"They shouldn't even let those high school kids on these nice buses--they'd just mess them up!"
Such was the vibe on the cushy, coach-style transbay NL bus, which runs during commuter hours on weekdays. Meant to entice commuters to San Franisco with comfy seats, smooth travel, privacy and wireless internet, the buses follow the regular NL route, and therefore benefits those of us traveling within the East Bay as well.
I take the NL frequently, and since our class is at 9:30 AM, when I take it to school, sometimes I score the Nice Bus. As any public transit user knows, buses are great for people watching, can provide wild and unexpected assaults on the senses, and are the locus of a distinct set of social norms. You can talk loud, but if you're talking TOO loud--on the phone, to yourself--the driver may interrupt you, for the sake of the bus. You can smell like weed, but you probably won't get away with smoking it for too long, before someone says something. You should get up for elders and people with strollers, and you should sit in an empty set of seats before you plop down next to a stranger. You can open the window above your seat, but it'd be odd to go around and open all of them. Small talk with fellow bus riders is acceptable, but full-on conversations are subject to scrutiny by your partner and onlookers--the chat should be consensual and appropriate.
Needless to say, these norms are tested on the bus every day. But when I ride the Nice Bus, it's a different world. People are quiet. The outside world dulls to a hum. The seats are paired on either side of the aisle, and when you're sitting down, you can't see the rest of the bus. Eye contact, for better or worse, is eliminated. Someone talking on a cell phone becomes a noticeable noise factor. And people take out their laptops! I can't imagine someone taking out their laptop on a regular bus--they would look foolish and naive, a high-maintenance commuter at the very least. But this is who these buses are created for, at least hypothetically.
This morning, as our Nice Bus pulled up alongside a regular bus, I looked down into its interior. People were standing over others, avoiding eye contact as bodies accidentally staggered around with the lurch of the bus' brakes. From our insulated ride, music from headphones or cell phones was inaudible, but clearly, folks were rocking out. A stroller lingered in the way of the aisle, and people chatted with friends and family.
Strollers and wheelchairs cannot easily fit on the Nice Buses, if they can at all--so there is a limiting, exclusivity that goes beyond the intended goal of the commuter bus. But other than that, anyone can get on--yet they behave completely differently once they're there! The cues seem to work--the quiet, the privacy, the air of privilege. The woman who I overheard saying the quote at the beginning of the entry was onto another realm of social control: everyone could ride the Nice Bus, but not everyone deserves to. Bits of graffiti sometimes appear on the backs of seats, and certainly private seats could encourage questionable behavior. Maybe it does. But operation: social control seems to be working for AC Transit so far.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Listserv Drama in Action Part II
I had a real-life experience with parking drama, and the social deviance that good people will resort to!
I was driving home from a concert with my girlfriend and her two housemates. Their neighborhood is difficult to park in, and when we began our first circle around the block, he pointed to a white car near their house, and told a story about the car's owner. Supposedly, he informed our driver that he couldn't park there because it was technically his driveway, even though his car was often parked there, and there was no usable garage. He was "moving things," and told our driver to park somewhere else. When we finally found a spot, we were sort of in the red of a fire hydrant, and so our driver unloaded us passengers and headed off for another go-round. As he drove off, his partner began daydreaming about their own non-driveway, which has a curb cut to the street, but ends in a garage converted into a first-floor apartment. "We should make that OUR parking spot!" she grunted. "We'll nail up a little "No Parking" sign, and the city will take care of the rest, because they'll be parked in a driveway!." Someone else chimed in, "but then they'll ticket us too...." She had an even better idea: "We'll carry around the little placards in our CARS, we'll each have one, and hang it up every time on a nail we'll put there!" As we trudged the extra blocks to the house, the evil plot was unfolded with a fervor familiar to any listserv reader. But it quickly went the way of other listserv nastiness--into a puddle of potential compromise, and ambiguity: Digesting that last point, my rational minded girlfriend chimed in, "but eventually one of us will forget, and then WE'LL get a ticket." Oops.
"I guess so.
It was a good idea.
...Maybe still."
Parking brings out the worst in people: confirmed.
