A piece I wrote in frustration over the deifying of Jim Rouse as simply and only a do-gooder.
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Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, just hush a minute, and try — just try — to hold the possible perspective, that PERHAPS Jim Rouse had to be a money-oriented, capitalist, stealthy, bullish person to create the place and space of Columbia. Jim Rouse’s development of Columbia, as I see it, is now spoken of almost exclusively in the realm of legendary greatness, goodwill, peace on earth, utopia, et cetera. You know the (yawn) story.
And there are parts of this story, like any legend, that are true.
But I just read a Columbia Flier letter to the editor from Michael Cornell, River Hill rep to CA’s Board, which is dripping with what I see as a pervasive, partial-truth legend-stuff about Mr. Rouse and Columbia’s origins. You can read the whole letter, in which Mr. Cornell opines about how he sees downtown Columbia being influenced by GGP, here. Here’s a snippet from the letter –
“…what I see is local government officials turning over the planning for our Columbia to a private mall developer whose interests are driven by quarterly results for stockholders and a Chicago-based board of directors. “
Yeah, Dude. Like, uh, that’s kinda what Mr. Rouse did. Except he was much more cunning and quite the capitalist. Oh, and he had $25 million in backing from a Connecticut-based board of directors. And, um, didn’t, like, um, Mr. Rouse’s publicly traded company develop all kinds of “private malls” and large-scale mixed use centers around America?
Now, from a 1997 article by Alex Marshall in Metropolis Magazine,
“What’s also similar about New Urbanism and New Towns is how their development attracted the interest of big corporations. Although Disney has attracted a lot of attention for its New Urban community in Florida, Celebration, Columbia was backed financially by Connecticut Life, which put up $25 million. Gulf Oil backed Reston in Virginia, while General Electric, Goodyear and other corporations backed other New Towns around the country.
“From this light, what was new about Columbia was not its design, but its financing. It provided the chance for one company to profit from an entire region of people. Virtually every act a person does at Columbia puts or has put profit into the Rouse corporation, from buying their home, to buying groceries, to shopping at the mall. In scope, it’s a breathtaking proposition. It’s doubtless what attracted Disney to build Celebration. Before, Disney would just capture a family’s money a few times a year, when they visited Disney World or saw a flick. Now, they would have the chance to profit off nearly every act of their lives.”
Mr. Marshall calls Mr. Rouse’s scheme to basically make money off of pretty much any Columbia-based financial transaction a “breathtaking proposition.” Grand scheme. Slam dunk. Hard-core, smart capitalist might be some other terms to use.
There’s more. More in Mr. Cornell’s piece. And much more in Mr. Marshall’s piece.
My main point is this: Folks, please. I love Columbia. But loving it doesn’t mean, for me at least, that the legend wins over reality. That legend is killing us now. It’s allowing decay to be ignored as long as the higher and more noble vision of Columbia’s Utopian Perfection is kept intact. The challenge, the opportunity, the responsibility, as I see it now, is to take what was created and to refresh, to upgrade, to be bold, to be daring … just as Jim Rouse was.
Jim Rouse’s thinking and vision was appropriate to his age location in time. (He is from the GI Generation, similar in peer personality to today’s Millennials.) To mimic him without fresh thinking appropriate to *our* location in time is folly.
And this tiresome dialogue about the legend of Mr. Rouse and Columbia without a balancing perspective and reality check is also folly. It’s just irresponsible of our leaders to continue along these lines, and I, for one, am tired of it.
That’s my two yuan on a Thursday night.
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By the way, don’t even try to post an anonymous or stupid-name/fake email comment here. I’ll delete such comments, and you know I will.
7 Comments
November 30, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Bravo JN!
That was the best perspective on Columbia and the so called vision that I’ve read so far.
This is so good I’m linking back to you on Tales of Two Cities.
Thank you. You made my day.
-wb
November 30, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Jessie,
Not just great, but a superb post. I believe many are, intentionally or not, confusing James Rouse’s remarks about Columbia and profit and his speech about profit when he stepped down from the Rouse Corporation.
November 30, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Mr. Cornell’s letter made me want to vomit- from the very first paragraph (Columbia has “grown up” at 40 years old? Is he smoking crack?) all the way down to the nonsense about GGP trying to “strong-arm” the CA board into a private meeting. That letter is completely delusional. What would this clown say if he were alive in the early 60’s when Rouse was going around and purchasing 14,000 acres anonymously? He would no-doubt spin tales of how the profit motive of a mega-corporation will destroy this pristine farmland to please shareholders (which is basically what HCCA was initially saying at the time, although they eventually changed their position).
Superb post!
