Tag Archives: Cenla

CenLA Native Featured on Food Network 9

by • Drew Ward, Leftovers • Tags: , , , , ,

Amelia Durand, originally from Mansura (and I’m pretty sure now the communications director with a winery in California) is featured on the Food Network series Barefoot Contessa.

Ina, “The Barefoot Contessa”

The episode entitled “Cooking with Rice” features Durand’s family recipe for Jambalaya.  It’s nice to see the Central Louisiana version of this Louisiana favorite getting some good press.   Durand is the daughter of the former Mayor of Mansura and her family owns and operates Durand’s Food Center (by the way, if you’ve never explored on a short road trip, probably the best hog’s head cheese and boudin can be found around Mansura — I recommend Lonas Kelong’s (Kelong’s Grocery on Main Street), Juneau’s Specialty meats (expensive but good – across from the Casino), and T-Jin’s in Cottonport (especially for Hog’s Head Cheese — but call first before making the drive as they don’t make it everyday).

In case you didn’t know, the CenLa versions of most traditional Louisiana foods are quite different from the South Louisiana and New Orleans versions.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First is the type of terrain.  When it comes to a combination of growing vegetables, grazing livestock, and fishing and hunting, Central Louisiana has about the best land and weather in the entire state.  This means the people who settled here had access to considerably more ingredients than their cousins in the swamp.  Also, even though various Louisiana staples can be traced to either Cajun or Creole or Isleño (look it up) roots, the versions we know today are rarely the original pure forms.  Also, many of them like Gumbo and Jambalaya were sort of accidental to begin with.  You actually find Jambalaya in many cultures (as fried rice in Asia, as Paella in Spain and Latin America, and as various regional varieties in France).  It was simply a way to stretch leftovers and the various bits and pieces left in the pantry.  Poor food.  Interestingly, the word boudin in much of France actually refers to any food (often in a casing like ours) in which leftovers are mixed with rice and recooked.

Our native Central Louisiana versions of things like Jambalaya, Gumbo, e’touffe (it means ‘of the pot’ basically Cajun French for stew), creole, boudin, etc are really about the earliest example of ‘Fusion Cuisine’ you can find.  We were a hundred years ahead of the popularity curve on this one (sorry Emeril).  CenLa food is like CenLa culture and CenLa highways.  It’s a mix of everything that makes Louisiana great.  Our cuisine has its roots in the Prairie Cajun traditions of northern Acadiana, the Appalachian country food of North Louisiana (remember the area above Alexandria and Natchitoches was settled almost entirely by free land programs the US government instituted to bring in “Americans” from Kentucky and Tennessee to balance out the French/Spanish/Catholic established population of the state whom they feared would rebel), traditional planter cuisine from Mississippi, a bit of Texas, some traditional New Orleans Bourbon cooking (especially around Alexandria and remember New Orleans french settlers (many of whom first came our way) were not Cajuns and were in fact from an entirely different region of France), and of course some good local soul food from our black residents.  It’s a big mix, a lot of people and cultures, and a lot of flavors.  But that, is what CenLA is all about, and that’s wonderful fusion that is our Louisiana Cuisine.

Certainly the differences aren’t huge.  The main thing is we use more and usually better (perhaps I should say, more expensive or what would have been considered better way back when simply due to the higher availability of culinary resources in the region) ingredients.  And, it’s usually spicy (as in having lots of spices in it) yet not overwhelmingly hot and peppery (which tends to be the predominant spice in the Lafayette and Baton Rouge versions because pepper was a sturdy cheaper spice that everyone could keep back then).  The New Orleans influence usually means more vegetables and a more neutral roux or butter base.  And, our African influences generally mean that you’ll find considerably more okra (Gumbo actually is Senegalese for ‘okra’, so gumbo was originally any soup with okra in it), and more usage of meats like chicken livers and other organ meats from cattle and swine (the biggest difference between CenLa boudin and South Louisiana versions is the presence of liver in ours).

