The internet’s a funny thing.
It’s so easy to take things out of context, misinterpret or just generally get all riled up about something that turns out to be nothing. Without that in-person interactive component, virtually anything can be misunderstood – and typically is.
Which is why I’m torn about a recent post over at Human Transit. In the post, Jarrett says this:
The possession of the tool, and the knowledge of how to use it, becomes a feature by which a group defines itself and sets itself in opposition to other interests.
If you don’t think this still happens, look at all the clubs and forums for people who own and cherish a particular tool — a Linux-powered computer, say, or a certain musical instrument. If you read an online forum about such possessions, you’ll see the practical work of exchanging troubleshooting tips also builds a community in which people love hearing each other’s stories about life with the cherished tool.
So this is another thing that’s going on behind the obsessive attachment to transit technologies. People who love aerial gondolas (link his, bold mine) or whatever can now network worldwide with every city that runs one, compare notes about each other’s problems and achievements, and thus form a global community based on love of that particular tool. Psychologically, it’s just like a club of guys who all own a particular kind of car, or computer, or electric guitar, or whatever.
Leaving aside the merits of his argument, what is one to make of Jarrett’s comment about aerial gondolas and his link to The Gondola Project?
There are, I think, two ways to look at it; one positive and one negative. First the negative:
It’s nothing more than a less-than-subtle broadside and a low blow.
The Gondola Project, as envisioned by Human Transit. Image by buhtterfly.
Calling The Gondola Project community nothing more than a group of “people who love aerial gondolas” with an “obsessive attachment” doesn’t inspire much faith in the community nor the technology itself. It also completely discounts the achievements cable has experienced in the last 10 years.
Furthermore, comparing The Gondola Project to “a club of guys who all own a particular kind of car, or computer, or electric guitar, or whatever” is off base. The phrasing is intentionally derisive here: No one is a professional. Everyone is just a “guy” united solely by the fact that they own a piece of hardware. Everyone is an amateur.
Doesn’t matter that many of The Gondola Project’s readers, writers and contributors are professionals actively engaged in issues of transit, planning and policy. The impression given is one of a bunch of guys huddled together in one’s garage obsessively going over the minutiae of that which they have no personal stake in.
It’s an attack not upon the technology, but upon the people associated with it.
But maybe that’s reading a bit too deeply into the subtext.
The second way to read it is this:
If Jarrett Walker and Human Transit are hostile towards the idea of cable transit and The Gondola Project, why bother linking to us in the first place? While his coverage of the idea could be interpreted as less-than-favorable, it puts the idea front-and-centre before his sizable readership.
Furthermore, Human Transit has had a link to The Gondola Project under their ‘Technophile’ category for months now. If Human Transit doesn’t like the idea of cable, they wouldn’t mention it. They’d just ignore it and hope that it goes away.
If they don’t approve of the idea, the best way to kill it doesn’t involve giving it more attention. That would be a huge strategic error. After all, like publicity, there’s no such thing as bad traffic.
So maybe it’s a reluctant invitation to the table. While not explicitly endorsing the technology, idea or people behind cable transit, Human Transit’s favorable linking allows for the idea to enter the conversation and discussion. It allows it an opportunity to go mainstream while giving Jarrett the critical distance he requires and deserves.
There’s really no way to know one way or the other which of the two perspectives is right. In fact, there could be a third or fourth perspective as well. The only way to know is to get it straight from the source.
So my question to Jarrett is this: Which one is it? What do you think of cable?
(Update: Jarrett responds in the comments.)
5 Comments
Thanks for asking.
It’s not a broadside. All I’m doing is exploiting you as an example for the purpose of a point I’m making. (And frankly, that’s what most citations are!)
