On the Radio: The Illusion of Rural Independence

My first-ever radio piece broadcast on the Maine Public Broadcasting Network last week. Have a listen:



A transcript lives here.

Terrorism Survives

I'd had a nice weekend. A great weekend, even - one that made me feel grateful to live in Portland, Maine, with spring weather, sunny skies, and the company of good friends on my 30th birthday.

And then, on my bike ride to work this morning, I passed by our neighborhood mosque, just a few blocks from my house, and I saw this.



And, in addition to this, more graffiti that said "Long live the west" and "Go home."

I've been in a funk all day. The mosque is a nondescript building; there's nothing on the outside to indicate that it's a place of worship, which leads me to suspect that it was someone from our own neighborhood who did this. Somewhere in this city I love there is at least one cowardly neo-Nazi who has the disgusting gall to believe that religious persecution is somehow an American value.

Seeing this provided a visceral demonstration of how rage can beget more rage. I found myself wishing I'd had the presence of mind to head outside and check on our neighbors last night when I'd heard the news. With a baseball bat.

But what good would that really have done? This is just graffiti, and it's already been painted over. American Muslims, unfortunately, have suffered much worse. The real damage is the toxic, self-consuming hatred that still persists, not only in the bitter minds of those who did this, but even in the dim intellects of presumably "upstanding" members of our community. Let's not forget our daily newspaper's publisher, Richard Connor, the dimwit who apologized for running a front-page story about local Ramadan celebrations last September 11, and then humiliated himself and his city by broadcasting his racist cowardice on national radio.

Make no mistake: the fact that Americans among us could behave this way is much more of a threat to the American republic than Osama bin Laden ever was.

If Osama Bin Laden's death spurs cowardly, Klan-like hate crimes like this one, then there is nothing to celebrate today. The terrorists are still among us.

Some coastlines are more infinite than others

In October, the mathematician Benoît B. Mandelbrot died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His obituary in the Times reminded me of two things from the schools of S.A.D. 6: first, the mysterious and beautiful Mandelbrot Set, the famous fractal, and second, the erroneous trivia (repeated even to this day on the tourist office's website) that Maine has the longest coastline of any state save Alaska.

The reasoning behind the latter goes like this: California and Florida's coasts may look longer on a map, but look closely at Maine's coast and you'll find thousands of islands, peninsulae, and inlets - features that those other states don't have. But take this reasoning even further and see where it gets you: you'd need to count the waterline on every mangrove root in the Everglades, and the outline of every grain of sand on California's beaches.

Every coastline infinitely long. Not only that, but every state gains and loses an infinitely long length of coastline every time the tide goes out, or every time a wave washes ashore.

I thought of this problematic state trivia because Mandelbrot's first academic paper, "How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension," tried to tackle this paradox. It observed that how long a coastline looks depends on how much detail you care to look for - whether you're measuring on a classroom map of the contiguous states, or on individual grains of sand under a microscope. For instance, if we use a 50-mile yardstick, Maine's coast looks about 230 miles long:


But try using a 5-mile yardstick, and you'll find that there are at least 200 miles of coastline in Casco Bay alone:

And we're still missing so much detail! Who wants to try measuring Casco Bay with a mile-long ruler? Or an actual yardstick?*

If Maine's coastline were smooth, like Florida's, the 40-odd 5-mile rulers in the bottom map would have covered roughly as much territory as four 50-mile rulers.

Mandelbrot's insight was this: you could measure the "crookedness" of a coastline by calculating the relationship between how carefully you measure something (the scale of your ruler) and the total length you get.

This relationship is similar to the fractal dimension, a mathematical concept useful for calculating how some infinite sets are "more infinite" than others. It's also a way of describing things that are neither one-dimensional lines, nor two-dimensional planes, but fuzzy and in between - like the infinite coastlines that emerge and sink away under every one of the ocean's infinite ripples.

For what it's worth, these guys say that the coast of Maine's fractal dimension is 1.27 - slightly more infinite than the coast of Britain (at 1.25), but not nearly as infinite as the coast of Norway (1.52).


* Please don't.

Exporting pollution to Dixie

As someone who lived (happily) in Houston, Texas for a year, it kind of gets on my nerves when northerners pick on the South - Houston or LA or the sprawl around Pheonix and Atlanta - as being the cause of the nation's environmental ills. It's true that these cities have big environmental problems - especially air pollution. But these problems are largely caused by industries that Northerners don't want in their own backyards, although we don't mind buying their products.

