Millennials And Olde Farts

If you've been perusing the few active Dunwoody blogs you don't really have much of a life but you've probably noticed a couple of posts that appear to be about demographics but whose real stories are about development. Superficially one is about Millennials whilst the other is about Olde Farts. In the main both are used as a smokescreen to justify developers' high density housing ambitions. Whether it is  Papier-mâché apartments built like a wasp's nest or Bill Grant's clutter home McMansions, brownfield is about the only remaining model in Dunwoody and that is inherently going to increase the number of bedrooms per square foot.

The Millennial post is anti-apartment suggesting that agenda-driven characterizations of Millennials' behaviours, wants and needs are actually off-target. Even mass media reports are backing away from the propaganda of "No cars, No homes, No suburbs" since more recent studies have noted that Millennials' actually want these things perhaps even more than previous generations but simply cannot afford them. They are not living the "good life of Friends" because it's really cool but because they have student loans to pay.

And they don't just want a home in the 'burbs to start a family and raise the kids, they want a home at least as good as their parents' home. A Dunwoody Four-by-Four is what they consider a minimal, but acceptable starter home. Who knew?

In contrast the notions around "Senior Friendly" are equally off the mark but are being used as as a stick to beat down the number of town homes in the Parkway proposal. Aging in place is also quite the social-engineering buzzword amongst our political elite in spite of the unchallenged assumption that this is the place where anyone would really want to age. In common usage AiP means modifications to your existing home including wider doors, no stairs (or stair lift chairs), elimination of trip points, safety bars and accessible facilities. Senior Friendly, even for active seniors, often means one-level living, be it a high rise in Sandy Springs or a ranch in an active retirement community on Lake Lanier and most importantly it means "smaller than where we raised our family." Who really wants to heat, cool and clean unused bedrooms, baths and velvet rope living rooms? What this demographic most often looks for is an 1800 square foot two bedroom with an "open concept", not 3800 square foot three level with a man cave.

But that's not the direction our social engineers are pushing the Parkway developer. Under the banner of "Senior Friendly" the politicians' proposal is a "Master On Main." This does absolutely nothing to address the issues around "car parked in the basement" with the most obvious problem being shlepping yourself and your groceries up those stairs. It also ignores the fact that every month or so someone has to hobble up the stairs to scare the spiders out of the unused bedrooms and flush the toilets. What would address the stair-problem would be residential elevators and/or dumbwaiters, but these do little to restrict density. On the other hand, to avoid turning the living room of a reasonably sized town home into the Master On Main the footprint and overall size balloons approaching 4000 square foot. Unlike lifts this does nothing for Senior residents but guarantees a density reduction, apparently close to twenty percent.

Low density is the real agenda linking these two, one dispelling the convenient untruths about Millennials and the other promoting mischaracterizations of Olde Farts.  So the notion that Dunwoody should do anything other than discourage high density rental development based on the Myths of Millennials has quite a bit of merit and no small amount of intellectual integrity. On the other hand some relatively affordable town homes an easy, no crossing walk away from one of Dunwoody's better elementary schools might be very appealing to fit, young and able Millennials ready to revert to the mean of 2.4 kids. For Olde Farts, not so much. Perhaps we should encourage high density, high rise resident-owned condo developments well placed and well suited to Olde Farts and let the town home developers address the needs of next generation residents with next generation housing in a next generation location. 

There's A Grant For That

TOD has ranted often about grant-grubbing down at City Hall. When your new City is touted as "saving us all from DeKalb" these grants are the thirty pieces of silver politicians need to sell us down the mythological river of Local Control. It is the kind of sleazy politics as usual that puts an interstate lane thru a park and removes two lanes from a parkway.

If you've listened to all the hubbub around the Bicycle Lanes Matter movement, you might think that Dunwoody is some kind of bicycle nirvana but just like those poor misinformed souls who moved here for the parks and baseball diamonds you would be wrong. We aren't. And by and large what we do have are weekend Lance-alots who often drive here to then ride around here. That's right. They drive here to put their toes in their straps and their noses in the air. So keep in mind, this isn't about neighborhood kids flocking to school on their Schwinn coasters or the local Birkenstock Babe wheeling over to the now-defunct Green Market to score some Beets and Sweets.

As you've probably guessed the fuel behind this movement is grant money. Turns out there is quite a bit of Federal grant money available for this brand of social engineering. Your Local Control fanatics don't need to be in favour of bicycles, they just need to be in favour of taking these federal dollars and essentially stealing from our children and grandchildren who at some point will probably be picking up the tab. And there is no end of help to do just that.

