Renewal

The most useful part of the book in terms of understanding cities is the chapter on the economic theory of gentrification, that economic incentives force landlords in a declining residential area to under-maintain their building, causing further deterioration of the neighborhood's housing stock until the buildings are so undercapitalized relative to the land value underneath that capital swooshes back in with rich people. (OK so this is kind of complicated for us non-economists but it's an important theory) The role of artists and the rhetoric of "urban pioneers" is very interesting too.

The downside that I kept thinking about in later chapters is that it's a shame that left-wing authors' writing tends to be very academic in tone compared to those of establishment thinkers. The content in this book is interesting if you can get past that. If you just want a good left-wing view of cities, Mike Davis' City of Quartz is much a more crisply-written and compelling read.

I have to be careful when writing about the book that has become the backbone to my undergraduate dissertation. Smith goes where others have not dared by suggesting the real reasons behind change in New York and other western cities. His ideas are sound, but as with so many reactionary books I got the impression that he had decided on the answers before asking the questions. Research has little balance at all, and you begin to worry about its values when the book somehow manages to link revanchism to such wide ranging issues as "the organized murder of street kids in Rio de Janeiro, the Hindu massacres in Bombay, the pre-election slaughter of South Africans in Durban, the mayhem in Baghdad streets after the barbaric US bombing in 1991". However once he gets down from his socialist soapbox, the theories of revanchism can be useful for interperating change in western inner-cities. Not a book you will put down easily, but also one not to taken at face value...

If you are interested in this subject check out M. Davis (1990) City of Quartz, H. Liggett & D. Perry (1995) Spatial Practices, and P. Knox (1992) The Restless Urban Landscape.

This book is so stupid, I mean the dude doesn't even do everything

This book is a collection of essays taken from a "free" conference that met in 1994, partially in response to the ELCA's debate over sexuality. The essays in this book offer keen observations on what it means to be a reforming church today, using insights from the gospel, Luther, and other sources, including theological, historical, and scientific.

The essays represent a number of different perspectives and personal backgrounds. Their variety and multifaceted approaches to the issues of church reform and sexuality are remarkable and refreshing. In fact, I believe that they are a testament to the reforming traditions of Jesus and Luther.

The ambience of the book is invigorating; I felt like I was in attendance at the conference. I recommend this book to Lutherans who want to feel and understand the dynamic nature of the Lutheran tradition and want to explore its possibilities. The book is easy enough for the layperson, yet contains enough substance for a theologian.

If you are a member of the ELCA and bored with the tradition (or frustrated with its gridlock), this book is highly recommended.

This is, frankly, one of the WORST books I have ever read on any topic, let alone urban problems. After the first chapter, it is apparent that E. Michael Smith has an agenda at least as pervasive as that of the WASP's he constantly derides in the book for things going far beyond "ethnic cleansing," such as having liberated sexual mores that caused them to "lack the inhibitions necessary to govern properly." His goal is to put ALL of the blame for urban problems today solely on the shoulders of the WASP elites--which, by extension, applies to anyone of Protestant beliefs, as he connects the supposedly "morally decadent" Protestants and Quakers (whom he derides for lacking structure in their religion), in addition to the blacks who migrated from the South in search of employment during WWII (and who also happened to be overwhelmingly Protestant) with the "moral decay" that resulted in the cities as a result of "anti-Catholic" policies. Smith also blames the racial violence--including lynching of blacks--caused by attempts at blacks to integrate into the monolithically ethnic and Catholic neighborhoods on the "violent criminal culture" of the South, which blacks supposedly transplanted with themselves to the cities; he adds that blacks were purposefull "corrupted" by the factory managers who paid them much better wages than they had ever received in the Jim Crow South, which had presented the "structure to keep their urges in check." He does not acknowledge that the Catholic ethnics in fact had driven out other groups themselves when they first moved into the neighborhoods. and that the neighborhoods already had many of problems that blacks purportedly introduced. Gangs, for example, were prevalent in the Irish neighborhoods, in particular, and partook in blatantly illegal activity, such as drag-racing. The impression one receives is that, beyond poverty, the Catholic ethnic neighborhoods were some sort of morally upright utopia that was irreparably corrupted by Protestant and black influences, when in fact the neighborhoods were at least as much to blame due to their unwillingness to accept blacks, or even other Catholic ethnics of different nationalities, as equals. Many upwardly mobile blacks were forced to remain in true slum conditions in central city ghettos that, ironically, had once been occupied by the ethnics before they moved on to somewhat more affluent neighborhoods.
Also discrediting his work--which starkly contrasts with his previous work, which has nothing to do with urban problems and everything to do with his interpretation of "morality" and "decadence," which he arbitrarily applies to urban problems--is his labeling FDR and his "WASP allies" (never mind that FDR was Dutch) as "social enginners" who were "trying to root out Fascism"--implicitly making them socialists, in Smith's eyes. Even worse, he does not acknowledge the problems facing not just Catholics, but also Protestants and Lutherans of non-British descent--making this much more of a religious division than an ethnic division, when in fact the opposite was true.
A much better analysis of urban problems--acknowledging the grievances and ideals and hopes of all groups invovled--is "Common Ground."