Skyline and Ship Channel from the San Jacinto Monument
Originally uploaded by j-a-x.

Let's start with Houston's ship channel (photo at right), home to the largest concentration of oil refineries in the United States. These refineries produce tons of air pollution and greenhouse gases daily and are largely responsible for Houston's notoriously poor air quality. Because of the refineries, Texas's per-capita greenhouse gas production is nearly double that of most northern states.

But we in the northern states are still buying and using those refineries' products. In fact, in the last year that data was available, the average Maine motorist drove 11,348 miles: over 1,000 miles MORE than the average six-shootin', hollerin' Texan (source). Back-to-the-land Vermonters drive even more on a per-capita basis. So not only are we actually responsible for more pollution, we're also doing the dishonorable deed of producing that pollution in a poorer part of the country where more minorities and immigrants live. How could anyone possibly be self-righteous about that?

Similarly, Los Angeles is well known as the smog capital of the nation, but that's largely because of its port, where millions of containers from China get transferred from diesel-burning ships to diesel-burning trucks to supply stores and warehouses all over the country. Without the Port of Los Angeles and its pollution, it would be a lot harder to come by your organic pears from New Zealand, or any of the thousands of other things you buy from across the Pacific.

The Port of Long Beach is starting to assert itself, though. As detailed in this article from the Times, California is placing new regulations on the shippers and truckers who converge on LA to move Asian products to American store shelves.

Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster said, “We’re not going to have kids in Long Beach contract asthma so someone in Kansas can get a cheaper television set.”

Actually, Mayor, that's been our arrangement for decades now. But best of luck to you, from a well-wisher in the vigorous North.

Thoreau's Landfill

Below, a satellite view of Walden Woods, where Henry David Thoreau famously and eloquently expressed the American suburban impulse in Walden and other books.



Besides entreating us (too successfully) to escape civilization by retreating into the woods, Thoreau's writings also preached the less dubious and more easily forgotten virtues of self-reliance, frugality, and a thoughtful relationship with nature. These latter arguments have apparently not convinced Walden's current inhabitants, who live just to the east of the state park in cul-de-sacked McMansions with backyard tennis courts.

The legacy of Walden rounds itself out with a closed landfill just to the north of the pond, and beyond that, the four-lane expressway that carries modern Thoreauvians to their despised City every weekday.

The Wall Street Journal would like to inform you...

... that "Maine is at war" -- over freshwater fishing bait. From the front page of yesterday's paper:

RAGGED LAKE, Maine -- An ice fisherman fishes when it's cold; a fly fisherman fishes when it isn't. An ice fisherman uses fish to catch fish; a fly fisherman uses ersatz insects. Maine ice fishermen are mostly born here; fly fishermen are mostly "from away."

These differences have gotten an airing this winter in a legislative debate about bait. Fly fishermen for "bait control" say live bait fish -- especially non-native ones -- get loose in lakes, glom all the food and drive the native trout out. Ice fishermen for "bait choice" say they must fish with live bait or be driven out, too.

Although the worst violence that war correspondent Barry Newman encounters consists of lame jokes and soft putdowns that fly-fishermen tell about ice fishers, or vice versa:

"Ethically, the fly fishermen don't like ice fishing," said John Whalen, who farms bait in Canaan and has led the ice-fishing outcry. "They view it as consumptive, removing 'resource' from the environment -- fish that they want to be able to catch three or four times in the summer."

...Thom Watson, a Bath Democrat, sponsored the other bait bill. He was born in Louisiana.

"My dad was a duck hunter," said Mr. Watson. "He used to say ice fishing was like a hunter sitting by a fireplace looking up the chimney waiting for a bird to fly over."

Newman is clearly fond of the irony that "non-native" fishermen are advocating for laws that regulate non-native fish: he cites the out-of-state pedigrees of the bill's sponsors and supporters, and even mentions that one bait prohibitionist was on his way to a "Thai dinner" after closing his fly shop for the evening (a subtle accusation of elitism, I suppose: "If the ice fishermen are starving, let them eat Pad Siew!")