I was driving home from a concert with my girlfriend and her two housemates. Their neighborhood is difficult to park in, and when we began our first circle around the block, he pointed to a white car near their house, and told a story about the car's owner. Supposedly, he informed our driver that he couldn't park there because it was technically his driveway, even though his car was often parked there, and there was no usable garage. He was "moving things," and told our driver to park somewhere else. When we finally found a spot, we were sort of in the red of a fire hydrant, and so our driver unloaded us passengers and headed off for another go-round. As he drove off, his partner began daydreaming about their own non-driveway, which has a curb cut to the street, but ends in a garage converted into a first-floor apartment. "We should make that OUR parking spot!" she grunted. "We'll nail up a little "No Parking" sign, and the city will take care of the rest, because they'll be parked in a driveway!." Someone else chimed in, "but then they'll ticket us too...." She had an even better idea: "We'll carry around the little placards in our CARS, we'll each have one, and hang it up every time on a nail we'll put there!" As we trudged the extra blocks to the house, the evil plot was unfolded with a fervor familiar to any listserv reader. But it quickly went the way of other listserv nastiness--into a puddle of potential compromise, and ambiguity: Digesting that last point, my rational minded girlfriend chimed in, "but eventually one of us will forget, and then WE'LL get a ticket." Oops.
"I guess so.
It was a good idea.
...Maybe still."
Parking brings out the worst in people: confirmed.
Game Theory Annotations and Thoughts
YouTube Game Theory Videos
Ellickson, Robert. Order Without Law. Chapter 9.
Intro to Game Theory 2009 (Econ 223 Lecture 1). John Fountain, University of Canterbury.
Game theory was developed to mathematically analyze the potential moves of poker players, based upon their beliefs about what OTHER players will do. The theory is aimed at the Nash Equilibrium, in which a compromise is reached that pleases all parties. The thinking and choice-making that occurs in the process of games is informative beyond that simple goal. Game Theory describes the behavior required for equilibrium to occur, and the choices that may result in payoffs other than that which is welfare-maximizing.
It is assumed that human players act selfishly and rationally, leading to an order based on "unleashed" self-interest. During the Cold War, this assumed rationality was a way to approach the U.S.’ moves, which involved "incorporating [the] enemy into your own thinking." In Prof. Fountain’s lecture, he uses game theory to describe the “game” played between professors teaching a class and students attempting to pass.
*Does this leads to the assumption that if everyone is thinking rationally, they will all be playing the same "game," and considering the same "moves?" If so, then that adds another layer of rationalizing, in which you must consider the factor of likelihood that others will make a choice based on the moves and consequences, and your own potential moves. Oy!
In the cold war example, the U.S. military used game theory to convince the Russians that if they were to attack, the U.S. was capable of great destruction in return. This resulted in what the video calls a "delicate balance" called the "equilibrium of terror." It is interesting to think about this equilibrium in the context of the Nash Equilibrium, the simplified version of which results in each party getting what it desires. What was the desired "move" in the Cold War, on the part of either side? Neither wanted the world blown to oblivion, but to make matters more complex, neither wanted to be the first NOR the second to act! Game theory dilemma!
John Nash: "Stability through suspicion and self-interest"
-tried to apply game theory to all human interaction and behavior
-showed that this kind of system did not have to result in chaos, if the equilibrium could be reached
-"separate optimization"
-idea that each player is separate and alone
-but all of the actions work together in a common--not cooperative space--to create equilibrium
-prisoner's dilemma to show how selfishness would always lead to the best outcome
--rational choice always to betray--at worst, got diamond, at best got diamond AND money. if you trusted, you could lose everything. the "sucker payoff"
-but what if both parties do this?
Political implications of game theory: a society based upon self-interest that would not result in chaos may instead lead to suspicion and distrust. This is a manner of social order—perhaps in this case, the social ideology of game theory is a form of social control. Even when Nash was institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia, his model of choice-making continued to be influential on cold-war era social control and methods of order.