Well, check out the show if you see it.  Head down Highway 1 and taste your way around Avoyelles, and stop by Durand’s (I’m going to next time I get the chance. I’ve never had anything from there.).  Amelia’s recipe is in the link below:

http://www.barefootcontessa.com/recipes.aspx?RecipeID=308&S=0

Beating a (poorly paid) Dead Horse 11

by • Social Activism • Tags: , , , , , , ,

We spend huge amounts of money here in CenLa every year in attempts to spawn economic development.  We have certainly have had some luck with a few new businesses opening and hopefully more coming to town than leaving.  Unfortunately, however, we’ve seen the ugly face of traditional economic development efforts.

More…

Drew Ward: DTV Coupons – Out of Date? Out of Luck! 5

by • Drew Ward, Media Studies, National News, Self-referential drivel • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

My mom asked me to look online and figure out the process for reordering the two coupons we had received earlier this summer. Like many people she had logged into dtv2009.gov and requested coupons for a digital converter box. I am sure you’ve seen the ads, heard the messages and even enjoyed the amazing amount of news space fill KALB has dedicated to it in recent months.

These coupons were ordered around March and arrived about 3 months later. The only problem was that by the time the coupons arrived, there were no converter boxes to be had! As neither of my parents are very electronic gadget oriented, I took it upon myself to go pick up their converters and hook everything up.

I spent far too much time this past summer going to Wal-Mart, the other Wal-Mart, having that Wal-Mart call the third Wal-Mart. Going to Radio Shack, having that Radio Shack call all the other Radio Shacks, etc. Basically nobody had any, and nobody could say when they would be getting any. No one was taking holds or calling when they got them in.

Long story short, finally now, stores seem to have them in stock. Granted, even the cheapest are more expensive than the $40 coupons, but still they have them. Only problem…the coupons are expired!

These coupons were only valid for 90 days from the date they were mailed. According to the DTV2009.gov site, it was expected to take 10 days for delivery, so under the best circumstances, that means consumers have 80 days to purchase their converters.

Now, is it just me or would a total lack of converters not seem like a good reason to change a little bit of computer software somewhere and leave these cards active? Last week there was some local coverage of the coupons and especially of the fact that the coupon program had run out of money. Well, I doubt they’ve really run out. Because, if most people couldn’t find a box to buy, then their coupons are also expired. Thus that money, although allocated has never been spent!

The purpose of this rant I suppose is to draw some attention to the fact that according to the DTV website, once coupons are expired, consumers are simply out of luck. You can’t reactivate them. You can’t replace them. And you can’t order any more because once you have your two, you’re done! This reminds me of the Army, where a paperwork error on their part was a problem for you to deal with on your part.

I’d love to know who else out there has had this same issue? Please comment if you have.

I would say we should write or call our Representatives or Senators, but in 15 years of being a registered voter, I have yet to once receive a response to an email or letter sent to any of their offices.

Drew Ward: Unemployment: Let’s actually look at the numbers 1

by • Drew Ward, Media Studies, National News, Self-referential drivel, Today's News • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Today the Department of Labor Statistics released the unemployment stats for January.  Their report is anything but optimistic.  The current unemployment rate for the nation as a whole is 7.6%, reported as the highest since 1982.

Something I heard on NPR’s All Things Considered this afternoon caught my ear though.  Several economists were discussing the fact that at some point during the last 10 years, the US government changed the way they report employment figures.  They estimated that the actual unemployment rate was actually 14.8% and rising!

Why?  Because the traditional way of reporting employment statistics was much more straightforward.  Current reporting methods do not differentiate between involuntary part-time status (those who are working part-time because they simply cannot find a full-time job, and whose part-time job does not pay the bills) and full-time status.  It also removes a huge chunk of people (this month 80 million) from the statistical data set for any number of reasons.  These aren’t true non-workers (those outside the workforce such as retirees, children, voluntarily non-working spouses, the infirmed, disabled, etc).  These are simply people the government has chosen not to count (for our benefit of course).

