When Streetcars Ruled the Streets

Columbus, dwarfed

I love the story of China’s naval dominance early in the 15th century. It, deservedly, takes the West’s colonial and imperial past down a few pegs.

Further Reading: When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433

General Motors’ bankruptcy makes their anti-competitive and illegal dismantling of US cities’ streetcar systems all the more rankling.

I’ve read the account in Duany’s Suburban Nation and elsewhere, but had never found it as compelling as Jacobs’ brief synopsis, noting:

An electric streetcar was more economical to maintain than a bus and lasted three times as long as a bus… “Families rigged to fail” Dark Age Ahead (p39)

Despite knowing both of these stories, I had never made the connection. China jettisoned their fleet; US cities ditched the streetcar.

Question: What does this have to do with families?

Jacobs’ answer: Dependence on private automobiles has been at the expense of community and family life.

Time is limited. I recently heard P.J. O’Rourke describe cars as “motorized cupholders.” It’s where we are, where we spend our time, where we break bread “together.”

It’s not all on GM; it’s not all because of the streetcar. Jacobs promises to detail more of the forces at work in American culture.

Defining Family

Forgive the legalese:

“Family” means a number of individuals related to the nominal head of the household or to the spouse of the nominal head of the household living as a single housekeeping unit in a single dwelling unit, but limited to the following:

(a) Husband or wife of the nominal head of the household.

(b) Unmarried children of the nominal head of the household or of the spouse of the nominal head of the household, provided, however, that such unmarried children have no children residing with them.

(c) Father or mother of the nominal head of the household or of the spouse of the nominal head of the household.

(d) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (b) hereof, a family may include not more than one dependent married or unmarried child of the nominal head of the household or of the spouse of the nominal head of the household and the spouse and dependent children of such dependent child. For the purpose of this subsection, a dependent person is one who has more than fifty percent of his total support furnished for him by the nominal head of the household and the spouse of the nominal head of the household.

(e) A family may consist of one individual.

-Definition overturned in Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977)

The above definition was too intrusive. For those keeping track, it has something to do with substantive due process (14th Amendment).

This Supreme Court decision still stands, allowing this definition:

One or more persons related by blood, adoption, or marriage, living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit, exclusive of household servants. A number of persons but not exceeding two (2) living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit though not related by blood, adoption, or marriage shall be deemed to constitute a family.

-Definition upheld in Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U.S. 1 (1974)

The census counts both families and households, though the above definitions are attempting to force a narrow definition to restrict how many individuals can live at a given address in a single-family zoning district. Anything else would be considered non-family, despite possibly remaining a household, forcing such units to either: A) break the law, or B) find a district that allows “group living.” Typical group living uses: fraternities and sororities, halfway homes, assisted living facilities, and prisons.

History would not recognize these definitions. We’ve forgotten the role of the extended family while also losing our community backup.

The East Cleveland definition attempted to define, narrowly, a nuclear family. Culture has enshrined this unit above all others.

Two parents, to say nothing of one, cannot possibly satisfy all the needs of a family-household. “Families rigged to fail” Dark Age Ahead (p34)

Last week, I’d laid into planning’s intrusive moralizing RE: sidewalks. Jacobs has not forgotten this point between 1961 and 2004.

Think of all the responsibilities parents hold:

• first aid
• tutoring
• coach
• mentoring
• budgeting
• purchasing
• cooking
• home repair and maintenance
• banking
• acculturation of children
• much, much more

Who are the paragons that, unaided and unadvised, can earn a living and also provide all this and more? “Families rigged to fail” Dark Age Ahead (p34)

Certainly the unit defined by East Cleveland would not alone suffice.

Jacobs on "Families Rigged to Fail"

I’ll probably spend a fair bit of time on the first threatened pillar of our culture that Jacobs tackles: family and community, despite this admission:

Most of my observations on North American community loss and other subjects are not news to anyone who takes an interest in the conundrums of our time and is reasonably well fortified against amnesia. “Families Rigged to Fail” Dark Age Ahead (p42)

It’s the narrative by which she weaves these observations together that is so compelling.

And prescient.

Families need communities. With strains on our time and our finances, we’ve rigged our families to fail. The current economic crisis is only the most recent riptide affecting our way of life. Familes are the basic economic unit. We’ve rigged them to fail.

You can’t focus on one issue to figure this out. Jacobs brings in streetcars, ancient Rome, the cost of housing, reliance on the automobile, and more. You can’t just focus on the family.

*

Jacobs remains pithy in her rhetoric here, referring to anyone “reasonably well fortified against amnesia.” Who, reading that, would count themselves out?