For example, game theory was applied by R.D. Laing to family dynamics, aiming at the underlying suspicious between family members. British and American economists also used Game Theory to generate a “fundamental truth” about human behavior and intentions as strategic and self-interested. This had a detrimental effect public faith in the benevolence of government acting in a public interest. Game Theory has been further extended to encourage a kind of empiricism that greatly essentializes the rationality of humans.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Listserv drama in action
Before I go on, anyone reading this who is not Dan or I must go RIGHT NOW to the Donald Black link on the syllabus and observe how excellently that man is dressed. And coiffed.
Ok, now we can begin.
I was reading the local newspaper today, having my taco in the local taqueria, in between thesis projects, when I noticed a column that was PHENOMENALLY apt for this semester's final project. This mini-article follows another about a recent shooting in front of Laurel Lounge, on MacArthur Blvd, in the middle of the Laurel. Here it is:
Keywords I picked out:
-immediate and heated exchange
-residents living within blocks of the bar
-ongoing "atmosphere of crime"
-questioned level of security by owner
--> others defended owner
-demands to stop name-calling
-->deleting subscribers for violating listserv guidelines
-arising from this--"calls to come together and create a better neighborhood for all"
-called for participation in the resident walking patrol
In three short paragraphs, the Metro paints a vivid picture of the arc of this listserv dialogue. Although simplistic and not aimed at theorizing anything, I recognize a similarity between the arc of tension and resolve here, and in our data. At first, there is a general flurry of comments, a generalization of the problem to other issues in the neighborhood, and then people begin to fall into camps. In this case, it was those who criticized the owners, and those who were sympathetic. The "elevation" that is described is a particularly interesting moment; I saw this in our listserv data as well, and it seemed to involve a frenzy of people referring more to other posts than offer new information. As this article describes, eventually some people called for calm and community, and the positivity began emerging. The neighborhood boosting was followed by a concrete suggestion, that people participate in the resident walking patrol.
I'm going to keep this "arc" idea in mind as I continue to work with the data. I'm becoming more and more interested in the "shape" of these conversations.
To come!
Ok, now we can begin.
I was reading the local newspaper today, having my taco in the local taqueria, in between thesis projects, when I noticed a column that was PHENOMENALLY apt for this semester's final project. This mini-article follows another about a recent shooting in front of Laurel Lounge, on MacArthur Blvd, in the middle of the Laurel. Here it is:
Neighborhood Reacts
News of the shooting created an immediate and heated exchange on the Laurel Village listserv. Residents living within blocks of the bar pointed out an ongoing "atmosphere of crime" at the MacArthur Blvd. intersection near the bar and angrily questioned the level of security provided by the owner. Others defended the owner by pointing out that the business participated in no apparent illegal activity and was not responsible for criminal or nuisance activities near the bar that predated his ownership. The charged listserv discussion elevated into demands to stop name-calling and for deleting subscribers for violating listserv guidelines prohibiting abusive language.'
Arising from this were calls to come together as a community and to create a better neighborhood for all. Another subscriber highlighted what was good in the neighborhood— the Saturday farmers market, the "Space" at Laurel Jujitsu, and a range of good and diverse small businesses, retail stores, and eateries.
Some called for participation in the resident walking patrol, Feet on the Street. Neighbors meet Thursdays at 7 p.m., except the second Thursdays of the month, at the Laurel Hardware parking lot (4024 MacArthur) to walk the boulevard, strengthen community ties, and show support for the businesses. Police officers often join the group.
(Source: http://macarthurmetro.org/200911/lma/3768)
Keywords I picked out:
-immediate and heated exchange
-residents living within blocks of the bar
-ongoing "atmosphere of crime"
-questioned level of security by owner
--> others defended owner
-demands to stop name-calling
-->deleting subscribers for violating listserv guidelines
-arising from this--"calls to come together and create a better neighborhood for all"
-called for participation in the resident walking patrol
In three short paragraphs, the Metro paints a vivid picture of the arc of this listserv dialogue. Although simplistic and not aimed at theorizing anything, I recognize a similarity between the arc of tension and resolve here, and in our data. At first, there is a general flurry of comments, a generalization of the problem to other issues in the neighborhood, and then people begin to fall into camps. In this case, it was those who criticized the owners, and those who were sympathetic. The "elevation" that is described is a particularly interesting moment; I saw this in our listserv data as well, and it seemed to involve a frenzy of people referring more to other posts than offer new information. As this article describes, eventually some people called for calm and community, and the positivity began emerging. The neighborhood boosting was followed by a concrete suggestion, that people participate in the resident walking patrol.
