Open-Policy

This one describes the idea of transit oriented communties. These are relatively dense planned communities that try to maintain what is seen as the essentials of small community life.

The density and distribution of these communities make them amenable to public transport. However more emphasis is placed on the development of community. Shopping facilities are centralized and made accessible to pedestrians. Public buildings and public space like squares are made central to the life of the community. The public buildings are given distinguished architecture to show their importance to the community. The public park or square is placed at the hub of planned pedestrian traffic to provide a place for unplanned meetings and interactions.

As it is this soert of community will probably work. The idea of the public square at a transportation crossroads as a means to creatre interaction is straight out of Bill Hillier's seminal work 'Space is the machine.' With proper attention to the principles presented by Hillier, there is no reason why a community designed in the way advocated here cannot produce the types of interactions advocated within this book.

However the book does not go far enough to truly identify what these principles are or even to state clearly and directly what basic principles are guiding the plans that it advocates. It would be possible to create developments that follow the plans described here that would work against the outcomes that it is advocating. Hillier's book, in its analysis of some modern housing estates based on similar goals, demosntrates this.

Yet there is something fundamentally wrong with this book. It is a basic statement of architectural determinism. Traditional suburbs are blamed for all problems in society from environmental pollution to school shootings and possibly even to asteroid impacts causing mass extinctions. There seems to be nothing wrong in society that is not the fault of suburbs and that cannot be fixed by these pedestrian-based communities.

The author acknowleges that the autonomy and privacy provided by the suburban form is attractive to many. He even states that his suggested community form is not antithetical to it. However following that one statement the remainder of the book is a jerimiad against suburban life. Privacy and autonomy references are replaced with descriptions of isolation and alienation.

The book would be more convincing if it remained an advocacy for its desired form. There is no doubt that this form if designed properly can foster the close community life that many people find very attractive. However not all people are attracted to this sort of life. Many people prefer the social autonomy that is provided to them in suburbs. With modern communication mechanisms like the telephone, Email, automobile etc, they can maintain multiple social netowkrs each with the social distance that they find comfortable. They are not forced to interact with a neighbor that they do not care for simply because his residence is nearby.

All in all this is a good book for its purpose. The unfortunate blathering about the short comings of suburbs distracts from its main purpsoe and weakens its argument. However many will find the small community life presented here very attractive.

It is worth reading despite these handicaps.

This book changed my mind.

Its a compliation of articles by a somewhat limited variety of modern-day authors about the history and consequences of tight borders. You don't need an economics or political science degree to enjoy and understand the book immensely.

The book covers arguments against immigration and free trade such as; the drains on Social Security and Welfare by "lazy" immigrants, the "stealing" of jobs within the borders and the export of jobs to foreign countries, the increases in crime supposedly associated with immigration, the consequences of import/export tariffs and quotas, and artifically high wages relative to the world. All are justifiably made in defense of the American way of life, but simply fail to comprehend the nature of free trade and immigration as presented in this book. No credible argument is left unturned. Each is dealt with fairly and persuasively. Where appropriate, numbers are introduced.

The true nature of international trade and its costs/benefits along with an accurate representation of immigration are concisely and beautifully presented. All that is left of the opposition is a pile of emotional isolationism.

The drafters of our so-far successful Constitution agreed with the principles in this book; others would do well to find out why.

This is one of Noam Chomsky's most interesting pamphlets (actually a quarter-size booklet of 78 pages). It has a special relevance and importance to citizens in the aftermath of 9-11 because he directly links our corporate criminality ("Justice Department estimates the cost of corporate crime as 7 to 25 times as high as street crime") to our national policies against human rights (poverty pays, for the corporate class that strives to liquidate Third World nations in their predatory roving of the planet).

He pointedly identifies the U.S. arms industry as being among the worst violators, but even more importantly, points out that U.S. policies favoring our arms dealers are opposed by 96% of the U.S. population. While that number might be high, I believe there is no question but that Washington is being instructed by corporations rather than its citizens on this vital point of policy. It is time for citizens to take the power back.

Chomsky notes that in 1996 the World Health Organization characterized extreme poverty as the world's most ruthless killer and the greatest cause of suffering on earth. This ties in with the United Nations finding that human suffering is now a legitimate basis for intervention, and with George Soro's observation in The Washington Post of 24 February 2002, that "We can't be successful in fighting terrorism, unless we fight that other axis of evil--poverty, disease and ignorance."

This little gem of a book also includes well-footnoted observations about how nations seek to carry out trade negotiations in secrecy, in part because they are agreeing to overlook if not actively participate in the looting of poor countries as a condition for prosperous trade among the already developed nations.

The book begins and ends with thoughts from Chomsky on the intellectual discipline he founded, the relationship between linguistics, ethics, and action. He begins with pointed observations on how the most horrible crimes are allowed to go without comment because of *self* censorship, and ends by noting that our citizens do not need to be forbidden to speak of these monstrous deeds that our corporations and government are secretly agreeing to perpetuate, because we have chosen to remain ignorant and silent.

U.S. policy today is *not* founded on moral values, and it is *not* representative of the will of the people in so far as it is carried out in secret collaboration with major corporations and in opposition to the minimal mandatory needs of developing nations for water, food, disease, and economic security.

This is not about political ideology--Ralph Nader, the ultimate spoiler, has one thing right: the parties are irrelevant, this is now about the people versus the corporations. Absent a huge popular turn-out *prior* to each election, to make it clear to candidates that they will be held accountable by the people for keeping all trade and other negotiations in the public domain, and for voting on issues mindful of the will of the people rather than their corporate Enron-like paymasters, then we are the ones ultimately responsible for U.S. policy's misdirection.