Paul Bonneville has posted a great conversation over at RetroMetro about using education to promote urban living. A great read for all you extremists out there!
A SIDEBAR CONVERSATION FOR ALL YOU URBAN-LIVING, HIGH-DENSITY ZONING CODE THUMPERS
Posted by Paul Bonneville
Wednesday, August 01, 2007If you want to change someone’s behavior, don’t walk up to them and call them out in a room full of people that are just like them. Especially when, as it turns out, it wasn’t just the room that was filled with people like the one you were trying to “help”, it is the whole building. You’re not going to make too many friends that way and after all is said and done, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar”.
Keep this in mind: Tell me how to live and you and I have a problem. Shove your ideals down my throat and, you guessed it, you and I have a problem.
If you want to fight sprawl, don’t superimpose your ideals or your Utopian visions of the perfect urban society because it doesn’t work for everyone. Don’t tell me how stupid I am for not doing something a certain way. Instead, take the road less traveled. Seek to educate.
You can read the whole thing here.