I'm going to keep this "arc" idea in mind as I continue to work with the data. I'm becoming more and more interested in the "shape" of these conversations.
To come!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Communes, Communes, Communes
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. "Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective." Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
It' s interesting to read this article at this point in history. When Kanter wrote it, in the 1970s, an upswelling of communal living was underway, and I can't know for sure how this influenced her writing, but she does reference some "contemporary" communes. I'm interested in analyzing Kanter's piece in light of the "waves" of communal living in the 19th century communes, the 1970s communes, the communal living that exists today, and all the others in between that I may not know about.
What strikes me about Kanter's observations of communes are the presence of a strong central leader, the relationship to Christian values, and the emphasis on completeness and physical size. The theoretical explanations for these things make good sense--especially when it comes to the basics of how people organize themselves, and act out in different power structure. It doesn't reference particular thinkers on the matter, but Locke and Hobbes are looming. This is one aspect of the article that leaves me wanting more; the very idea that "renunciation," "mortification" and "transcendence" are important to community bonds is predicated on some overarching assumptions about the human condition.
I had a question about the idea of centralization as a major tenet of communal life. Can that center be ideological? Or is she arguing forthe Freudian model, where the center is a leader, and the harmony of the commune relies on an egalitarian relationship to that leader? My instinct is that such centralized leadership, even if it is just in the form of a "charismatic leader," is contrary to the communist ideals emphasized elsewhere in the commune. Then again, this brings me to my other thoughts, which revolve around contemporary communes and the principles (or anti-principles) of anarchy.
It struck me that co-housing was identified as a form of commitment among unsuccessful communes, since that is the type of communal living that seems to have endured. I don't have a strong basis for this statement, other than knowledge of communal housing among young people in the U.S., both within university institutions and without, and the existence of such housing in the 1970s, especially inthe lesbian separatist movement (who also created communes in the 19th century tradition). Kanter does make the useful point that 19th century communes attempted to create community gradually, which is not the case in most co-housing communes.
Another thought: (133) "Some commitment mechanisms arose from necessity rather than ideology." When does a communal group decide when to stop "mechanizing"?? Is there a possibility that the community will unravel in a communal tyranny? Is that part of the function of a centralized leader, to provide direction and priorities for the group, so that all concerns do not result in a new "commitment mechanism," which could lead to an unreasonable or unbearable lifestyle? Kanter discusses religious communities whose commitment mechanisms are guided by shared beliefs, and writes that communities bound by political beliefs may also find ties in a similar framework. I wonder, though, about the distinctions in the "nature" of those two belief systems. Some political belief systems involve questioning, dissecting, analyzing and confronting ideas, and although there may be doctrine involved in the social order of the community, the potential for bumps in the road to communal life may be heightened compared to religious communities.
It' s interesting to read this article at this point in history. When Kanter wrote it, in the 1970s, an upswelling of communal living was underway, and I can't know for sure how this influenced her writing, but she does reference some "contemporary" communes. I'm interested in analyzing Kanter's piece in light of the "waves" of communal living in the 19th century communes, the 1970s communes, the communal living that exists today, and all the others in between that I may not know about.
What strikes me about Kanter's observations of communes are the presence of a strong central leader, the relationship to Christian values, and the emphasis on completeness and physical size. The theoretical explanations for these things make good sense--especially when it comes to the basics of how people organize themselves, and act out in different power structure. It doesn't reference particular thinkers on the matter, but Locke and Hobbes are looming. This is one aspect of the article that leaves me wanting more; the very idea that "renunciation," "mortification" and "transcendence" are important to community bonds is predicated on some overarching assumptions about the human condition.