Finally, these numbers as I’m sure you’ve noticed, are always non-farm workers.  So what about the farm workers?  How do these numbers translate to a place like Louisiana where a lot of our jobs are on farms and in forests and on waterways (all grouped under ‘farm’)?

These numbers are taken from the same DLS report, but the full version.

The first shows the numbers as they’re generally publicized:  7.6% unemployed, 92.4% employed (happy times right?).

The second gives us the view mentioned above…14.8% unemployed, 80% employed, and another 5% or so either very underemployed or just giving up entirely. (hmm)

The third one is scary.  It gives you the raw data.  The 142 million employed workers, the 12 million unemployed workers, and the other 80 million workers the DLS has chosen not to discuss with us.  (oh yeah, them)

Finally, of that 142 million employed workers, 38 million of them are part-time, and of that 38, at least a quarter of them really don’t want to be.

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So the reality of these numbers may in fact be much different than they appear at first glance.  If anything they tell us that officially only 104 million of 154 million workers are fully employed (67.5%).  This doesn’t mean they have good jobs, jobs matching their skills or education, or even jobs with sufficient income to support them.  It just means they are employed full-time.  That leaves the total of unemployed and underemployed at 32.5% or roughly 1/3 of workers.

If you account for the 80 million workers that DLS has excluded from their calculations, these numbers become 44% fully employed.  16% underemployed, and 40% unemployed.

And all of this still doesn’t include ‘farm jobs’.

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I’m not trying to make a bad situation sound worse, but I am saying that we should keep in mind the underlying numbers and realize that perhaps for many people in our economy and our community, the situation is much worse than we may think.

Drew Ward: White House Takes Official Stance on Gay Rights 2

by • Drew Ward • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

It went mainly unnoticed during the campaign that Barack Obama was the first major party nominee to have an official LGBT rights platform. Not much was made of this by the campaign or by gay rights organizations. Perhaps because they didn’t want to risk a media storm. However, the Obama campaign did reach out to the LGBT community via e-mail.

Their message (also posted on the campaign website) outlined the candidate’s stance on several issues important to the gay community. True to his word, that same platform, nearly word for word was posted yesterday on the newly revamped whitehouse.gov.

Why am I bringing this up and why here?

Because this is an issue that CenLa NEEDS to deal with.

We are not a gay friendly community.  Although we have been fortunate not to have any publicized cases of unabashed anti-gay violence, we are still by no means a tolerant place for our gay and lesbian neighbors. Tolerate seems to be the limit of what Central Louisiana has been willing to do so far. A simple look through any of the local blogs or forums will quickly turn up a plethora of homophobic and gay-hating posts. Even those who oppose such posts seem to do so within limits. That limit, as is the apparent norm in our region, is that being gay is fine, so long as no one knows about it, sees it, talks about it, or, for some, so long as gays are kept away from active community life as much as possible.

It’s time we grow up as both a nation and a community.

President Obama has chosen the bold political move of leading the way nationally. Locally, it’s time we embrace our WHOLE community and everyone in it. Our region has been suffering a brain drain for decades. Unwittingly, our collective intolerence is pushing many of our best and brightest to move to more open and tolerant societies. We must face our societal demons, deal with our bigotry, and grow up.

Listed below are the main points of the president’s agenda on gay rights:

Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.

Why is this even up for discussion? Hate-based crime is and always has been one of the most horrid manifestations of human nature. There is no difference between attacking someone because they are gay or black or Jewish or anything else. Hate is hate; we should do our best to deter such thinking, but when it exists it exists. Neo-nazis, Muslim extremists, firebrand preachers, and Klansmen all remind us entirely too often that hatred exists. It is a powerful tool to incite the ire of weak individuals and will probably always be a problem in some form. But, as a people, a nation, we have chosen a peaceful existence where attacking others is wrong. We have to have laws that punish those who choose to destroy that peace.

Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees’ domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The very fact that the Equal Rights Amendment didn’t pass in the 1970’s has never ceased to amaze me. Even after the triumphs of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, many of those people who attained protection and equality chose to deny extending the protections afforded for race to other groups. It’s quite an hypocrisy and one that continues to this day. Women, the original target of the ERA, have luckily gained many legal protections. Yet at the same time, they tend to make less than their male counterparts and gender discrimination itself is still painfully difficult to prosecute. But at least the feelings of the country have changed. It is no longer acceptable to discriminate against women. Now it’s time to extend anti-discrimination protection to all Americans.

Institutional and government-sanctioned discrimination is wrong and should be illegal. That’s it; nothing more really needs to be said. Black, white; male, female; young, old; gay, straight – it shouldn’t matter, and it should be illegal for it to matter, particularly when it affects the ways in which the government treats individuals.

Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.

DADT is by far the single stupidest form of workplace discrimination against gays. At a time when we need qualified military personnel, the one thing we should not be doing is going out of our way to get rid of them. I think honestly that most people don’t fully comprehend the place of sexuality in the military.

The fact is, most soldiers DO NOT CARE who their fellow soldiers sleep with! They don’t care if they guy next to them is gay or bi or straight or purple. They care if he can shoot accurately enough to hit the enemy, do his part to protect his fellow soldiers, and effectively accomplish his individual job so that the mission can succeed. That’s what being a soldier is about. If more of the people who argue against gays in uniform had ever bothered to put one on themselves, they’d know that!

Soldiers can’t care. There are too many gays in the military to get rid of them all anyway. Many estimates place the numbers at 30-40% of active duty forces. My own experience in the Army would confirm those numbers. In my own experience the only people who actually cared whether soldiers were gay were the members of the overwhelmingly ultra-protestant upper echelons of the officer corps which, under both Bushes have been by purposeful selection filled with evangelicals and Republicans. Politics and the military don’t mix well and never should.

Let soldiers be soldiers.

Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.

The very fact that this proposed amendment even came into serious discussion shows the sad condition our nation has been in morally — that we would waste years debating whether to curtail the rights of our citizens while so many other problems in our country were allowed to fester untreated. The US government has no right or responsibility to regulate or for that matter even recognize marriage of anyone. The government should not be regulating gay marriage because due to separation of church and state, the government should have nothing at all to do with straight marriage either! This is a religious rite, and as such, it is a matter for churches. If a person chooses to deny a sacrament of faith to another based on his personal bigotry, then that is a sin he will have to answer for when he meets his maker. Twisting religion to promote hate is a tragic bastardization of any higher power’s teaching but so be it…file that one away with snake charming, refusing healthcare, and magic kool-aide. It’s religion; let the religious sort it out.

Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.

Just as government has no place regulating marriage, it has no place recognizing legal status based on the religious rite of marriage. All that government should recognize for anyone regardless of sexuality is legal classification – those being Civil Union and Joint Domicile. These have been historically awarded de facto to married straight couples and often to unmarried heterosexuals living together (called Common Law Marriage in many places). Can anyone really seriously come up with a single intelligent reason why government should deny this same recognition to gay couples?

Currently, on average, gay couples pay higher taxes, have more difficulty buying property together, can not usually get insurance together, have more difficulty signing leases, pay higher car insurance, are unable to provide pension or burial benefits to their spouses, and in a final f*** you from society, often have their estates seized by the government upon death even though they may have a will leaving everything to their partner.

Legal rights, legal protections, legal status, and government privileges should be applied evenly, fairly and equitably – with Liberty, Justice, and Freedom for ALL.

Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.

