The Shape of Munich

I just returned from my first trip to Europe.  Yes - finally!  I got to the Old Country at last.  (I'll go back, though, regrettably, not to live there.)  I visited three major cities - Paris, Berlin (with a side trip to Wolfsburg, home of Volkswagen) and Munich.  While the former two cities, both national capitals have a lot of positive attributes, I am taking a look here at Munich, which is also the capital the German state of Bavaria. 

While in Munich, I was impressed by how the city is arranged and laid out.  In the center of Munich is the Marienplatz, the public plaza reached only by bicycle or on foot, as all of the streets that directly connect to the Marienplatz (like the one shown below) are car-free.  The stores in the downtown area are a mix of American and international chains, with a decent number of local stores as well.  The plaza itself is a magnet for street performers, people watching, and public demonstrations for one cause or against another.  The city has a good mix of traditional urban neighborhoods and some suburban-style neighborhoods reminiscent of American suburban towns developed before the postwar era.  And it's all connected by a comprehensive mass transit system that includes a subway, a suburban rapid-transit rail system that runs concurrently underground with the subway, light rail, and buses.   

Meanwhile, back at home, the Democrats are struggling for a message that they can convey to Americans that will inspire to vote for them in future elections, and not just a message that will compel them to vote against Republicans. I am tempted to offer the advice that a bicameral delegation of congressional Democrats go to Munich and see how Munchers live.  The first point of fact is that, yes, people live here.  Munich has a population of purposeful, industrious people who contribute to the economy and build up the community.  (In Munich, as in everywhere else, the economy and the community are one and the same - without one, you can't have the other.)  The comprehensive transit system makes it easier to get around than even in New York,  a city that gave up its trolleys decades ago and hasn't replaced the old elevated railways on the Upper East Side.  The corporate offices of the businesses headquartered in Munich, like BMW, are located away from the core downtown area, which was thankfully left intact and never disrupted by "big footprint" projects such as the Renaissance Center in Detroit.  Parkland is plentiful, almost as plentiful as that in Paris.  For all of these reasons and more, Munich has a high quality of life.  This is in stark contrast to many places in America, where downtown areas are dead zones, people need cars to go shopping at the malls and big-box stores that drew business away from downtown areas, and the loss of the local economies that once depended on manufacturing have led to the loss of community.

So what does this have to do with the Democrats?  If a bicameral Democratic congressional delegation went to Munich or some city in Europe like it, they would see happy people enjoying happy lives.  Right now, the United States, despite being the richest nation on earth, is full of unhappy people. And many of them are unhappy because of a lesser quality of life.  Democrats could go home after seeing Munich and convey to voters a vision of how they could live and thrive like the population of Munich, in cities and towns designed for people and not for corporations, in streetscapes that don't permit cars or do permit them without letting them overwhelm the landscape.  Democrats are already trusted more than Republicans on health care, and Germany's health care system allows ordinary citizens to avoid worry about how to handle medical expenses, but with Republicans trusted more on the economy, Democrats need to show Americans how a thriving economy can be for everyone . . . and how physical communities can be crafted to allow such an economy to prosper.  

In other words, Democrats could go to Munich or any city like it (most of which are in Europe) and offer a vision based on their observations that would be superior to the corny American Dream of a house with a white picket fence in a "Leave it to Beaver"-style housing development that Republicans have long offered.

I am merely tempted to offer such advice to the Democrats, but I am stopping short of doing that.  Because Democrats are still Americans, and as Americans, they may benefit by seeing how people live in a city like Munich, but they may not thoroughly comprehend what they see.  Because they would be saddled with American biases about the quality of life - the bias toward automobile suburbia and the freedom to go where you want and when you want without having to rely on transit timetables.  And because they are Democrats, they would likely draw the wrong conclusions and learn the wrong lessons.  Centrist Democrats would go home concentrating on the major corporations in Munich that sustain the city and would continue to embrace Wall Street and its concerns, and they would find Germany's higher gasoline prices and Munich's reliance on transit too esoteric to explain to a nation of Chevrolet Suburban and Ford F-150 owners. (Münchners, as the city's residents are called, who own cars generally own compact cars or cars one or two sizes smaller.) Progressives would complain about having found nothing that would benefit specific racial and ethnic groups, as too many of them are invested in identity politics and  have little interest in anything that would benefit everyone.  

That is, Democrats are too centered on how to preserve the American way of life as it has existed for decades and can't be bothered to imagine something new based on the European cultural assumptions represented in Munich.  

Is Munich perfect?  No.  It's the most expensive city in Germany to live in.  Middle-class residents are getting priced out of the immediate area around Marienplatz. And I can say from personal experience (finally, personal experience in Europe!) that the transit system in Munich, comprehensive though it is, is rather confusing to navigate, and the route maps don't help.  Also, Munich, like most European cities, has a graffiti problem that makes the place look less than elegant.  But Munich offers Americans an example of a viable alternative to a living pattern in These States relying on high costs for shelter, transportation and energy - a living pattern that is literally driving us insane.  

The urban planning expert James Howard Kunstler, before his body was taken over by a pro-Trump MAGA pod person, once said that if we Americans made our local towns and cities better places to live and embraced a more sustainable European pattern like you find in Munich, Rotterdam, and so many other cities in the Old Country, solutions all of our other social problems would fall into place.  (Like the behavior of the police.  When I was in Munich, a police officer scolded me for having stood in the middle of Leopoldstrasse on a painted median to photograph a memorial arch from the proper angle, but he did not rough me up, which is how I'm sure an American big-city policeman would have dealt with me in a similar situation and how some American private-firm security officers deal with people.  And while this Munich policeman spoke to me in German - hence I could not understand his verbiage, even if I did get the gist of it - his tone, though admonitory, was not nasty.)  But in order to take a masterstroke that would alleviate our social and economic problems like designing places that make people feel good to be there, the Democrats (the Republicans? highly implausible) would have to understand the need for making such places.  If a delegation of congressional Democrats were to go to Munich to get an idea of what their message to voters ought to be, it seems highly unlikely that what they would see would necessarily inspire them - and, in turn, encourage them to inspire others - to make America a nation of better places to live in.