Your photo of my alleged view is funny. Yes, what the Gondola Project has in common with the people fixing/studying/fondling the old car is that you like a particular kind of technology. But you could just as well have put a photo of a Linux user group (if such a thing could be photographed) or a bunch of scientists working on Mars landers. In other words, the category of “technophile” or tool-loving groups is enormous and does not imply that the tool or those who promote it are primitive; some are quite advanced. There is nothing wrong with groups of people getting together because they like a particular tool, or because they’re working on a problem for which that tool has already been selected. They have always done that and they always will. For both professionals and amateurs, tools are cool.
At the same time, my 20 years as a transit planner have taught me that we need a framework for talking about whatever it is that we’re trying to create with transit (personal mobility, urban redevelopment, social inclusion, world peace, global cooling, access to universities and hospitals configured as hilltop fortresses, whatever), so that we define and understand the problem before we choose the tool to solve it.
This is a particular style of disciplined thought that many planners develop. Often we develop it because we get tired of listening to advocates of competing tools talking past each other in the absence of any shared sense of what problem is to be solved.
My blog and career work in that space, as do many of those I link to. The other blogrolls on my blog are about different ways of talking about problems: by city, or through an urbanist lens, or whatever.
And this is really important: I’m not “for” or “against” any tool. To me that would be like being for or against a certain language or color or letter of the alphabet. They’re tools, useful in different combinations and situations for different purposes. (I do sometimes express a bit of cynicism about highly-promoted tools that seem to be having trouble finding any practical application anywhere, but gondolas aren’t one of those.)
However, I respect blogs and sources that promote a particular tool if they do so in a way that’s informative and inspiring, as you do. They can be very useful when considering a tool for a particular purpose. So I link to you in a “Technophile” section because your blog is about the love of a particular tool. And that’s great.
@ Jarrett,
No problem. Thanks for the kind words. Often we don’t take the time to actually ask what the person meant, so I wanted not to jump to the wrong conclusion and give you the benefit of the doubt.
One thing we’ve tried really hard to do here is not suggest cable as some sort of panacea. It’s not the best nor is it applicable in every situation. The issue really comes down to one of information and awareness not Technology Zealotry.
I do sometimes express a bit of cynicism about highly-promoted tools that seem to be having trouble finding any practical application anywhere, but gondolas aren’t one of those.)
Transit planners have every right to cynicism about such tools. After all, we really haven’t seen any new technology of note since the monorail – and we know how that turned out. The reason I twigged to this was because there actually had been systems developed recently yet absolutely no one was talking about it and research was impossible to come by. Not having a central place for people to discover the technology was a large impediment to it being adopted. Hence this site.
Having said that, I think the cynicism becomes a problem when we blind ourselves to possibility. It would be great if planners had a little more Cowboy / Artist in them and a little less Actuary / Librarian. That’s a lot of what this site is about.
Again, thanks for the kind words and thanks for dropping by!
I read both this site and Human Transit and think they’re both great. I am an urbanophile, and have always been fascinated by urban issues. I am an amateur, and consider myself better read than a lot of “professionals”. I remember the dark pre-internet days of looking for books to read about cities in my library and at book stores and thinking there was a huge absence of books on the topic. It is one of the better aspects of the internet that there are websites on these kind of topics, and I do hope that planning decisions get influenced by passionate, well read amateurs, rather than disinterested, and unknowledgable professionals. I am (or maybe I’m not anymore) surprised by the complete lack of talent in local government, the transport agencies (and here in my own context, I mean especially the NZTA) and amongst politicians (pathetic creatures on the whole who think that smiling for cameras is more important than policy).
When travelling to a new city I will try to ride all the trains, trams, cable cars, aerial gondolas and ferries. In fact anything other than a bus.
Keep up the good work on both websites.
Thinking pragmatically, it seems to me this technology is very likely still in the “no such thing as a bad opening for discussion” stage. Accordingly, it seems to me the question in cases like this is less what the author originally intended, and more how the opportunity can be appropriated (or perhaps misappropriated, if the author did indeed intend to be hostile).
And it looks to me like this ended up being a good opportunity for an interesting and productive exchange with an important planning blogger.
“Psychologically, it’s just like a club of guys” … but with girls.