I have always thought of this particular facet of the anti-gay movement as being hideously inhumane. With all of the children in the world, not to mention those in our own country, and our own local communities without a family to call their own, how could anyone justify denying those children the love of a parent or family?

Sadly this denial (which is a legal prohibition here in Louisiana) is arguably justified by its supporters on moral grounds– primarily who zealots argue that children in homosexual families are unduly endangered because they are somehow more likely to be abused sexually. This, of course, is complete crap. Numerous medical, criminal, and psychological groups have conducted research establishing a connection between homosexuality and child abuse. Below are a few excerpts of their findings:

  1. Child Molesters are overwhelmingly heterosexuals.
  • Dr. Carole Jenny reviewed 352 medical charts, representing all of the sexually abused children seen in the emergency room or child abuse clinic of a Denver children’s hospital during a one-year period (from July 1, 1991 to June 30, 1992). The molester was gay in only 2 of the 269 cases in which an adult molester could be identified, less than 1 percent of the cases. (Jenny et al., 1994).
  • Groth and Birnbaum ( 1978 ) found that none of the 175 adult males in their sample – all of whom were convicted in Massachusetts of sexual assault against a child – had a homosexual adult sexual orientation.

2.  The heterosexual partner of a relative is more likely to sexually abuse children than someone who is gay.

  • A 1994 study found that “a child’s risk of being molested by his or her relative’s heterosexual partner is 100 times greater than by someone who might be identified as a homosexual. “(Carole Jenny et al., Are Children at Risk for Sexual Abuse by Homosexuals?; 94 Pediatrics)

3. Child Molesters are Child Molesters…regardless of whom they sleep with.

  • “It is meaningless to speak of fixated molesters in these terms – as heterosexual or homosexuals – they are attracted to children, not to men or women. (Groth & Birnbaum, 1978 ).

Groth and Birnbaum sum it up best in the quote above – child molesters are attracted to children not men, not women. There are, in fact, numerous pages of studies on this topic. However, the ONLY “studies” to ever show that gays are more likely (or for that matter likely at all) to molest children were conducted and published by the American Family Foundation and its affiliated Christian conservative organizations. Not one respected scientist or medical professional will weigh in on their side. Perhaps Pat Robertson and his crew are who we really need to be protecting our children from.

I agree with President Obama that abridging someone’s parental rights based on sexuality is a horrible idea. It hurts otherwise stable, healthy couples. It hurts communities. And (don’t forget this) it hurts thousands of children every year who are denied a stable family home and instead left in deplorable state care rather than allowed to live with gays. Still not convinced? Go ask an orphaned or abandoned child if they would rather have a gay family or no family at all.

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This is a lot to accomplish. It should have all already happened, but at least now there is a chance for progress. To me, the timeline will be the most interesting aspect of this. Obama will need to make politically sensitive changes early enough in his term that people will forget about them before the next campaign cycle begins. I predict we will see Don’t Ask Don’t Tell go away in the next few months. It just makes sense with the state of the military. Recognition of domestic partnerships for federal employees will be soon forthcoming as well. The rest, I don’t know,;we shall see.

Drew Ward: Bah Humbug! Reply

by • Drew Ward, National News, Today's News • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Today, The Town Talk reported that Union Tank Car — our area’s only recent foray into the realm of blue collar manufacturing jobs– has fired 50 of their approximately 600 workers.  The official term used, of course, is lay-off, but these job cuts were applied with a caveat that employees would not be eligible for rehire, pending future production increases.  I suppose with moving into the blue collar labor market, we get to learn the realities of that market…that is, when the companies don’t need labor, they will ditch our workers quickly.

