Crooks, Crews, and horribly mixed metaphors

*Before I get started, I just wanted to apologize to anyone who reads Industrianism (anyone? Bueler? Bueler?) for taking so long between posts. I've had a lot of personal crap come up all at once along with transitioning into grad school. Let's just say it was ... an unpleasant ... two weeks. But! I'm back, hopefully to post more stuff for the 3 people who read this here blog. Hi, mom!*

Ready to stretch our metaphor muscles? After reading this post, you'll feel like you just did a session of Bikram Yoga.

In the sport of rowing, the fastest boat around is the eight-oared shell. It's got the most guys in it and they can beat any other configuration in the sport.
But the problem with an 8-oared shell is that you need 8 guys (and a coxswain) to row it at top speed. If you only have 6 guys in the boat, you'll probably get beat by a smaller boat that's full, like a 4-oared shell.
Now! "EoA, what the hell does this have to do with industry, urbanism, or LA?" is probably what you're saying to yourself right about now. I hope you all took the time to stretch like I suggested earlier in the post. We're about make some crazy connections.

Everybody and their mom likes to talk about how awesome "transit oriented development" is. If you don't know, now you know. But TOD isn't just something you plop down on the street. Magical transit fairies won't stream out the doors and turn cars into playground for kids or something. You need a lot of factors working together in order to make TOD successful. If they aren't all present, you'll end up spinning your wheels while smaller, more car oriented businesses and housing units pass you by. You could almost say it's like ... needing 8 guys in your 8-oared shell!!

I ride down Central quite a lot on my bike, and it's got a lot going on. I recently passed two big 'ole TOD-style projects there while biking home one day. Now, I'm all for TOD and all the concepts behind it. Density, transit, mixed use, all of that.
But when I got closer, I started seeing some troubling signs. None of it was open. The stores were empty, the rooms were unoccupied. It was clear that this building had been completed for some time now.
There was another TOD style development even older than this one, but all they had managed to secure was a "coming soon" Subway. When all you can get is a Subway, you know you're doing something wrong.
And just down the street from both of these ghostly behemoths, a lively and full street scene was unfolding.
These little shops are like the 4-oared shell that is shooting past our big, lumbering 8-oared boat, manned by only 5 rowers. This isn't to say that one neighborhood or store layout is better than another. It's just that if we're going to commit ourselves to TOD living, we need to do a lot more than just plop down 5 story modernist-blah style buildings with storefronts on the street. We need to focus them in areas where there's a large amount of transit. We need to focus them in areas that already have high rates of density to support the businesses they'll add to the neighborhood. We need to work with cities to redesign streets that TOD is being built on so they will be more oriented towards pedestrians. If we can't line all of these things up, TOD will be left at a huge disadvantage to more traditional, car oriented businesses. But when we DO get all those things lined up, nobody can beat us.

Now, I understand there are plenty of people out there who have never seen crew or rowing. Metaphors aren't for everybody. But to put it in different terms (and show off my super whiteness), I'm going to take a quote from the late, great Biggie Smalls: "There ain't no such thing as half-way crooks". We can't change our cities by doing things halfway.