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| Finding a moment of "quietness" |
City Planner, City of Traverse City
Some of the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are “lack of focus,” “disorganization,” “losing things,” and “restlessness.” The more I thought about this, the more I wondered if somehow we are contributing to ADD by the way we’re building our communities. I wondered how much influence the physical environment is having on our health and on our ability to focus, to concentrate, and to sleep well at night.
Many of the communities I have visited in Michigan, and for that matter across the nation, seem to have a lack of focus or have lost their focus. In these communities I have trouble discerning where the downtown or the town center might be. This morning I was at a meeting where we discussed having our next meeting at the Michigan Works Service Center. For those folks that did not know where this governmental office was, it was next to the car wash along a five-lane street on the edge of town. Having a car wash as a landmark tells me we have a “lack of focus.”
Next, I thought about disorganization. If you were a guest in your town, how easy would it be for the visitor to find the township hall or city hall? These facilities used to be located in prominent places, often next to the town square or at an important street end. Today the townhall might be in a sheet metal building next to the quick lube along a commercial highway strip. It seems that we lack any hierarchy of what is important and where our civic buildings should go. Now the courthouse competes with the burger drive-through for attention. We seem to be “disorganized.”
Losing things was next on my mind. For a moment I was stumped. Then I thought about all the night meetings where residents have told the Planning Commission that we’ve lost our sense of community. And then I thought of how we are losing the young, creative class to cities and towns outside of Michigan. As I write this, I realize we have also lost some of the quietness because of all the traffic on our city streets. We do seem to be “losing things,” important things.
This leads me to restlessness. A sign of restlessness is persistent pencil tapping or foot tapping. Do you find signs of restlessness in your community? Are people fidgeting as they wait in long lines at the super discount mart or do you see drivers tapping the steering wheel as they sit in a traffic jam on the freeway or at a clogged intersection? Are they listening to some fine tunes tapping to the beat of the song, or are they responding to what I am calling Community Deficit Disorder? We do seem to have a bit of “restlessness.”
Are you seeing symptoms of Community Deficit Disorder (CDD) in your community? If you are, then let’s discuss what we can do about it. I would like to know your thoughts of how we can treat this disorder.