Bike Walk Alliance and Advocacy Advance offer how-to guides on soaking the Feds for these pet projects. Others focus on how to tap the Feds for ongoing maintenance as this is a common complaint from Common Sense Citizens: "Fine, the Feds pay to put it in, but WE pay to maintain these white elephants." Still others provide talking points. There are even some organizations providing boiler plate ordinances and legislation so that your little piece of heaven can look and operate just like they want.

As a spoon full of sugar there are the ubiquitous Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond certifications to be had as your locally controlled community aligns with their not so local demands. This is where Dunwoody ran into a hurdle. Seems one of the Bicycle Lanes Matter evangelists suggested that to climb this bejeweled stairway to their heaven a Smart City would need to hire a Bicycle Czar. This was viewed by some as unneeded staff expansion and scope creep. Though unmentioned it would also have a negative impact on grant grubbing efforts as money spent on payroll is unavailable for seeding grants. Deciding which contractors get access to City dispensed grant money is a key component of political power in our fledgling little cities. We are not at a stage to suffer erosion of that power so it seems the spandex crowd may have bent a rim on a storm grate that they themselves installed incorrectly.

Absolutely Necessary

We are seeing some powerful words being bandied about of late. This could be due to the Manget Way train wreck, the neighboring Brookhaven "macerated equals redacted" lysol spray kerfuffle or just the fact that DeKalb is like a cold sore that won't go away. So we're being treated to statements like "it is absolutely necessary to restore the public's trust..."

Really? Absolutely Necessary?

And just what happens if the public's trust isn't restored or worse yet further erodes? Will DeKalb or Dunwoody or Brookhaven lose their charter and fold their tent? Not likely. Actually what will happen is what has been happening. Corruption and unethical behaviour will continue to be the lifeblood of local politics and voters, what few there are, will either vote on single issues (the smart ones) or they'll vote based on personality and personal grooming (the dumb ones).

And things will remain the same. Unless they get worse.

Bicycle Heaven

Cool bikes, huh?

Just sittin' there, no locks, just waitin' for someone to hop on. Just like these.

Looks like something Google would do, doesn't it? Well, that's because it is.

Now, we over to the TOD can hear yer little mental gears a-strippin' : why can't we, in the next to newest City That Should [TM] do this? Here. Now.

Well for starters we have hills and Google is, well, in The Valley. And it can be hot in The Valley it's the kind of heat that comes without the 100% humidity. Then there is the fact that Googleplex is a relatively closed campus while the City That Should has a mishmosh of State, County and City asphalt. Other than that everything is identical.

What's that you say? "But, this is really really cool and EVERYBODY should do it!"

Really?

Well how 'bout this. Why don't you get your bad self on over to The Valley and get a job with Google setting yourself up in Bicycle Heaven? What? Not smart enough to score a job at Google? Ain't that a shame? 'Cuz if you were you might score one of these bad boys...

Screw the bikes.

Overbooked

Airlines, including our hometown fave Delta, have been overbooking flights for years. It has gotten so bad that Delta has found it necessary to alert customers to the fact that it is not acceptable to cop a squat on the engine in order to arrive on the flight they "booked" and naively believed would get them home.

Guest Post: Oh Deer!

First in a series of guest posts by:

Dog With A Phone

Don't It Make Your Blue Tank Brown

Apparently the blue water tower over to the First Baptist Bank of Dunwoody is about to get its beige on. There is a reason these monstrosities are painted blue as this helps them melt into the background sky and outside of Gaffney Moons The World and the Golf Ball On A Tee south of town they're not exactly object d'art. Even then art IS in the eye of the beholder.

All the Dunwoody and JAP jokes* aside beige is and always has been the unofficial colour of Dunwoody despite that godawful green used all over the City website. While a beige sport coat aligns the tower with the brick and beige faux Williamsburg theme all but mandatory for any self-respecting structure in Dunwoody it will make the thing stand out like a sore thumb unless we cultivate some serious smog. But it will become a distinctive gateway structure screaming "Welcome to Dunwoody--Beige Is As Brown As We Get!" Or maybe it will be the colour version of the You Must Be This Tall signs at Six Flags: You Must Be Lighter Than This To Enter Dunwoody.

But it isn't all weird. Our photo-opping Mayor intends to use the light brown tower-thingy as the cornerstone of his re-election campaign. As well he should. Everyone in Dunwoody will probably agree that getting the tower painted beige is the best thing he's done since taking office.





* Honey we really should paint the ceiling beige.

