Malignant Dream-killers - the dulling of America

My most frequent feelings from watching inane government machinations is disgust or anger. A conversation this week with members of a Twin Cities Hmong family is a prime example. You may recall media stories about the Hmong-American Shopping Mall in Brooklyn Center. and about the plans of owner Chafong Lee to transform it into a "Little Asia," with townhomes, retail space and an open-air celebration area.

Not only did Brooklyn Center refuse, it TOOK his property in April 2005, using eminent domain, paying Mr. Lee what he had paid for the property years earlier. And the city now plans to let another developer build a similar project on Lee's former property.

What I didn't fully realize until this week was the extent to which Mr. Lee had gone in trying to produce a development that would be acceptable to Brooklyn Center. In visiting with Mr. Lee and his son at their Asian Supermarket in St. Paul, I was dumbfounded to see, displayed on the office wall, a large array of striking and professionally done architectural sketches for not only the original "Little Asia" proposal, but for two subsequent proposals Lee had produced in an attempt to please Brooklyn Center. Three full-blown architectural project proposals... three elaborate, expensive attempts to secure approval so that he could build, at his own expense, on his own land, a development that would have benefited everyone in the area.

I was struck by the beauty of the initial proposed development, and dumbfounded that any city would not welcome the presence of such a project. It would have been unique in appearance... unique enough to have become a "destination" for many people to visit. It surely would have been a breakthrough catalyst in bringing some of the culture of the Hmong people to the rest of us. It would have enriched the lives of many.

Mr. Lee spent many thousands of dollars trying to please Brooklyn Center, with each subsequent proposal being less "Asian" and more like the boring developments one can see repeated all over the Twin Cities. All of that effort, compromise, and expense was to no avail. Mr. Lee lost not only all of the effort and money, but his property as well.

Lest you believe there is any less sickening side to this outrage, let me point out that Mr. Lee, like so many Hmong, had seen combat, at the request of the United States, against the North Vietnamese. After the war, Mr. Lee came here with $50 to his name.

In the face of a libertarian's desire for and belief in personal liberty, this story is outrageous to an even greater extent. There is no conceivable reason why cities should be allowed to have the power to reject and approve such developments on private property. Aside from being able to prevent the construction of obviously illegal or unsafe projects, it should be no business of government. The power of local government has expanded to micro-controlling every aspect of such development. It has become the power-mongering that makes corruption inevitable, and the results are many and destructive.

As I related in The Paper Curtain of Government :

Such entrenched, stifling controls are the NATURAL outcome of any government power. Centralized power tends to grow continually, attracting those people who enjoy wielding power, and those who wish to force others to live as they do. It also tends to corrupt, since wherever there is power, there is potential profit for anyone who can manipulate it to their own advantage.

Manipulate it they do, but there are so many groups involved that it is nearly impossible to tell who, if anyone, is benefiting from the extreme complication placed in the paths of entrepreneurs. What IS clear to me, although unseen by most, is what we are all LOSING. Look around at the recent developments in all of our suburbs. Do you see any surprises, any uniqueness, any diversity? Not a bit. They might have all been designed by the same people, with slightly different decorative elements. They have become cookie-cutter projects, built by formula... essentially the same project, repeated in different locations. I am reminded of the sameness of big-slab apartment complexes of the Soviet Union.

This, in a nation formerly known for its creative diversity, is the curse of urban planning. Architectural mediocrity shoved down our throats by government controls driven by lack of imagination, fear of innovation, bureaucratic stagnation and concentration on maximizing tax revenue.
Recently, I attended a seminar describing more about the government control exercised over artistic expression in the Soviet Union. Even though artists were carefully controlled, especially under Stalin, subsidized to produce "acceptable" art, forbidden from producing unacceptable works, and severely punished for violations, artists were still able, and willing, to manage to surreptitiously exercise their creativity after hours at home, hiding paintings and showing them only to trusted friends. Even under supreme control, human creativity survived and eventually burst forth again.

I wish I had the same confidence in the ability of American creativity in the face of our governmental control over architectural creations. One can paint out of sight in a small apartment, but it has become nearly impossible for developers, who must work under the scrutiny of literally dozens of governmental agencies, to produce more than the most bland results.

As I wrote in Urban Planning - we need to stop it :

Urban planning is destroying the character of our cities and selling them to the highest bidders and/or those with the most political clout. Ironically, many of the urban planning crowd bemoan that people are fleeing to the suburbs, which are expanding into former farmland. The simple truth is that the boredom and expense of urban planning is what people are fleeing from, and no increase in such planning will bring them back.