The destruction of Detroit, Philadelphia, the south side of Chicago, and all the major cities of the Northeast was all planned. In the early part of the 20th century the WASP plutocrats saw that the Catholic urban ethnics would soon take over the major cities because they were having large families, so they used urban planning funded with government and foundation money to drive the Catholics out of the cities after World War II. E. Michael Jones has put the whole sorry tale together in his new book, and the words of the elite urban planners, themselves, are used to convict them. If you thought that the rapid suburbanization of this country after World War II was a natural occurrence, then read this book. You will also learn how the "car culture" and the interstate highway system fits into the scheme. My Great-Grandfather rode the streetcar to work in Detroit. He spent pennies a day on transportation. Now we are all spread out and dependent on cars costing thousands a year to get us to work on long commutes via the clogged freeways.

The transformation of Times Square from a den of porn, drugs, and prostitution into an urban Disneyland is the greatest success story of urban renewal. (I am astonished that anyone could be nostalgic about the old Times Square - I find it hard to be nostalgic about drug dealers loitering in front of porn shops and boarded-up theaters.)

Lynne Sagalyn devotes her 600-page tome to documenting the politics behind the redevelopment process. The end result is not exactly rivetting reading. Perhaps it's asking too much for any author to transform this epic of backroom politics, urban planners, and real estate developers into a "good read." In any event, the author has carefully documented the entire process, focussing on the backroom politics and urban planning strategies, rather than on the architecture of the buildings themselves. The book is profusely illustrated with well over a hundred b&w photos and detailed maps. In addition, a central color section of the book has about 35 photographs and drawings.

The story of how Times Square, and, in particular, 42nd Street, was finally rescued is fascinating, but it's blurred in this treatment. Sagalyn is an academic, and unfortunately, it shows. It reads like a long series of New York Times Arts & Leisure section essays by a critic. All the info is in there, but it's somewhat exhausting to wade through. One suspects the same info could have been delivered more elegantly in half the number of words.

Given the rather expensive price, wait to see whether there's a paperback version. But anyone who's interested in the history and development of NYC will find it worthwhile.

The apparent purpose of this book is to address "The Social Question." What this question is, is never explained. Perhaps in 1923 when it was first published everyone knew the "social question" that was on all lips. It is unfortunate that it was not explained to the reader in the new forward.

The book is short, but its stream-of-consciousness style makes it almost unreadable. The author has a theory that man is composed of three basic parts, (body, spirit and soul), and that, therefore, to create as ideal a world as possible, the scope of intra-human dealings should also be separated into the equivalent of these three "spheres" (the economic, the spiritual and the political). How all human dealings can be perfectly delineated into these three spheres, each totally separate from the others, is not explained. All skepticism is headed off as being un-objective, uninformed or already discredited (we have not adopted his ideas, and it is not a perfect world, ergo: any ideas except his are discredited). His arrogant, all-knowing attitude combined with the knowledge of the disastrous results of the implementation of similar "social solutions" since this book was first published make it a dreary and depressing read.

Steiner seems to believe that the common man is yearning for some perfect pattern by which to live his life and that once presented with such a theory will eagerly alter his interactions with his fellows to fall into line with it. All of his conclusions depend upon this being the case. He frequently refers to his knowledge of the mind of the proletariat. How he has this special knowledge is not explained. It seems to be a mystic gift. Having been a working man all of my life, I believe that he is wrong on all counts. The working man does not deeply ponder philosophical questions of how society should be structured, nor does he seek to alter his own consciousness to fit in with the conclusions he would arrive at if he did. As is the case with all other "social scientists", Steiner believes that man is on the verge of evolving a new consciousness. The frightening aspect of such beliefs, when they come into fashion with those with the power to implement them, is that when people do not exhibit such an evolution they must be slaughtered by the millions.

