As a 39-year-old architect in Washington, D.C., my mostly high-end residential projects inch through the city bureaucracy in a way that can only be described as Kafkaesque. I’ve spent most of my relatively short career filling out immense piles of forms and slogging through mazes that have left me doubting if big things are possible in this world, or if there is just too much proverbial sand in the gears.
As an architect, I also have a sense of sheer economic terror from the last recession. Housing, of course, crashed, banks stopped lending, and it was common to see a 200-person architecture firm become a 20-person firm almost overnight. Architects are often the canaries in the economic coal mine, and reliving last recession is truly every architect’s worst nightmare.
Architects are often the canaries in the economic coal mine, and reliving last recession is truly every architect’s worst nightmare.
So, it comes as no small surprise to me that I find strange optimism in the present circumstances. To be clear, I’m not optimistic about my business (it remains to be seen whether it is a minor or major disaster). I’m not optimistic about my skills as my daughter’s harried and irritable kindergarten teacher. And, sadly, I’m not optimistic about the pandemic’s death toll or the magnitude of the horror.
I am optimistic about exactly one thing: our ability to collectively take massive action.
To anyone paying attention, it’s obvious that the pandemic response has been unconscionably botched (nothing here should be construed as a defense of the federal response). And yet, we have taken dramatic steps that would have been previously unthinkable.
We have completely shut down major cities, emptied schools, grounded planes, built temporary hospitals, changed patterns of behavior, and allocated trillions of dollars. All in a few short months.
Climate change is always portrayed as a problem too big to solve, requiring too much sacrifice, and too much change. Collectively, our perception of the problem has been that there is just too much inertia; too much sand in the gears.
I am optimistic about exactly one thing: our ability to collectively take massive action.
Like many, I am both deeply concerned about climate change and taking steps that are ludicrous in their triviality. I researched my office’s height above sea level (out of morbid curiosity), bought organic spinach, put solar panels on some clients’ roofs, and have mainly tried to think other thoughts because each of my thoughts only highlighted the seemingly insurmountable nature of the problem.
But everything just changed. Businesses are gone. Careers are over. Oil has crashed. Retirement accounts are pitiful, and previously made plans seem absurd and irrelevant. Already, it is too late to go back to the way things were.
Maybe our collective paradigms and beliefs are gone, too - and for the better.
In this rare moment of miserable turmoil that is truly global in nature, we are going to have to chart a way forward, and the novel coronavirus has taught us nothing if not that we are all inextricably interconnected. The path forward is going to have to be both global and commensurate with the scale of the problem.
From this pandemic, we have learned that crazy things are possible because they must be possible. Change has happened because it had to happen.
I believe we can apply this spirit of the collective U-turn to employ the unemployed, capture my generation’s simmering desire to take truly meaningful action in the world, and rebuild both our physical infrastructure - and the beliefs that underpin it.
The outer limits of crazy have shifted, and so has the bedrock of what previously seemed sane. Consuming our way out of a hole this big seemed sane other recessions but seems like lunacy now. The concept of a Green New Deal seemed like an implausible fringe irrelevancy. It now seems like the only logical path forward.
I believe we can apply this spirit of the collective U-turn to employ the unemployed, capture my generation’s simmering desire to take truly meaningful action in the world, and rebuild both our physical infrastructure — and the beliefs that underpin it. I think more Americans would like the dignity of working together on problems that are truly important; I know I would.
The concept of a Green New Deal seemed like an implausible fringe irrelevancy. It now seems like the only logical path forward.
Rather than wrecking our children's futures by indebting ourselves in vain attempts to recapture what is gone forever, we have the opportunity to reconstruct our world in new and better ways. Out of this wreckage, we can give our children a sustainable future we never quite believed possible.
The pandemic won’t go on forever, and the time to start planning is now.
18 Comments
WOW, Do we see things differently. I practice in New York City and our buildings department doesn't work as a buildings department. I have never participated in a construction project where the buildings Department paperwork isn't greater than the actual construction project itself.
As for Your emphasis on Climate change, Hurricane Sandy put 7'11" of water in my home. I did the same thing every one of my neighbors did. Pulled myself up by my bootstraps, fixed to my home and went back to living.
As for the coronavirus, think about this. Instead of being born in 2000 pretend for one minute you were born in1900.
On your14th birthday, World War I starts, and ended on your 18th birthday, 22 million people killed
Later that year, a Spanish Flu pandemic hits the planet and lasts until your 20th birthday. 50 million people die it in just two years. (that’s more than 2 million a month)
On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression hits. Unemployment hits 25%, the World GDP drops 27% and does not go away until you are 33.
When you turn 39, World War II starts. Therefore between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million more killed.
At age 50, the Korean War starts. 5 million more.
At age 55 the Vietnam War begins. 4 more million more people die.
On your 62nd birthday, the Cuban Missile Crisis scares the world with nuclear war.
At age 75, the Vietnam War finally ends.
As for business
My business has been through;
1974-1975 OPEC oil embargo
1980-1981 12 rising interest rate crisis Where my business loan was 18 1/2%
1990-1991 savings and Loan crisis
Y2K scare
2001 dot com bubble
9-11 attack
2008-2009 subprime mortgage crisis
Hurricane Sandy Engulfing my entire first floor
and you want me to worry about the coronavirus?