I had a question about the idea of centralization as a major tenet of communal life. Can that center be ideological? Or is she arguing forthe Freudian model, where the center is a leader, and the harmony of the commune relies on an egalitarian relationship to that leader? My instinct is that such centralized leadership, even if it is just in the form of a "charismatic leader," is contrary to the communist ideals emphasized elsewhere in the commune. Then again, this brings me to my other thoughts, which revolve around contemporary communes and the principles (or anti-principles) of anarchy.
It struck me that co-housing was identified as a form of commitment among unsuccessful communes, since that is the type of communal living that seems to have endured. I don't have a strong basis for this statement, other than knowledge of communal housing among young people in the U.S., both within university institutions and without, and the existence of such housing in the 1970s, especially inthe lesbian separatist movement (who also created communes in the 19th century tradition). Kanter does make the useful point that 19th century communes attempted to create community gradually, which is not the case in most co-housing communes.
Another thought: (133) "Some commitment mechanisms arose from necessity rather than ideology." When does a communal group decide when to stop "mechanizing"?? Is there a possibility that the community will unravel in a communal tyranny? Is that part of the function of a centralized leader, to provide direction and priorities for the group, so that all concerns do not result in a new "commitment mechanism," which could lead to an unreasonable or unbearable lifestyle? Kanter discusses religious communities whose commitment mechanisms are guided by shared beliefs, and writes that communities bound by political beliefs may also find ties in a similar framework. I wonder, though, about the distinctions in the "nature" of those two belief systems. Some political belief systems involve questioning, dissecting, analyzing and confronting ideas, and although there may be doctrine involved in the social order of the community, the potential for bumps in the road to communal life may be heightened compared to religious communities.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Surveillaaaance
The Week published this snippet of news in its "The world at a glance section...":
http://www.theweek.com/article/index/101405/The_world_at_a_glance____United_States
"New York City
Security blanket: A high-tech surveillance network, already in place in lower Manhattan, will blanket midtown Manhattan by 2011, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced this week. The network, extending from 30th Street to 60th Street and encompassing Times Square, will feed data from high-resolution cameras, license-plate readers, and weapons sensors to a central command center. Funded by a $24 million federal grant, the security system will cover Grand Central Station, Penn Station, the United Nations, and other landmarks. The announcement follows the unraveling of an alleged terrorist plot to explode homemade bombs in New York City. “We cannot afford to be complacent,” Bloomberg said. But civil-liberties activists raised alarms. “The fear is that the NYPD, without any oversight or public scrutiny, is creating a massive surveillance system,” said Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union.""
Crime and response measures have always functioned in some kind of pendulum swing--but since 9/11, the tolerance for the speed and sensitivity of the downswing has shrunk enormously. By all measures that I can tell, as a former New Yorker and general news-following person, New York has gotten safer and safer over the past twenty years. This is due to a number of things, and a certain measure of safety. Mayor Giuliani swept the city clean of drug addicts and homeless people, contributing to a sense of safety for everybody else, but creating another kind of crime against a population in great need of the city's help. Bloomberg has been accused of treading further down the path of Disneyfication, and from my own observations, Manhattan is wealthier and is home to more seemingy-transplanted, un-wacky people every time I visit, and the borders of the working class neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan just keep shifting up. What once began at 96th street now reaches 145th, etc.
So a rational fear of crime--the kind likely to be caught on surveillance cameras--is really not as big an issue in midtown as it once was, yet now this new system is being installed. The praise that politicians welcomed following 9/11 helped to cement a narrative about quick and unwavering action in the face of "terrorism," over which, it would seem to follow, we have limited intelligence control. I'm really interested in the timing of this response cycle, as it is playing out, in this case, in Manhattan.
First of all, it doesn't seem that people really push for empirical evidence that this kind of surveillance works. That would mean questioning the NYPD, and after 9/11, it's quite unpopular to do so when the threat involves "terrorism." Of course, there are instances of success, namely the intelligence operations that resulted in the capture of this latest homemade bomber. Why isn't that intelligence sufficient? This could be settled by a plea for vigilance and the very incidence of such thwarted threats, but Bloomberg's quote really hints at a different, additional can of worms: "We cannot afford to be complacent." The "We" has this massive silencing power, the direct definition of any other action as complacency. There's no way to question it without directly coming up against the issue of the collective good, a historical fear, a weird reverential relationship with authority, and the uncertainty and poor understanding of "terrorism."