Collectibles

Political Correctness as a form of Mass Madness has opened some opportunities in the collectibles market.

The obvious is guns and ammo. Stockpiling now allows the savvy investor to cash in when the seemingly inevitable Hillary takes office as there will certainly be a run on guns. You might think this is a narrow market focussing on AR-15s, AK-47s and other intimidating assault weapons but it is broader than you think. The last assault on weapons caused such a run on 22LR that supply has yet to recover. For rimfire, ferchissakes!

If there is anything more abhorrent to the PC crowd than guns it has to be cigarettes and smoking. Collectibles? Ashtrays and cigarette cases and lighters. Just stay away from cheap because there is still too much around of truly high quality. Think art deco or mid century modern. Kinda Mad Men. But rest assured the PC policy will destroy them all so collect now before they're gone.

The current PC attack is against all things CSA. The most obvious is the infamous Confederate battle flag with supplies to dwindle as the PC police have shamed manufacturers into halting or limiting production and retailers into halting sales and doing gawd knows what with existing inventory. But it's more than just banners. There's bumper stickers--Fergit Hell! all the way down to Southern By the Grace of God. CSA belt buckles. Johnny Reb hats. Musical car horns that play Dixie. Hell, what about those GT bottle openers down at the Ace Hardware store? Did you know there are a few bars of Dixie in the middle of Up With The White And Gold? Better snatch those up before they're tossed in the dustbin.

And PC is a weird thing indeed. Chris Rock can lay out the N-word though Oprah will give him shit. You try it and your ass is grass. Obama can say it, intentionally, in public and the AJC quotes him using the full word as if we don't all know what "N-word" means. Does Oprah have the balls to give him shit? No? Well maybe she should go get a pair. We hear Bruce Jenner has a couple to spare. Or is it not PC to say that?

Set Our Urkel Free!

The superficial facts have not changed. We have a successful young and ambitious black politician with an Ivy League education whose peers have declared a felon sending him to jail. Depending on sentencing and appeals his next stop may well be prison where he will very likely encounter the kinds of black men he aspired not to be. And we applauded him for those aspirations. We still do.

Many will say it is a shame that he is going to prison. But it isn't. He clearly deserves punishment, the same and to the same degree as would any other. What is a shame is that he has thrown away a prized education, all his hard work, his career, his esteem in the community and has done such damage to his wife and children. Add to this his violation of public trust and abuse of power. Should he go to prison? Certainly. Should we feel sorry? Not for him.

Mecca Of Meccas

In the Southeast Atlanta has at one time or another been characterized as a "Mecca" for some self-identifying group. A black mecca all the way from folks fleeing repression in the South on into the Civil Rights movement (though largely around Atlanta, for well documented reasons) thru freaknik and now into Hippity Hop Central. Then there is the gay and lesbian community, originally holed up around Piedmont park but time and tolerance offered geographic dispersion and a general attitude of "OK, you're gay."

But since the ill-conceived invention of freon and the equally ill-conceived expansion of the airport, Atlanta has been a mecca for business. No unions, low taxes, cheap houses (not just inexpensive, but cheap) and access to the finest sports, entertainment and medical care by way of our airport made Atlanta a no-brainer for snow-bound Yankee businesses, their executives and managers. And we got a lot of the no-brainers.

It's not just that these were people willing to uproot themselves, abandon family and community, so that they might carve out a new life just north of the gnat line, but that they did it for money. Resonates in daVille. Dunwoody would not be what it is today were it not for the confluence of white flight and the influx of Yankee migrants and a bit of the former and much of the latter persists to this day. This not only explains the braggadocio of "More Dunwoody Than You"* but also Dunwoody's enduring success at self-segregation.

It also explains one of our biggest problems: lack of identity. When most movers and shakers come from somewhere else and the weight of their opinion (and intellect) can be summed up in "I've lived in Dunwoody for 23 years and I say we..." no one should be surprised that we are eat up with folks who want daVille to be just like [NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, ...] except for [the cold, the snow, the wind, the high prices, ...]. Rather than pretend Dunwoody is (or should be) just like where ever you're from except warmer we should accept that Dunwoody is a Mecca for Whites with convenient access to Hartsfield so you can go visit where ever you're from. Our real brand isn't Smart people -- Smart city, but more like "White Flight Stops Here!" Own it.

* "Dunwoody resident since 1992" is even a tag-line on the City's home page. And yes, the couple pictured are white. Cruise the Dunwoody web site and check out all the pictures and play the Aryan from Darien version of "Where's Waldo" where you look for black people.