Steiner's ideas, like the thousands of other abstract philosophical musings down through the ages of how best to order human affairs, are intellectually interesting, but before these ideas are imposed on society, I suggest that those who would implement them familiarize themselves with the mechanisms of coercion and terror, and that they begin building the gulags for the poor unfortunates who do not understand his complex theories.

If the reader has an urge to delve into the mystical meanderings of another human mind, and has the patience to re-read each sentence and paragraph several times to divine its meaning, and is a collector of obscure philosophical theories, this can be an interesting read. To me it was a tedious exercise with no real value.

As the subtitle, "Rethinking the Basis of Society" suggests, a fresh look is taken at the basis of social life. The question as to what healthy social forms are, or how to evolve forms that are healthy is not new. The French Revolution, the movement through feudalism to private property, Socialism, Communism, the innauguration of American style Democracy and Civil Rights, even the current battle in American public life between the proponents of "smaller government" or those clamoring for a "just society" have all the same thing in common, they would attempt to create or change social forms. Some would do so for better, some for worse reasons, "to endow the blessings of liberty", or to create situations that benefit a select few over the many.

The author, Rudolf Steiner, offers no program in this book. Rather in the spirit of the great and unfortunately late philosophical tradition, he attempts to bring us towards glimpses of what he refers to as the "primal thoughts" regarding the "body social". While some might snicker at this as arrogance, others will see "primal thoughts" for what they are - insights into the nature of man and society, insights that go to the heart of the matter, insights that in their mode of expression have not been robbed of all but a semblance of life.

Rudolf Steiner, who had worked in an educational capacity with workers, chosen by their unions to do so, had said that the "modern worker" through his education had religion reduced to idelology while being left with a mechanical mode of thought imposed on him by natural science. The effects of this are far reaching. We might ponder as to whether this hasn't created our tendency to succumb to idelology in our public life in lieu of the ability to really come to terms with this life itself. In short, that is what the entire book is about.

In the simplest terms the book posits the realm of man vs man, where each person stands on equal footing with another solely because each is human, the rights or political sphere; man associates with man to create commodities in the economic realm; and finally, the human being in his or her relationship to the creative powers as well as the powers of creativity, would constitute the cultural or spiritual sphere. The monolithic modern state dominates all three spheres creating an ill society. The political powers that be as well as the economic powers that be are either colluding or each trying to overtake the other to the detriment of all.

Steiner's thoughts are not always easy to grasp. His thoughts on the "aging" of money for example, are for myself particularly difficult. On the other hand, his lucid thoughts both as to why human labor is not a commodity, and then how to liberate it from the stranglehold that the economic sphere presently has on it, are nothing if not brilliant.

According to John Weir Perry, 'when a true spiritual awakening or transformation is underway, one usually encounters the emotional experiences and accompanying images of death and the annihilation of the world itself'.(127)

Therefore, it would seem to me, an experience involving such encounters is probably the inevitable and ulitmate path towards spiritual enlightenment, and one who has not traveled along it is still awaiting a transformation.

Mr. Perry, however, would disagree. According to him, one undergoes such a process, which he calls the 'renewal process' and associates with brief psychotic episodes, only when there is an imperative need for the individual to break free from old value systems, emotional patterns, assumptions about the nature of the world or cultural forms etc, and this need is being resisted.(128-129)

Perry argues that when this process of breaking free is not undertaken 'voluntarily' by the individual, 'with knowledge of the goal and considerable effort', the conscious personality is overwhelmed by the psyche and its own powerful processes.(129)

In response to this rather undynamic view of the dynamics of the psyche and soma, I would like to point out what a shame it is indeed for those who lack the 'trials' or other fiendish elements which may be resisted, surrendered to and ultimately used to demonstrate grace, the grace, perhaps, in following what necessity dictates, for it is surely those 'lacking' individuals who are submerged in unconsciousness.

I would agree with Perry's view that the treatment received by an individual in a state of 'psychosis' or altered state of consciousness has a profound effect on them, such that, like a magic mirror, if the experience is treated as a disease, it appears as one.

