Week 6 (2024)
aging & unhinged housekeeping, NIMBYs, housing regulation & affordability, necessary humanities & liberal arts in prison, encounters with strangers & our own kids
(Click title to open in browser, on the Substack website)
to read: books
Benito Cereno, Herman Melville — audio — Thanks to this list from Claude Atcho.
Arbitrary Lines, M. Nolan Gray — audio — Brief thoughts of mine.
(Here's an excerpt from the book and here’s his 6 Zoning Reforms Every Municipality Should Adopt, shared previously.)
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
Can A Catholic Be A NIMBY? — Addison Del Mastro, The Deleted Scenes — “A big part of what I do in my writing is trying to unbundle urbanism from progressivism—not in terms of taking it away from anyone, but trying to explain why you can be a conservative or a centrist and still care about these things. Of course you can, because everyone can and should! But some people just never hear any of this stuff presented in a way that is palatable to them. Some of these people argue in bad faith, but I’ve had enough conversations to understand that this effort is worth it.”
(related: Yes In My Backyard - And In My Frontyard, shared previously)
One Family-Friendly Solution To Our Housing Woes — Jim Dalrymple, Institute For Family Studies — “First, we need regulatory reform that allows more housing types. Right now, about 75% of the residential land in the U.S. is zoned to only allow single-family homes. That needs to change. Anyone who cares about the vitality of American families should also be an urbanist pushing for zoning reforms that can unleash a flood of apartments, condos, cottages, and more… Second, and more importantly, we need a cultural shift. Many cities actually are reforming their building regulations even as they face stiff opposition from incumbent landowners who don’t like change.”
The People We'll Never Know — Skyler Adleta, Comment — “I often wonder if there are people out there who recollect a particularly significant but brief experience with me, as I do with the twins and Pedro and Red Dog and Betty. Most of us assume those we pass are little more than drifting husks. To remain asleep to the reality of the infinitely glorious soul within each person, and that person’s tendency to interpret and react to us, is to take a terrible risk.”
Housekeeping: The Unhinged Edition — Nadya Williams, Front Porch Republic — “Besides, not like you’re ever at your house to do any of this said housekeeping if you are working full-time outside the home and then chauffeuring kids to activity after activity all afternoon and evening. As I imagine that alternate life my family could have, I am reminded that sometimes it is in considering the absence of something that we see its true value… As I contemplate that possibility of missing the Daily Unhinged™ in all of its wildness, I feel overcome with emotion.”
Martha, After Dinner — Sara Kay Mooney, Ekstasis — “She feels time unfold like a cloud:
weightless, formless—abundantly
unsearchable. It drifts on aimlessly,
never, as she now knows,
to be taken away.”The Offerings Of Age — Kerri Christopher, By The Sea — “When we know what we’re good at, we can stop focusing on all the other things we might be good at, or feel that we ought to be good at, and instead hone our skills in a more focused way. And in another happy tension, those honed skills can open up new possibilities yet again.”
Daedalus & Icarus: A Cautionary Tale About Parenting In The Age Of Technology — Dr. Nadya Williams, Hearth & Field — “What if instead of dreaming of transhumanism for ourselves and our children, we focus on relationships with these imperfect humans in the here and now? …A quest for radically human flourishing in our own lives and homes could begin with such a small change as this.”
My Liberal Arts Education In Prison — Sean Sword, Plough — “The prisoners and staff who make up the population of a prison are a microcosm of what is found in the larger societies we live in. I was sentenced to life without parole at the age of seventeen for crimes against society. The liberal arts have exposed me to topics such as truth, the good life, and justice and allowed me to restore my relationship with God and his creation in a way that has changed my life forever.”
A Small Parable — Alan Jacobs, The Homebound Symphony — “He had a very immediate problem: that end of his house was sinking again. In such circumstances Jack certainly couldn’t attend to Hugh’s ragbag of information and discourses about ancient history. After all, Jack was a practical man.”
to watch, listen to
Why People Of Faith Shouldn't Be NIMBYs — AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast w/ Addison Del Mastro — This is the discussion linked in the post at the top. A perfect follow-up to the Arbitrary Lines book I completed this week.
Continuing On:
The Commonplace with Autumn Kern — What I Finished Reading in Jan. & Feb. and Making Charlotte Mason Philosophy Practical — Tons of gems here. And, while I haven’t yet read the book by Gibbs (mentioned in the first video)… if that connection between the Reformation and the Enlightenment fascinates you, I can’t recommend more highly Andrew Wilson’s Remaking The World. It delves into the making of our current WEIRDER (western, educated, industrialized, democratic, ex-Christian, romantic) world. It’s history, it’s sociology, it’s also somehow incredibly readable. And her oversized t-shirt idea in the second video had me laughing. Brilliant.
to glean from: tip, product, resource
These Black And White Street Photos Of Kids At Play — The ultimate artistic intersection of this week’s essay themes of urbanism, housing supply & affordability, encounters with strangers, and technology in childhood.
Piña Coladas — In case you need permission for a tropical treat this time of year. This was another winter week of these homemade delights. (Gotta enjoy some small Ws together in this stage of life.) Don’t ask for the exact recipe because it changed every time. Blending drinks, making meals, baking treats — it’s a therapeutic art, and I will not be beholden to recipes (ask my husband how that goes sometimes).
to look back on
This Week:
You can reply directly to this email if received in your inbox — I always enjoy hearing from y’all that way.
The NIMBY article was so interesting. We’ve been brainstorming ideas for ways we could use our church land — there’s 5 acres that does nothing but get mowed. Could we put animals on it? Make a community garden? The garden was a maybe. But any other use was not allowed because of the zoning. So frustrating. And CO is soooo sticky with zoning. You can’t even subdivide land now in the counties around us unless it’s over 36 acres, so even if you’re lucky enough to find land, parents can’t subdivide so their kids could buy a plot of land or have any sort of multi family situation.
Thanks as always for the shout out.
Also I appreciated the piece on the intersection of religion and NIMBYism/urbanism. A long, long time ago I very briefly wrote for a blog that was supposed to be about "smart growth for conservatives." It really drove home the idea for me that well-designed cities are fundamentally conservative in that they're trying to preserve/revive the good ideas of the past. I think there are plenty of left-of-center reasons to support good urbanism too, but there's no reason imo urbanism can't be a conservative cause.