So where does this leave us?  Well, it leaves at least 50 of us, their partners, families, and friends thinking of January rent or mortgage payments, when they should be thinking of Christmas presents.  For the rest of us, it certainly must leave us asking whether this should stand as is.  We, as a community and a State, gave UTLX everything short of the kitchen sink (they apparently didn’t ask for one at the time) in exchange for their opening the plant and employing a minimum of 800 employees within two years.  They never made that number.  In fact, their workforce only approached 75% of their promised level and not all of those were the full-time/benefits/pension jobs they had promised.   So, now we have a company that did not keep their end of a golden goose deal, then after weaseling through a reprieve from local taxpayers, they reward us with cutting 50 more of those jobs.  Scrooge needs a visit from taxpayers past.

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The employment issue we are now facing as a nation is only likely to get worse.  How it will all play out is unclear, but there is more to come.  This week, Bank of America announced that is would eliminate 35,000 jobs over the next three years.  When you think about it, this is a HUGE number.  Just within that company, if you divide this up by the number of years (3) and the number of working hours during a year (around 2000) that means that if you spread them out, five Bank of America employees will lose their jobs every single day for the next 3 years!

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OK, so what’s this really have to do with us?  Well, everything.

We have allowed this situation to develop.  We, as a voting, working, and buying public have virtually thrown away all of the labor advances achieved by previous generations in the early part of the last century.

We have some serious problems with our present economic model.  We have allowed companies to pursue a Race to the Bottom. This term has been used for over a decade to describe the legal system that allows corporations to move their operations to locales at the bottom of the wage ladder, bottom of the tax system, bottom of the environmental standards…and coincidentally, usually the bottom of the world.

How?

We have lost our willingness to exercise the power of our dollars and of our votes.  For decades, government has worked for business, whereas previous generations demanded that government ensure that business work for the people they serve, sell to, and employ.

Businesses pay for political campaigns, give gifts to politicians, and get most anything they want.  For a reference, just check the voting record of our own Senator David Vitter.  Almost EVERY bill he has introduced during his term in the Senate have been on behalf of business, and many if not most of these have been very targeted bills only serving specific corporate interests.

We keep voting these people into office.  We allow a system where there are a dozen gatekeepers between us as voters and actual decision makers in the offices of our elected officials.  We don’t demand action on issues affecting us.  We don’t inundate officials with mail, email, phone calls.  We sit back and watch.

We allow companies to pay workers as little as possible.  We allow them to cut benefits, to do away with pensions.  We support them in building a system in which their employees absolutely cannot live on what they make.  And the whole time, we look at these same employees and hope direly that that won’t be me one day (Wal-Mart greeter’s?).

How do WE do this?  We buy products from these stores and companies.  We spend $7 of microwave popcorn from them, even though we know they refuse to pay their employees that much per hour.  We buy a cheap bottle of aspirin because we can.  It doesn’t matter that the company placed such heavy price demands on the aspirin producer that they had no option but to fire all their workers and get those pills from China instead.

We buy the truck made in Shreveport by workers earning a fraction of what they make elsewhere.  We go to a store we can jokingly refer to as Old Slavey, even though we know that slavery is actually a reality of that three button polo with the slightly crooked hem…but we buy it anyway because it’s 9 bucks!

We buy into the nonsense that unions are bad.  We adopt terms such as right to work even though we know that means the right to work horrible hours for little above minimum wage with no job security whatsoever.

Why?

One of the biggest differences I tell people about between here and Germany is the public mentality regarding jobs. You see, the Germans view every job as valuable.  They realize that even the most menial positions are integral to their economy and their way of life.  Thus, they pay everyone properly.  Socialism…maybe a little, but not really.  Social justice is what it’s called.

This isn’t to say that checkout clerks make as much as doctors.  But German consumers realize that they cannot eat cheeseburgers (they LOVE their McD’s) if they have no one to make the cheeseburgers for them.  At the same time, because making cheeseburgers is that person’s job, they also believe that that person should be able to live off of that job.  He likely has healthcare, a pension, receives a yearly training benefit, and can afford an apartment, furniture, a vacation, and school for his children.  Amazingly enough, cheeseburgers don’t cost much more in Germany (1 euro).