This too shall pass. In the scheme of life it's a pimple on a cow's ass.
Eddie
They may not have "expeditors" in DC, that's really a NYC thing (people for paperwork processing)...anyway, to your point, people didn't stop hooking-up when the AIDs virus was a problem, so this will pass, the only difference is the media and social media is so far up everyone's ass they can't think straight.
so you are bragging because you foolishly rebuilt your home in a flood zone knowing that future storms will damage/ destroy it again and taxpayers will eat the cost? Yeah... go fuck yourself boomer.
WOW Again. You are obviously a spoiled little snowflake Hurling insultsBased upon made-up facts.
WOW Again. You are obviously a spoiled little snowflake hurling insults based upon made-up facts. Of course I fixed my home, that’s what men do for their families. Your assumption that tax payers paid for my rebuilding is false. Let me make clear, I (nor any family member) have ever collected, asked for, or received, nor would I ever except money not earned. You obviously did not learn from, or understand my original response. A farmer does not stop plowing the field because last year it was flooded. In order to make your argument appear to have any degree of validity you had to concoct a situation where I had indebtedness to fellow taxpayers. What’s next, a Steel dossier? Shake your socialist nonsense, turn off CNN and MSDNC, burn that NYTimes and contribute to America’s progress. I do not mind you cursing at me, it’s your opinion and you’re welcome to it. But don’t ever put me in the category of one of you left wing socialist. My family and I have been contributing to the greatness of America since my father and family got off the boat. In the words of the greatest and most loved ruler ever to walk the face of this earth, “Roman redit magnitudinis”.
I like what you did there MS DNC! Anyway, I agree with much of what you're saying but seems a bit excessive to spam this Op-ED (considering it was your first few posts), it's like you went out of your way...I think this is actually a well written timely piece and in your parlance - clearly written by a woman. My forefathers were here before there were states and some distant relatives still don't even believe in the Federal government, so everything I say trumps you citing some latin shit (not even real latin..) - should'nt of went English, bruh. Anyway, Men are tough and dumb and Women are extremely conscious and smart. Everything you listed, mainly due to men. So I would say you're just being a dude. I'm Gen-X - so I don't really give a shit about your Boomer Snowflake Millinial, they're you're damn grand children, you guys spent everything, spoiled your grand children, and then wonder why no one cares if you spoiled boomer's die.....Just sayin', nihilists (gen x'ers) take real balls - Fight Club.
Eddie - thank you - well stated. I personally lived thru this mess starting with Vietnam - and you are correct.
Hey can we delete Edre and Cramm52, they make me sensitive on the inside.
I did not mean to set cramm52 off. Sounds like someone needs a safe space. I checked my Latin, it is correct. Let's try Greek etymology. Your response is scatological. (From the Greek skata) .
I wholeheartedly apologize. I did not mean to direct my message to cramm52. It of course was meant for Ancient Sheds. Sorry cramm52.
"Of course I fixed my home, that’s what men do for their families."
Okay now take this an extrapolate it to the whole earth that you call home and your whole human family.
A farmer does not stop plowing the field because last year it was flooded.
well no they woudn't beta. But that is because the farmer doesnt own the land anymore. He had to rent it to a big fucking american corporation when he (and his wife) nearly lost everything because of weather, a depression, political nonsense, whatever. Then he sold the land he works on because of the same series of events happening again and again. Now the farmer is a corporate employee. Well, that is what I saw happen anyway. If there were anything that came of this horrorshow of a response to COVID it would be to give families the opportunity to farm like they used to. Massive feed lots and meat-packing plants are how much of the world runs, but it is hard to say it is how it should be. Here is hoping the world makes a change for the better in response to this craziness.
I'll add to that Will. Not only did large American Corporations buy them out, those same corporations sold-out to Chinese firms (in a particular state I'm familiar with where "Right-to-Farm" was a backwards way of saying, fuck the little guy but let the corporate farmer do whatever).....
Covid did encourage more local farm to table and since I am an architect, making well above national average, I buy mainly organic and local shit, don't really care if my organic product that is local is 5 times the bullshit corn syrup shit...
until recently the stuff my family bought was always in stock, but I guess even people who will eat crap will spend more when the only option is local organic....
Local Honey every morning and pollen if needed, never sick and allergies minimum. recommend....
Also starting to think above was a well crafted bot (the way up there, or bots sound like old people or other way around).
Will - 2:45 on farming the corporate way
Odum
On optimism - Work From Home, that's all you really need here to change the world and will come from this.
More people realizing they can spend time with their families, they don't need $100k+ in Tuition for a higher education, less driving, less pollution, etc.... There will be a shift in living which will be better in general, which in theory leads to population control (the higher living standard countries have less procreation)....
Bravo, bravo! Well said Carmel. Now is the time to harness the momentum of our situation to take collective action. For a future that has a chance...
And for some this pandemic is just an opportunistic business/marketing opportunity to align themselves with progressive voices, betting on a change of power in the near future.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?