The seventh annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism was held in Milwaukee this year, where CNU board member John Norquist is mayor. Most of the major sessions were held in the Pabst Theater, a restored symphony hall of considerable magnificence. If we were capable, there would be new versions of these things, not just the ones left from our grandparents generation. But they re not there. This a pretty tragic situation.
Nobody wants anything new in their backyard.
We ve had fifty years of new things and they ve all made our daily life worse. When the guys in the yellow hard-hats appear in the meadow across the road, twenty people immediately call their lawyers. We don t want anything new. We have no faith in our ability to produce new things that are worthy of our spirits. We have no faith in the ability of our culture to deliver the future.