December 1, 2007 at 3:48 am
I agree with the previous commenters, this was something that needed to be said. I think people have a hard time dealing with the fact that a person can simultaneously be idealistic and wanting to improve society, and at the same time be a hard-nosed businessperson with a bottom line focus. As you note, people put Jim Rouse on a pedestal and forget about the fact that he was a highly successful businessman, while at the same time castigating GGP as a greedy corporation and not investigating whether there are people at GGP who just might be interested in both making money *and* making Columbia a better place.
December 1, 2007 at 10:04 pm
The Disney connection continues to fascinate me. Rouse was a huge fan of Disney, praising the design of Disneyland in one of his more well-known, pre-Columbia speeches, and Rouse and Disney traveled the east coast together, no doubt comparing notes on their ideas for the ideal community.
Take a few minutes and watch this video of Walt Disney describing his vision for EPCOT. Not the theme park, the community. Look at the maps. Familiar?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9M3pKsrcc8
I submit that Walt came up with the idea for EPCOT, and after he died, Jim Rouse built it and called it Columbia. They shared the vision for building better communities.
But here’s the thing that ties this all in to Jessie’s post – After Walt died, the Walt Disney company went through a couple of decades of decline. Terrible movies (The Dark Crystal, among others), attendance down at theme parks, employee moral plummeting. There found themselves at the verge of a hostile takeover. People involved at the time suggest that they were paralyzed by putting every decision through a “what would Walt do?” lens. Caught up in the myth of their popular, folksy, visionary founder, it was very difficult to make any progress. What if they screwed everything up, everything Walt had built? And every time they tried to sway from the traditional, mythical idea of “what Walt would do”, critics slammed them.
Sound familiar?
Having GGP buy out the Rouse company is an opportunity for new energy, new growth, new vision. Not better or worse, but different and appropriate for our time, with current business and social realities. The people I’ve spoken to at GGP and the county government have left me with the impression that GGP “gets it.” They know they’ve got something different here, something special, something that’s not just another addition to their portfolio. Yes, they still need to make a profit, and they wouldn’t have bought out the Rouse company if they didn’t see that potential.
I cringe every time I see someone summon up the cliche’ of “If Jim Rouse were alive today…”
Jim Rouse was a great businessman, a visionary, and a positive force for social change in the 60′s and 70′s. But he’s gone, and there’s nothing wrong with blazing a new, forward-looking path, while still respecting everything he accomplished.
December 2, 2007 at 8:58 pm
First, let’s straighten out who were the visionaries for the downtown redevelopment. It was not Rouse/GGP. Their plan was to use up the New Town Zoning housing slots redeveloping the the Crescent property (Merriweather parking lot). They had drawings and everything was being planned within their New Town Zoning authorization. They were going to make a nice profit off this redevelopment and would have been very happy with the results. Second, it was not anyone on the present CA Board, any local citizen groups or state level politicians. The visionaries for the downtown redevelopment and initial voices calling for the charette were; Josh Feldmark, Jud Malone and Ken Ulman. Two CA Board members and the Columbia County Councilman (two are children of Columbia). To my knowledge none are major GGP stockholders. So forget about this evil GGP having this great profit motive when this all started. Yes, they are going to make large somes of money off this deal, but, please, this is America.
Second, the argument that GGP is just a mall developer is totally disingenuous. Yes, when they bought the Rouse Company that may have been true. But, when they bought the Rouse company they inherited ten other large, successful “communities” and the people involved in managing these communities. This division of GGP has become a very important part of GGP’s future growth . (Note: None of these communities has been divested after the merger.) So GGP does understand what they are involved in with the downtown development. Further, they understand the national visability of this project and thus the need for it to be successful.
Finally, never once during this priocess has GGP tried to “strong arm” the CA Board. If anything it has been the CA Board that has tried to strong arm GGP. Dennis Miller and Doug Godine have been nothing but supportive and professional during this process. GGP never gave the CA Board an ultimatum that they had to do all business with with them in private. But, during the January 2006 Board meeting the CA Board forbid the Board or staff from having any contact with GGP or the County unless it was in an announced open meeting. This motion was reaffirmed by the CA Board during it’s November 2007 meeting. This motion essentially caused GGP and the County to move forward without any CA input for the past two years. So how can GGP be accused of strong arming CA when CA won’t even talk to them? Finally, the CA Board sends GGP a public letter “inviting” them to make a public presentation when they already knew GGP would turn them down until after the final County Framework document is released. Again, who is strong arming whom?
I have always said this is all about trust. The County Government trusts GGP after 40 years of successfully managing New Town Zoning. Some squeeky wheels in the public don’t trust either the County Government,
GGP, or CA. These three organizations need to address the sqeeky wheels with the right amount of grease to gain back their trust so all stakeholders can move this project forward.
November 16, 2008 at 1:51 am
[...] at the creation (as it were). Rouse was certainly an enlightened developer, but first and foremost he was a canny developer, and the fundamental reason for Columbia’s success was Rouse’s foresight in seeing over [...]