Scandal, Chevy Chase, MD Edition

No two scandals are alike.

Each scandal tells you something about the place it happens.  Take Chevy Chase, MD.  A write in candidate for a town council seat won against an incumbent, who was running unopposed.  No one, least of all the incumbent's supporters, saw it coming.  Now, the town is traumatized.

I know.  Pick your jaw up from the floor.  It's as bad as election night at Fox News in 2012.  So, what are the issues behind said trauma?   

1. In Chevy Chase it is hard to get a permit to cut a tree cut down.  You have to fill out a lot of paperwork and explain yourself.  And, then, you'll probably still get turned down.  

 (These people clearly DON'T know you're lawyer!) 

2.   If you cut down a tree without a permit, you can spend six months in jail. 

(Do you suppose Chevy Chase has its own stocks and whipping post?)

3.  The campaign for the write in candidate used social media to organize.  As one resident explained to the Washington Post "It wasn't a fair fight.  There were some people in the know through social media, and that’s a modern phenomenon."  

(Translation:  Don't this town's upstarts know the 21st century hasn't arrived yet in Chevy Chase?) 

 
4.  One resident can't eat on his deck.  The town's regulations for new building are so stringent he couldn't build the deck large enough to fit a table.  

(Can malnutrition be far behind?)

 


When you're done giving to the victims of Nepal, you might want to consider setting aside a little for those poor traumatized souls in Chevy Chase, MD. 

Stereotyping the Suburbs

White and wealthy.  Car-dependent.  Monotonous uniformity.  A Stepford Wife lurking behind every door.   

That's the suburbs for you.


Unless you look at the data.  In many parts of the the DMV, these stereotypes simply don't apply.   Bethesda and Silver Spring--both in Montgomery County--are more public transit oriented than many parts of neighboring DC.  Montgomery County is also just as ethnically diverse as, if not more so than DC.  While whites and African Americans are the two dominant ethnic groups in both counties, Asians and Latinos account for a much larger share of MOCO's total population (14.9 and 18.3% respectively) than they do in DC (3.9 and 10% respectively).

Strangely, the stereotypes persist.  And, as usual, it seems to boil down to our collective obsession and hysteria about Millennials.

A May 8th blog post on the Washington Post's Digger blog is a case in point.  The post (The Real Challenge for Cities: What Happens When Millennials Have Babies and the Suburbs Beckon?) covered a panel held at the Urban Land Institute.  I didn't attend the panel, but if the blog review is any indication, the goal of the panel wasn't to answer the question 'will they stay or will they go?' so much as brainstorm how to get them to stay.  

I get it.  Everyone wants a piece of the millennial pie.  They are a large demongraphic with a lot of money to spend.  Right now they spend most of it (at least in DC) on overpriced rents and craft beer.  But, they are about to spend a lot more money.  That's right, millennials are now beginning to do 'adult' things like buy houses and have kids, which entails a whole new category of purchasing (beware the plastic crap you accumulate and trip over at night, inadvertently teaching your kids their first curse words).   

I'm also sympathetic to wanting to keep/attract more families in the city--millennial or otherwise.  One of the biggest unintended consequences of city leaders' millennial fetish is that cities are becoming uniform in their own way, as places rebuilt for wealthy people without kids.  The micro-unit trend is just the most obviouis example. 

But..and there's always a but isn't there?...I resent the smug undertone that often underpins the whole millennial fetish.  The effort to keep them in the city when they're ready to have kids, for example, is often legitimized as a movement to save said offspring from the presumed horrors of the suburbs.

One of the panelist at the Urban Land Institute, Sarah Snider Komppa, described her life growing up in the suburbs as "unfulfilling."  "You’re shuttled from one place where everyone is the same as you to another place where everyone is the same as you.”

I have no doubt Komppa's description captured her actual experiences.  My suburban childhood wasn't all that different, except for the quirky southerners that populated it (bless their hearts, every last one).  However, the suburb I grew up in is not what it used to be.  Nor, I suspect, is Komppa's.