If you go into a clothier in Germany you will likely encounter a professional salesperson — someone who is trained in the various aspects of clothing, who can help you chose the proper size and cut, and who knows his product and takes pride in outfitting you with what you desire and need.  A professional.  And he is paid, treated well, and given the opportunity to take pride in what he does.

He doesn’t make minimum wage.

We need to admit to ourselves and each other, that WE have allowed ourselves to become the least important factor in business and politics.  Now…are we willing to take control back?

Why I don’t like the Master Plan 3

by • Smart Growth • Tags: , , , , , ,

In today’s Town Talk, Cynthia Jardon has an oped piece with a great focus — the issues and possibilities of Downtown Redevelopment. She makes some good points and mentions some great projects in the works. Good Job.

She also touches on something that Mayor Jacques Roy has mentioned recently — a very logical point that Alexandria needs to pull the 15 years worth of studies and plans we’ve commissioned for over $800,000 of taxpayer dollars and read them, use them, draw from them, and start making things happen.

Perhaps the centerpiece of this stack of binders though is the Alexandria Urban Master Plan completed during the Randolph Administration by a team led by Patrick C. Moore and Barron, Heinberg, and Brocato. Well, this is one point on which I disagree.

I think we should draw on the points brought up in the masterplan, however its validity under the current situation should be carefully weighed in referencing this plan to modern development.

The plan is a great piece of work. Unfortunately, it’s an old plan based on old ideas. Though, in many ways, it is a very innovative approach to an outdated, failed way of thinking about urban planning.

This is not detract from the great work that went into and the firms who worked on it. But, that plan is most of all fundamentally flawed because it is still based around two concepts that have not only failed Cenla, but have been shown to be fading and failing concepts in development worldwide: The plan is based around centralized shopping (i.e. everyone going to a central mall somewhere), and more than anything it’s based on the car — on the idea that people drive everywhere with the added need for parking and traffic control and such.

We simply don’t need a plan based around cars, parking lots, and shopping malls. That’s how we got into this mess in the first place.

What we actually need is to embrace the proven marketplace and town center concepts so prevalently seen in the cities of Europe and some of the older urban centers of the east coast. This type of planning was successfully deployed in most places around the turn of the 20th century. It was based around small public squares, wides sidewalks and outside marketplaces, mixed use building with retail and restaurants at ground level, offices above, and residences above that — a mix of services, business, and people. These plans are built around walking and cycling and small-scale public transit. They incorporate cars as a necessity not as a centrepoint.

They keep scale small, shops focussed, the cost of market entry low. They put businesses, services, and activities together with the people who support them in a very intimate manner.

These are the types of ideas we need. We should draw from these past studies, But we should as a community and government find no cause to be tied to obsolete ideas and outdated plans. Development along these lines is happening. Perhaps not in the ideal way, but it is happening.

Take developers in Louisiana who have launched such successful concepts as River Ranch in Lafayette and are working on the The Lakes here in Alexandria.

These new developments do have their problems. They are strongly limited to certain socioeconomic groups, and they still are planned too strongly around cars and parking. However they are coming closer than anything else to restoring the concept of useful town centers to our local economy.

We have a lot of open space in downtown Alexandria. Why not create a mechanism in which developers such as those mentioned above can come in and build a unique innovative development in Downtown versus the suburbs. Basically build a new suburb of this type if you want, but do it int he geographic center of the city rather than on the fringe.

Private development with a centralized plan, is the way to go. It is possible to replicate what works in so many other parts of the world. When you have neighborhoods that have remained vibrant for over a hundred years, that’s the sort of plan you need to consider.

Let’s take a look at what we’ve learned, what we’ve planned, and what we want as a community. But let’s spread our gaze outside of our local horizon and develop a public/private plan that creates the vibrant innovative urban core we have so long desired.

That new plan is to be found around the globe and not likely to be found in full sitting on a shelf here in Cenla.