Funny stuff, but in reality, there are probably at least as many native Maine fly anglers as there are out-of-state ice fishermen. If howling at "out-of-staters" is how the ice fishermen are going to respond to these proposed regulations, they're going to lose, and also foment a lot of useless resentment on the way.

The ice-fishermen argue that bait fish that have inhabited our lakes and ponds for decades are essentially native: "How long do they have to be here before they're called native?" asked Norman Chick, a retired apple grower. They might have come "from away" originally, but they're useful and they've lived here for years without doing much harm.

The man seems oblivious to the fact that his defense of bait might also apply to the legislators proposing the new regulations. But that doesn't invalidate the argument: in fact, a legislative committee had to weaken the bill when they discovered that no one could figure out when or how the allegedly invasive shiners arrived in Maine.

Which reminds me of Alan Burdick's book Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion. The book mentions that there are hundreds more known alien species in the ocean along the west coast than there are on east coast, in spite of the fact that the Atlantic coast has been exposed to alien species from foreign trade for centuries longer. It's not that the east coast somehow repels invasives. Everything that marine biologists know about the Atlantic coast is based on an ecosystem that has already assimilated hundreds of new species since colonial times: we just can't tell what's "alien" from what's "native" anymore.

Truly, some invasive species pose big problems when they're suddenly introduced into a new habitat (look at what happened when Mr. Chick and Mr. Watson's ancestors met the first native Mainers). But a lot of non-natives arrive in new places without causing catastrophes, and sometimes, they can increase an ecosystem's diversity and resilience. Fly-fishermen should keep this in mind before they anguish too much over bait fish, and ice-fishermen can do likewise before they deride their neighbors "from away."

Miscellany

Here are some things I've been meaning to put up for a while. Watch out for the bullets:

• My analog reading material these days consists of economist Matthew Kahn's new book Green Cities, which seeks to evaluate global cities according to various measures of environmental health. It's got some good insights and with only a few equations it ought to be fairly accessbile to non-economists. Before you go to the library you can sample Kahn's writing and thoughts at his weblog: http://greeneconomics.blogspot.com.
  
  
• This sentence from Kahn's book caught my eye: "[One] hypothesis suggests that a nation is more likely to enact environmental regulation when its economy is growing and income inequality is falling." Which reminded me of themes discussed in the Brookings Institution's Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places, another bit of reading I've recently finished. The Brookings report makes note of big demographic and economic dichotomies in our state: north and south, working-class and college-educated, the young workforce and older retirees, wealthy newcomers and struggling old-timers. Income inequality is growing here as it is all over America, and politics have become more divisive and less productive. The Brookings report recommends harnessing the productivity and wealth of richer residents to grow the state's economy and extend opportunity to its working classes. If Maine is to protect its civic integrity, it must preserve its egalitarian spirit.
  
  
• Thanks to May Shrink Or Fade and The Adventures of a Geo-Geek for adding me to their prestigious lists of links, and thanks also to their readers who may have found their way here.
  
  
• Finally, The Bollard has published an essay of mine that started as a draft blog post and quickly outgrew this format. If all these whizzing bullets haven't yet shot your attention span to hell, check it out here.

Chain stores downtown: another perspective

In the brouhaha over "formula businesses" in downtown Portland, an article in the latest issue of The Atlantic brings some important arguments to the debate.

A big, empty box.

Unfortunately, the links above don't quote the entire article, but the Houston Strategies blog (highly recommended reading, whether or not you live in Texas) quotes extensively from the article, and adds some Space City perspective.

Particularly applicable to the debate in Portland are these arguments: that chains "increase local variety, even as they reduce the differences from place to place," and that "Chains let people in a city of 250,000 enjoy retail amenities once available only in a huge metropolitan center."

There are times when author Virginia Postrel seems to be writing specifically about Portland: "Contrary to the rhetoric of bored cosmopolites, most cities don’t exist primarily to please tourists." Zing!