And, that's the problem.  The suburbs are a convenient bogeyman for urban boosters.  The suburbs that Komppa and other urban boosters bemoan is really a small slice of modern suburbia--the so called exurbs.

The intellectual fuzziness of the 'making cities work for millennials' movement is annoying.  But, mostly it just feels underhanded.  Like a mask for something that feels, underneath it all, a lot like a push for consolidating gentrification.   





 

Universities and the Yik Yak Monster

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."  Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin

When Janis sang about freedom, it was in romantic, if melancholy terms. 

On the internet, by contrast, freedom usually means the right to engage in the chaotic smack-down of anyone you disagree with.  And, by chaotic smackdown, I mean the right to threaten people with whom you disagree with physical harm, rape, torture, public humiliation, and/or death.  There's no better example of this right now than Yik Yak. 

For the uninitiated, Yik Yak is an anonymous social media app.  The preview on I-Tunes says that "Yik Yak acts like a local bulletin board for your area by showing the most recent posts from other users around you. It allows anyone to connect and share information with others without having to know them." 

'Yaks' (anonymous comments) can only be read by people within 1.5 miles of the poster's location.  The geographic nature of Yik Yak makes it  popular on college campuses. There are enough people around to start conversations, and all of those people share some basic things in common (age, shared classes, etc.) that make them inclined to talk to each other.  

Unfortunately, the anonymity of Yik Yak means people feel free to say hateful things they probably wouldn't say publicly, or even in the company of these same peers.   

Last year, when students protested police brutality in Ferguson during peaceful events on American University's campus, for example, yakers on campus sounded like they'd just walked out of George Wallace's Alabama.  For those with the stomach for it, here's a sampling of the vitriol.   

Yik Yak has also been used to denigrate or otherwise humiliate people.  A New York Times story on Yik Yak recounts a student reading a yak that compared her to a hippo.  Professors aren't immune either.  The same article recounts a series of yaks made during a class about a female professor.  Few of them were printable in a family newspaper.  

Most recently, students in a feminist group at nearby University of Mary Washington claim they've been stalked and harassed on yik yak.  Students in the group report receiving threats for their activist work and having their real time movements on campus reported on yik yak--a move that made students feel like they were in constant danger. 

So, how do college administrators respond to all of these problems? 

Well, let's just say that in the hands of college administrators, freedom sounds like a flimsy excuse to do nothing. 

To be fair to college administrators (and their PR hacks), most do issue public condemnations of the content of the yaks.  But, the great majority stop there.  After the ruckus at Mary Washington, for example, the university issued a statement that said in part that the university has "no recourse for cyberbullying" and directed students to complain directly to Yik Yak.  Not surprisingly, companies tell victims to call police--and on a college campus that means calling campus police. And the buck passing begins. 

Colleges can't make their students behave.  But, they could certainly make it hard for them to misbehave.  Many students and professors who have been harassed and threatened on Yik Yak argue that their universities should block access to anonymous apps like Yik Yak on campus wifi systems. 

Unfortunately, most colleges and universities refuse to do so, justifying their inaction on free speech grounds.  In fact, that's exactly how a spokesperson from Mary Washington explained the school's decision to a reporter with the Washington Post:  "There are First Amendment concerns when you are a state institution." 

I don't buy this argument one bit. 

Blocking Yik Yak from a university's wifi does not block speech.  Rather it blocks a particular venue for speech.  And,universities have been blocking venues for free speech for years--the only difference is that these venues are in real rather than cyber space.  Many universities, for example, have set up 'free speech'/'protest' zones.  Normally, they are tucked far away from any venue that might be used to host speakers, and thus draw protestors.  In effect, the university says you can speak freely on campus, but only in designated spaces.   

It feels hypocritical then, to hear universities claim they can't do the same in cyberspace, especially when there's ample evidence that Yik Yak isn't just a venue for hateful speech, but threatening/dangerous speech as well.   

Perhaps universities aren't worried about preserving free speech so much as avoiding lawsuits from Yik Yak?