However, I believe that his argument for the individual's role (or lack thereof) in the origin of their own experience is flawed. This is because what he is essentially arguing is that, on the one hand, through hard, conscious struggle (and presumably objectivity) a person may actually anticipate the 'renewal process' and therefore avoid it altogether, and that on the other hand, and by the same argument, it is a lack of vision which leads one to be overwhelmed by unconscious forces (exactly where a 'visionary mind' comes from and what it may have to do with personal volition seems to be a mystery to Perry).

Overall, this rather transcendentalist and ascetic argument seems to be at odds with his view that death, disorder and destruction must be embraced on a journey of self-transformation, but it does tie in well with his abhorrently patriachal, elitist and Western-centric view of mythology which, for me, was the biggest disappointment of all in reading this book.
I would not recommend it to anyone.

If a visionary like Jesus Christ were admitted to a modern psychiatric hospital, he'd be diagnosed as "mentally imbalanced" and injected with anti-psychotic medication. If his delusional symptoms continued for more than a few days, the drug dosage would be increased. Eventually the patient's condition would be stabilized, allowing a transfer from the locked ward to a halfway house, thence to a board-and-care home, with biweekly visits to an outpatient clinic. No longer a threat to himself and others, Jesus would begin his career as a permanent client of the mental health system.

"Trials of the Visionary Mind" is a powerful critique of modern psychiatry, but even more importantly, this book offers an alternative vision of how the natural healing process can be encouraged with compassionate therapy instead of being suppressed with coercive "treatment."

In the 1970's John Weir Perry founded Diabasis, a safe haven in San Francisco where individuals experiencing an acute first episode of psychosis ("spiritual emergency") were allowed to let their psychic upheaval run its course in a caring environment without medication. Perry discusses the philosophy behind Diabasis, and he shares some of the lessons learned and insights gained from a lifetime of study and practice.

The book includes an appendix with suggestions on how to set up a residence facility like Diabasis, but it's unlikely that Perry's ideas will be embraced by the psychiatric profession. Most psychiatrists today are psychopharmacologists who simply manage symptoms by dispensing pills, and they're wedded to the "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness that's so widely promoted by the pharmaceutical industry.

This book should be read by anyone who's appalled by a mental health system that labels every condition a "disorder" and limits treatment to prescribing a pill. John Weir Perry points to a better way.

Halton offers us a convincing approach to answering the questions of postmodernism through a path of moderation (extremism being a mark of modernism). Halton argues that the tightrope between many of the dualisms of modernity is misconceived. In the case of rationality/irrationality, what is ignored is human reason which is extra-rational. In the nature/nurture debate, what is ignored is the biological development that takes place in social contexts between infancy and toddlers in humans. This work is far more convincing than others dealing with the important questions that postmodern theory proposes without the theoretic weaknesses which cripple postmodernism.

I have found Tony Campolo, in person and through his books, to be challenging, provocative, and helpful. Can Mainline Denominations Make A comeback? provides an insightful analysis regarding the challenges facing mainline denominations. Mr. Campolo provides an insightful analysis of why mainline denominations are in their present predicament. He argues that mainline denominations are in a cultural lag, specifically as a result of the television age, a culture of narcissism, and the culture wars. I found this analysis to be helpful but Mr. Campolo's recommendations for what mainline denominations can do to get out of their predicament are oversimplified and fail to address the systemic issues. Nevertheless Mr. Campolo's recommendations do serve to get a discussion going and that is Mr. Campolo's intent.

As someone with a great interest in seeing communities like that described in Community Technologies develop, I was dissapointed in Hess' approach to the subject. Much of the book was a Wendell Berry style argument about the need for change in the American lifestyle, though Hess differs from Berry in that he is not as eloquent and thinks more urbanly than Berry. What I hoped for was a detailed account of WHAT happened, HOW they made it happened, and WHY it didn't work. Not nearly enough space was devoted to those issues, so it was difficult to draw my own conclusions.

In "The Gifts of Suffering," Jungian psychologist Polly Young-Eisendrath discusses the impact of suffering on both the child and adult psyche, with a special emphasis on resilience and transcending pain to find a deeper meaning.

While the concept was very illuminating and interesting, the book suffers from a lack of focus. Part social criticism, part inspirational, part Buddhist history and theory, and part psychological theory, the book never seemed to quite come together. I wanted to hear more about how to develop resilience, what cultivates it. I also felt that Dr. Young-Eisendrath could have expanded the parameters of her research to include more than four individuals, interesting though those were, and perhaps made her language a bit more universal, and watered down some of her more critical opinions, which, in my opinion, detracted from the overall effect of her book.