And there are some choice quotes from planning consultant Robert Gibbs, who works with cities to help revive moribund downtown areas:

To his frustration, he finds that many cities actually turn away national chains, preferring a moribund downtown that seems authentically local. But, he says, the same local activists who oppose chains “want specialty retail that sells exactly what the chains sell—the same price, the same fit, the same qualities, the same sizes, the same brands, even.” You can show people pictures of a Pottery Barn with nothing but the name changed, he says, and they’ll love the store. So downtown stores stay empty, or sell low-value tourist items like candles and kites, while the chains open on the edge of town. In the name of urbanism, officials and activists in cities like Ann Arbor and Fort Collins, Colorado, are driving business to the suburbs. “If people like shopping at the Banana Republic or the Gap, if that’s your market—or Payless Shoes—why not?” says an exasperated Gibbs. “Why not sell the goods and services people want?”

Candles and kites? She's got to be writing about Portland. Or maybe she's talking about any one of thousands of quaint tourist trap communities. It's hard to tell - kind of like driving through a strip of chain stores.

Related post: Buy Local, While You Still Can (November 20)

Buy local... while you still can.

I spent last Saturday evening at Stacy Mitchell's book reading in the old Center for Cultural Exchange space. The event was sponsored by the Portland Buy Local campaign, a new organization that's gaining lots of steam as a sort of chamber of commerce for homegrown businesses.

Mitchell was an excellent speaker, and her concerns with big box retailing are well founded and well researched. I should say that I generally agreed with her from the outset: big box retailers exploit structural inefficiencies in our economy (cheap suburban land and cheap gas, chief among them) at tremendous expense to workers, communities, and even to the consumers they are supposed to serve.

But I was also troubled by another aspect of Saturday's gathering: the expensive snacks donated by local caterers. Not that they weren't tasty - I certainly sampled the offerings - but the fact that fancy foods like these are typically beyond the means of most Portlanders, myself included. What value is there in local businesses that produce and sell things that most locals don't really need, or can't afford?

Indeed, the proliferation of upscale boutiques (call it retail gentrification) in downtown Portland seems, in some ways, to be the other side of the big box coin: consumers seeking bargains head for the burbs, while well-heeled consumers rebel against big box tastelessness by patronizing rarefied shops downtown. Where does that leave someone who can't afford to drive out to the fringes - do we expect them to eat cake, or a ten dollar block of cheese?

I asked a question in to this effect in the Q and A session that followed Mitchell's lecture, and in her excellent response (I hope that the wine and cheese retailers in attendance were listening) she noted that local shops had better serve local residents, or else face rebellion when the big boxes come courting with low prices for practical goods. She also noted that Portland's retail scene, while changing, is far from completely gentrified: we still have Maine Hardware, Paul's Grocery, as well as the empty storefronts and porn stores on Congress Street.

Still, the old Surplus Store has been replaced by three tony food merchants. As one other guy asked me after the event, "where's a guy to get socks and underwear around here?"

The secret formula

The Bollard reports today on the proposed "formula business" limits proposed for downtown Portland.

This idea, a reaction to a recent proposal to install a Hooters joint on Congress Street, rides the wave of "Keep Portland Independent" sentiment, which finds its expression in bumper stickers and tee shirts in nearly every Old Port storefront. And, on some level, it's a nice idea: support local businesses by keeping big franchises out.

Too bad this proposed legislation is such a mess.

The ordinance, championed by Karen Geraghty, is full of tortured legal language that tries to define what a "formula" business really is. It's difficult, because many of Portland's businesses, which no one wants to expel from the city, already follow some sort of "formula." As a result, the ordinance is long, confusing, and full of loopholes.

Which shouldn't be surprising, given the fact that this is all a knee-jerk reaction to the idea (horrifying to Portland's well-heeled bobos) that a roughneck joint like Hooters might end up on Congress Street. Where was Geraghty when other chains like Starbucks or Cold Stone Creamery moved in?

Downtown Portland has a bigger problem than the prospect of Hooters. This city's retail trade is thriving, but there's very little diversity among its businesses. You can "Keep Portland Independent" if you need to buy a tee shirt or precious bits of pottery, but good luck finding independent retailers of sensible things like nails, wastebaskets, or reasonably priced groceries. Ultimately, keeping chain businesses out of downtown will keep on driving (literally) the middle class out of the city to buy the things they really need at the mall.

Maddeningly, this might be exactly what certain members of the Council are after. Gereaghty's "Keep Portland Real" coalition, formed to support her legislation, consists of such tony retailers as Standard Baking and Aurora Provisions. Certainly a place like Hooters is anethma to the upscale shopping mall that they want Portland to be. But a functional city that serves its residents shouldn't be.