For more on the NYCLU and their case, see http://www.nyclu.org/node/2624
http://www.theweek.com/article/index/101405/The_world_at_a_glance____United_States
"New York City
Security blanket: A high-tech surveillance network, already in place in lower Manhattan, will blanket midtown Manhattan by 2011, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced this week. The network, extending from 30th Street to 60th Street and encompassing Times Square, will feed data from high-resolution cameras, license-plate readers, and weapons sensors to a central command center. Funded by a $24 million federal grant, the security system will cover Grand Central Station, Penn Station, the United Nations, and other landmarks. The announcement follows the unraveling of an alleged terrorist plot to explode homemade bombs in New York City. “We cannot afford to be complacent,” Bloomberg said. But civil-liberties activists raised alarms. “The fear is that the NYPD, without any oversight or public scrutiny, is creating a massive surveillance system,” said Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union.""
Crime and response measures have always functioned in some kind of pendulum swing--but since 9/11, the tolerance for the speed and sensitivity of the downswing has shrunk enormously. By all measures that I can tell, as a former New Yorker and general news-following person, New York has gotten safer and safer over the past twenty years. This is due to a number of things, and a certain measure of safety. Mayor Giuliani swept the city clean of drug addicts and homeless people, contributing to a sense of safety for everybody else, but creating another kind of crime against a population in great need of the city's help. Bloomberg has been accused of treading further down the path of Disneyfication, and from my own observations, Manhattan is wealthier and is home to more seemingy-transplanted, un-wacky people every time I visit, and the borders of the working class neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan just keep shifting up. What once began at 96th street now reaches 145th, etc.
So a rational fear of crime--the kind likely to be caught on surveillance cameras--is really not as big an issue in midtown as it once was, yet now this new system is being installed. The praise that politicians welcomed following 9/11 helped to cement a narrative about quick and unwavering action in the face of "terrorism," over which, it would seem to follow, we have limited intelligence control. I'm really interested in the timing of this response cycle, as it is playing out, in this case, in Manhattan.
First of all, it doesn't seem that people really push for empirical evidence that this kind of surveillance works. That would mean questioning the NYPD, and after 9/11, it's quite unpopular to do so when the threat involves "terrorism." Of course, there are instances of success, namely the intelligence operations that resulted in the capture of this latest homemade bomber. Why isn't that intelligence sufficient? This could be settled by a plea for vigilance and the very incidence of such thwarted threats, but Bloomberg's quote really hints at a different, additional can of worms: "We cannot afford to be complacent." The "We" has this massive silencing power, the direct definition of any other action as complacency. There's no way to question it without directly coming up against the issue of the collective good, a historical fear, a weird reverential relationship with authority, and the uncertainty and poor understanding of "terrorism."
For more on the NYCLU and their case, see http://www.nyclu.org/node/2624
Sunday, October 11, 2009
New York Times: Clotheslines Bans
What a bizarre, ongoing American quest to employ social control for the old fashioned ends of homogeneity :)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/us/11clothesline.html?em
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/us/11clothesline.html?em
Debate Follows Bills to Remove Clotheslines Bans
CANTON, Ohio — After taking a class that covered global warming last year, Jill Saylor decided to save energy by drying her laundry on a clothesline at her mobile home.
Skip to next paragraph 
Tyrone Dukes/The New York Times
Clotheslines were common 30 years ago, when this woman in New York hung her laundry out.
Cheryl Senter for The New York Times
Mary Lou Sayer, who uses her dryer sparingly, hanging wet laundry indoors at her condominium in Concord, N.H.
“I figured trailer parks were the one place left where hanging your laundry was actually still allowed,” she said, standing in front of her tidy yellow mobile home on an impeccably manicured lawn.
But she was wrong. Like the majority of the 60 million people who now live in the country’s roughly 300,000 private communities, Ms. Saylor was forbidden to dry her laundry outside because many people viewed it as an eyesore, not unlike storing junk cars in driveways, and a marker of poverty that lowers property values.
