Carrboro touts its "walkability," and it is more walkable than, say, Cary. Yet one only need hangout downtown for a little while (e.g. on the lawn in front of Weaver Streer) to notice that most folks only walk as far as the parking lot holding their personal smogmobile. Carrboro, like the rest of suburban America, still obeys Kinsella's law of land use: "if you provide parking, they will drive." We seem to be caught in that old vicious circle: we provide parking, which reduces density (since parking actively competes with other uses) and discourages transit (by enabling driving, and most Americans will drive when given the option), which encourages driving, which "requires" more parking. So it was rather discouraging to see the discussion in Kirk Ross' piece in the Carrboro Citizen.

There has been a flurry of activity in the Orange County political blogosphere this month. Changes that interest me as much as who is wining the presidential primaries. (Go Obama!)

First, the big news is the disappearance of the Squeeze the Pulp forum. In its place appears to be a site that could have a community, but it isn'y very clear how. The new site is based on software called DokuWiki. It looks like a bunch of semi-static pages can be created and edited by a group of people. So people will write rants and others will edit them. For what, grammar? The two-way communication of a forum has been lost.

Part of me is sad that all the STP writing is gone. Mainly because it would help people remember the slander and hateful crap. Why would we want to remember that? To inform the context of our local political history. For example, the dirty tactics some supported there. It could also encourage more long-term responsibility. Politicos won't forget, trust me. But the new resident to Carrboro may like to know how that candidate got elected or defeated. I think the blog of record will be Orange Politics.