnson of New York City, who attended a counter-protest in Boston: If you run over someone with a car, they don't blame the car. But if someone is shot, they immediately blame the guns. Johnson is obviously ignorant of efforts in cities across the country to redesign streets for pedestrian safety. New York City, his hometown, has been in the forefront of these efforts. You'd have to be willfully oblivious to remain unaware. We have a long way to go to make our streets truly safe for everyone, but we are having the conversations. We should be having the same conversations about guns. There is no excuse not to.

SEE ALSO:
Peter Jamison, Joe Heim, Lori Aratani and Marissa J. Lang, "In Grief, Marching for Change," Washington Post, 25 March 2018, A1 & 19
Natalie Kroovand Hipple, "The Way Cities Report Gun Violence is All Wrong," Washington Post, 26 March 2018

Kristof's list:

1. background checks: 22 percent of guns are obtained without one
2. protection orders: keep men who are subject to domestic violence protection orders from having guns
3. ban under-21s: a ban on people under 21 purchasing firearms (this is already the case in many states)
4. safe storage: these include trigger locks as well as guns and ammunition stored separately, especially when children are in the house
5. straw purchases: tighter enforcement of laws on straw purchases of weapons, and some limits on how many guns can be purchased in a month
6. ammunition checks: experimentation with a one-time background check for anybody buying ammunition
7. end immunity: end immunity for firearm companies; that's a subsidy to a particular industry
8. ban bump stocks: a ban on bump stocks of the kind used in Las Vegas to mimic automatic weapon fire
9. research 'smart guns:' "smart guns" fire only after a fingerprint or PIN is entered, or if used near a particular bracelet

What the hell, Chicago?

Source: Chicago Tribune

Eleven people were shot to death in Chicago over Christmas weekend, bringing the total number of murders in the city in 2016 to over 750 (Bosman and Smith). It has been a distressing year, to say the least, in the Midwest's largest city, and it casts doubt on the whole urbanist project.

The murder epidemic comes after a 25 year decline in violent crime in the United States, including in the State of Illinois, where the rate per 100,000 population dropped from 1039 in 1991 to 370 in 2014. Nationally, violent crime in 2014 was 51.3 percent of the 1990 rate (Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports, aggregated at disastercenter.com). As I wrote in August, there are at least 11 explanations for this decline, which is too many to be encouraging, particularly when crime comes roaring back as it has in Chicago this year. And if that's not enough to worry about, consider this: the number of people shot in Chicago in 2016 exceeds 3,500 (Bosman and Smith again). Were it not for advances in medical science the number of deaths by murder would be much higher, wouldn't it?

Confoundingly, but happily for the rest of America, Chicago's year has not been replicated across the country, and indeed most of the homicides have occurred on the South and West sides. The Times article notes that neither Los Angeles nor New York has had anything like Chicago's experience; in fact Chicago's 2016 total exceeds those of the two larger cities combined. Smaller cities, too, have had widely varying experiences. So, what is going on? And what can be done?

Arthur Lurigio of Loyola University, cited in the Times article, suggests Chicago's suffers from a combination of easily available guns, persistent poverty, and escalating gang violence exacerbated by social media. One of my students who grew up on the South Side has written feelingly of how his neighborhood became increasingly unsafe beginning around 2006, when he would have been eight; his conversations with law enforcement suggest that a mid-decade scrambling of public housing residents put members of rival gangs in close and dangerous proximity to each other. Meanwhile, the police feel hamstrung by politicians critical of police shootings of black youth.

Chicago's experience is of national interest, because when a lot of people hear "urban" the image they get is not walkable, sociable neighborhoods with opportunity for all--or the commercial meccas of Michigan Avenue and New Bohemia--but the image of crime-infested, dirty streets filled with drug addicts. Whether the issue is sidewalks or affordable housing, design form or corner stores, at the root of pushback is: Don't bring the city to my neighborhood. Because we know what cities are like! (See above.) I can relate to this, having spent an embarrassing proportion of my suburban youth scared to death of Chicago. And, frankly, if there are going to be 750 murders somewhere, I'd rather it not be in my neighborhood.

But the deadly ghettos of Chicago are not examples of urbanism; their people are suffering from the lack of it. The poor areas of America's inner cities and first-ring suburbs are the flip side of the suburban development pattern that created well-off areas on the metropolitan edge. Those left behind need urbanism as much or more than anyone else.

People struggle, and on top of that, in many instances, people have lost hope in their government. They've lost hope that something is going to change for them. And if we can't keep hope alive, then you don't have to wonder whether things are going to get better or worse: They'll get worse. --ALD. DANNY DAVIS, quoted in Bosman and Smith

Everyone needs access to economic opportunity--a difficulty even for the middle-class in these times, much less for the poor who have been cut off for decades by the suburban development pattern. That means redesigning, or undoing a lot of the design of the last several decades, in order to make our cities more inclusive. That means, in part, breaking down barriers and encouraging more spontaneous interaction. There are dangerous people out there, and they should be in jail, but even justifiable fear does not justify cutting off huge chunks of the population. And then blaming them when they don't prosper.