In the last year, however, state lawmakers in Colorado, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont have overridden these local rules with legislation protecting the right to hang laundry outdoors, citing environmental concerns since clothes dryers use at least 6 percent of all household electricity consumption.
Florida and Utah already had such laws, and similar bills are being considered in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia, clothesline advocates say.
The new laws have provoked a debate. Proponents argue they should not be prohibited by their neighbors or local community agreements from saving on energy bills or acting in an environmentally minded way. Opponents say the laws lifting bans erode local property rights and undermine the autonomy of private communities.
“It’s already hard enough to sell a house in this economy,” said Frank Rathbun, a spokesman for the national Community Associations Institute, an advocacy and education organization in Alexandria, Va., for community associations. “And when it comes to clotheslines, it should be up to each community association, not state lawmakers, to set rules, much like it is with rules involving parking, architectural guidelines or pets.”
As much a cultural clash as a political and economic one, the issue is causing tensions as homeowners, landlords and property managers have traded nasty letters and threats of legal action.
“I think sheets dangling in the wind are beautiful if they’re helping the environment,” said Mary Lou Sayer, 88, who was told firmly by fellow residents at her condominium in Concord, N.H., that she could not hang her laundry outdoors after her daughter recently suggested she do so to save energy.
Richard Jacques, 63, president of the condominium’s board, said he moved to the community specifically for its strict regulations. “Those rules are why when I look out my window I now see birds, trees and flowers, not laundry,” he said.
Driven in part by the same nostalgia that has restored the popularity of canning and private vegetable gardens, the right-to-dry movement has spawned an eclectic coalition.
“The issue has brought together younger folks who are more pro-environment and very older folks who remember a time before clotheslines became synonymous with being too poor to afford a dryer,” said a Democratic lawmaker from Virginia, State Senator Linda T. Puller, who introduced a bill last session that would prohibit community associations in the state from restricting the use of “wind energy drying devices” — i.e., clotheslines.
At least eight states already limit the ability of homeowners associations to restrict the installation of solar-energy systems, and legal experts are debating whether clotheslines might qualify.
“It seems like such a mundane thing, hanging laundry, and yet it draws in all these questions about individual rights, private property, class, aesthetics, the environment,” said Steven Lake, a British filmmaker who is releasing a documentary next May called “Drying for Freedom,” about the clothesline debate in the United States.
The film follows the actual case of feuding neighbors in Verona, Miss., where the police say one man shot and killed another last year because he was tired of telling the man to stop hanging his laundry outside.
Jeanne Bridgforth, a real estate agent in Richmond, Va., said that while she had no personal opinion on clotheslines, most of her clients were not thrilled with the idea of seeing their neighbors’ underwear blowing in the breeze.
She recalled how she was unable to sell a beautifully restored Victorian home in the Church Hill neighborhood of Richmond because it looked out onto a neighbor’s laundry hanging from a second-story back porch. In June, the house went into foreclosure.
“Where does it end?” Ms. Bridgforth said of the legislative push to prevent housing associations from forbidding clotheslines.
Dwight Merriam, a lawyer from Hartford and an expert in zoning law, dismissed this concern.
“This is not some slippery slope toward government micromanaging of private agreements,” Mr. Merriam said, adding, however, that for these state laws to succeed they need to exempt existing agreements.
One of the biggest barriers to change, he said, is that most housing compacts that were written more than 30 or so years ago allow rules to be altered only if 80 percent to 100 percent of the association members attend a meeting and vote, which rarely happens.
Ms. Saylor, from the mobile home park, said, “Pressure makes a difference.” After a petition calling on the owner of the property where she lived to reverse the prohibition against line drying laundry, she said, the owner recently acquiesced.
But Alexander Lee, a lawyer in Concord, N.H., who runs a Web site, Project Laundry List to promote hanging clothes to dry, said the actual electricity consumption by dryers was probably three times as much as federal estimates because those estimates did not take into account actual use at laundromats and in multifamily homes.
Change promises to be slow, said Mr. Lee, 35. “There are a lot of kids these days who don’t even know what a clothespin is,” he said. “They think it’s a potato chip clip.”
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