Front Porch Cycle Chic: The revolt against lifestyle

Two people converse next to a high-wheel bicycle at the fence of the first home of Alfred W. Bitting, 259 North Emporia Avenue, Wichita, c. 1882. Unknown photographer. Click image to enlarge. Repository: Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum. Image found here.

I don't know whether the bicycle in the picture belonged to the Bitting family or to a visitor. But it doesn't matter. What matters for purposes of this (very long) piece is what that bicycle suggests to me and, indeed, what cycling has come to embody for me: an easy, practical means for its owner to maintain a connection with others who don't live within its owner's immediate vicinity.

Something I'd never before imagined myself seeing was a philosophical kinship of any sort between Copenhagen Cycle Chic and Front Porch Republic. But that was before this morning. As strange a confluence as this is, though, it matters to you--or should--if you share my interest in trying to shift the conceptual frame cycling gets placed in by Wichitans--even by most cyclists--known by the insidious term "lifestyle." Until that shift occurs, we'll continue to see really, really nice bike paths built that don't really go to places where people live, work and shop and, at the same time, a continued lack of on-street infrastructure for cyclists that would facilitate their getting to places where they do live, work and shop.

(Much) more here.

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Cycling and the fostering of community

Through Today at the Mission (hat-tip: Ariel) comes news of an organization called Africycle, a Canadian-based charitable organization dedicated to both raising money for providing quality used bicycles to people in Malawi and maintaining bicycle repair shops in Malawi.

From the website: "Many Malawians experience difficulty accessing quality bicycles, due to economic constraints and the limited availability of affordable, reliable bicycles in the local market. Africycle believes that by providing bicycles it can be a catalyst for sustainable and effective development in Malawian communities."

Granted, Wichita is not Malawi, and the statement above refers overtly to economic development. But yesterday morning, as I did a bit of errand-running via my bike (in a moderate but steady rain), I gave the Wichita version of this some thought. The nearest full-service grocery store is now about 3 miles from where I live (until this spring when it closed, there had been one just a mile away). But as I rode about in my neighborhood, I noted that I can meet just about any other basic or recurring need I might have within an easy ride of where I live. Case in point: I'm due for a haircut. I'd gotten into the habit of going to Wal-Mart to get it cut there (decent--I'm not particular about haircuts--and cheap). But on my route yesterday I passed two barbershops that offer cheaper haircuts. Moreover, there are two good used bookstores in the neighborhood (one of which I'd not noticed until yesterday). And so on. Also, I got to greet some people in the neighborhood as I rode past their houses.

You see where I'm going with this, I hope. Before, when I was going on all Walden-like about this, I'd focused on the personal and (true, infinitesimal in and of themselves) global benefits of my cycling about town. Something I'd not really considered, though, is that by making more purchases here in this part of town, I can do my small part to help keep some folks in business (some of them look like they could use the revenue). I'll also feel more like I do more than just sleep here--I'll feel like I live here.

UPDATE: Apropos of cycling in urban areas, via this Matthew Yglesias post noting the death of a cyclist in Washington, D.C., comes the new-to-me notion of bike boxes. Portland, Oregon, already one of the bike-friendliest cities in the U.S., is beginning to install them. These are already used in some European cities; I hope those of you from Europe can comment on what expenses are involved with creating bike-boxes, aside from having to repaint some intersections.

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A meme spreads

Dear reader(s), meet Liberty Fillmore, Cart-Whisperer:



If you need or want some context, go here--or, if that's not enough, here. I can't resist one quick comment, though: it's indeed a testimony (positive or negative, I'll let you decide) to the co-optative powers of the free market that the image of the abandoned shopping cart, which can be read as a commentary on the excesses of consumerist culture, itself becomes a means by which consumerist culture perpetuates itself. The cart is too-empty a vessel?

And, yes, you smart people out there, I know that by linking to it I'm participating in the very thing about which I feel more than a little ambivalence. All I can say to that is, short of finding a nice cave in Montana and taking with me a couple years' worth of tuna fish (not forgetting the can-opener) and an Uzi or two, at times the box is so large that one can't think outside it--and that that, too, is our collective doing.

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