Investment in our cities is fine, but must be aimed at ensuring opportunity for all. Which brings us to the the interesting case of City Center DC...

Source: citycenterdc.com 

...a development in downtown Washington with high-end shopping, fancy restaurants and super-luxury condominiums. Backers of the project point to the flow of tax revenue to the city from sales and rents; apparently at these prices it doesn't take many of either to generate some nice cash flow. But, as a discussion last week on WAMU's "Kojo Nnamdi Show" pointed up, the area has not seen the foot traffic you'd expect from a successful retail area. But more popular stores would not be "driving value upstairs," because condo buyers would rather live above Louis Vuitton than above McDonald's or Wal-Mart. All this proves, I guess, is that a lot of people don't want to live around a lot of other people, and some are able to pay handsomely for the privilege. I hope they're paying very handsomely, enough for Washington to upgrade its education, transportation, small business resources and social services.

But CityCenterDC is not a model for urban development. It's another example of what Michael Mehaffy (cited below) calls the "trickle-down" approach to development--"concentrating attention at the top and in the core, in the hopes that it will 'trickle down' to all"--albeit CityCenterDC was financed by a Qatari sovereign wealth fund rather than the local government itself. He calls, in the spirit of Jane Jacobs, for cities to shun quick fixes and instead

to diversify geographically and in other ways--to move into a system of polycentric complete neighborhoods, and find ways to catalyze more beneficial growth there... In addition, diversity in types, ages and conditions of buildings is also important to maintain diversity in populations and incomes.... Furthermore, while public investment is still important under this approach, it is not used as a way to "socially engineer" problems like affordability through direct expenditures, but rather, it is a catalyst for an alternative kind of pervasive growth that is more beneficial. This is an approach that treats the city as an organic whole, rather than a top-down money-making machine that can be tinkered with at will. (non-italics mine)

I'll admit to being often the pessimistic voice in the crowd, but I think, in spite of such Chicago-specific factors in this year's upsurge in homicides, that Chicago is probably just the first sign of fraying in our national fabric. President-elect Trump's bluster notwithstanding, we can't shoot our way out of this mess. Nor, the urbanists argue, can we blast our way out through big civic projects, no matter how many jobs they allegedly create. The only way out is by making great places by solving the puzzles of economic opportunity and inclusion. Maybe we could start with ice cream?

SOURCES

Julie Bosman and Mitch Smith, "Chicago Tallies Grim Accounts of Violent Year," New York Times, 29 December 2016, A1, A13

Michael Mehaffy, "A Tale of Two Futures," Public Square: A CNU Journal, 15 December 2016

Jonathan O'Connell, "D.C. Got Everything It Wanted Out of CityCenterDC--Except the Crowds," Washington Post Magazine, 8 December 2016

Pete Saunders, "Something Amiss in Chicago," Corner Side Yard, 1 April 2016

City Center DC is located on H Street NW between 9th and 11th Streets.

Violence, fear, guns and our common life

"Chi-Raq," Spike Lee's new movie, begins with a map of the United States outlined in guns. Its release poignantly coincides with last week's shootings at a community center in San Bernardino, California. Following so quickly on the Planned Parenthood clinic shootings in Colorado Springs, not to mention the terror attacks in Paris, the latest killings appear to have rekindled anxieties about violence in America. How will we respond? Early indications are that the American political system remains mired in old rhetoric and rigidly defined positions. Can we even respond at all?

President Obama addressed the country Sunday night, in an effort to assuage public fears of terrorism and gun violence. He promised to "destroy ISIL," which is what one might expect him to say despite the elusiveness of the goal, and provided details of military, diplomatic and intelligence efforts to counter terrorism. On guns he called for barring purchases by people on no-fly lists, as well as an assault weapons ban; not unreasonable, but not much impact.

I have never owned a gun, and have no plans to purchase one. So I have at best an outsider's perspective on the role they play in American life and culture. I also don't spend much time worrying about being the victim of an armed assault. At the same time, I recognize the risks that people face are real, and that fear can be as destructive as an actual attack. I'm pained by the high surliness-to-logic ratio of a lot of the discussion. I'm skeptical that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution addresses individual gun ownership at all, much less protects it to such a degree that precludes regulation (see Spitzer for what details there are on the amendment's murky history).

This much I do understand:

• Fear, of the other, or of random violence, is a natural human reaction. Fear is also political currency, and can be exploited if people are willing to have their buttons pushed (as too many are, alas). But the physical and fiscal realities of the 21st century continue to thrust us together. We can't afford to build walls high enough, or roads long enough, to keep us in our respective safe spaces. And while hoping that "a good person with a gun" would pop up and stop a bad guy is understandable, it amounts to nothing more than wishing for a less awful outcome, while overlooking the risks that gun entails at the times when it's not interrupting an assault. (The Cedar Rapids Gazette today reports a rising number of firearm thefts from vehicles.)
• Some Americans own a lot of guns. There are by some estimates more guns in American than people. But despite occasional reports that gun purchases are increasing, driven by fear (of violent attack, or of governmental gun control), the proportion of gun-owning household holds consistently at about 35-40 percent (Morin, "Gun Ownership"). Most Americans own no guns. All those American guns are in relatively few hands.
• The level of gun violence in the United States is exceptional, and not in a good way. New York Times analysis of American news databases found over 300 mass shootings--defined as shootings that left four or more people injured or dead--so far in 2015. Some get a lot of attention, like the ones in San Bernardino, Colorado Springs, and Chattanooga, but a lot goes on outside the media spotlight. But here's the thing: 462 killed by mass shootings in 2015 is barely 1.5 percent of our annual total of gun deaths. According to the National Safety Council, there were 31672 deaths in the U.S. from firearms in 2010, a typical year, more than half by suicide, with a substantial minority by homicide. (The enemies aren't all without.) No other developed country, including Switzerland with its high rates of gun ownership, is even close to this level of gun violence (Lemieux). What are we doing wrong?
• The National Rifle Association isn't helping. Neither are the Republicans, nor for that matter are the Democrats. The NRA is in a fix, albeit one other interest groups can only envy. Since adopting its absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment in 1977, it has emerged as a political force so powerful it has swept all before it. Like other interest groups, it is in essence a business, which can't sustain itself in a world that has all the gun rights it will ever need (Godwin). Hence the overblown, perpetual crisis rhetoric, with "confiscation" always right around the corner unless we keep up the fight. Because of the political universe the NRA has helped create, the Republicans are offering no helpful policy solutions, while the Democrats offer only tiny incremental policies--barring gun sales to those on terrorist watch lists, for example--that seem mostly oriented to finally getting a victory over the NRA, however small.
• We can only address this problem in conversation. The solutions aren't going to be easy, and they're likely to be complex. They need to take account of the fact that guns are small and easily transported, making municipal regulations impracticable and even state regulations difficult to enforce. They need to take account of a variety of interests: concerns for self-protection; access to materials for hunting or collection; fears generated by openly armed individuals; the dangers of proliferation. Most of all, to accomplish any of this, we need to learn how to listen, how to exchange ideas, and how to work towards solutions that advance our complimentary interests (Fisher et al). Non-negotiable demands are not conversation. Calling people nuts or ignorant is not conversation.
• Gun policy needs to evolve. A perfect comprehensive policy is unlikely to emerge all at once. We need to be able to respond to research on approaches to gun violence--which means there needs to be research on gun violence. The federal ban on research by the Centers for Disease Control is absurd, not to mention paranoid, and should be lifted at once. Then, as in any other policy areas, policy needs to change in response to what is and isn't working.

The vast majority of guns in the U.S. are owned by men.
Men are also somewhat less likely to support gun control.

P.S. One reason I so much admire the work and message of Parker J. Palmer is his enduring belief that the conversations we need to have can occur, that obstacles to having them can be overcome with persistence. I aspire to that level of optimism. Given the rut this issue is stuck in, and how well surliness has worked for the N.R.A., it's hard to imagine getting from here to there. But what's the alternative?

EARLIER POSTS: "Rights and Our Common Life," 26 August 2015; "A Gathering of Spirits in Cedar Rapids," 28 July 2013

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
 Stephen J. Dubner and Steve Levitt, "How to Think about Guns: Full Transcript," Freakonomics, 14 February 2013, http://freakonomics.com/2013/02/14/how-to-think-about-guns-full-transcript/
 Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In (Penguin, 2nd ed, 1991)
 R. Kenneth Godwin, One Billion Dollars of Influence: The Direct Marketing of Politics (Chatham House, 1988)
 "Gun Ownership in US on Decline," RT.com, 11 March 2013, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demographics-and-politics-of-gun-owning-households/ [citing data from 2012 General Social Survey]
 Sharon LaFraniere, Sarah Cohen and Richard J. Oppel Jr., "How Often Do Mass Shootings Occur? On Average, Every Day, Records Show," New York Times, 3 December 2015, A1, A23
 Frederick Lemieux, "Six Things Americans Should Know About Mass Shootings," IFL Science, 5 December 2015, http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/six-things-americans-should-know-about-mass-shootings [author is a criminologist at George Washington University]
 Rich Morin, "The Demographics and Politics of Gun-Owning Households," Pew Research Center, 14 July 2015, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demographics-and-politics-of-gun-owning-households/
 Robert L. Spitzer, The Politics of Gun Control (Chatham House, 1995)