We Have Other Plans, Allison

I just finished reading the NYT design blogger Allison Arieff's apology for prompting a whole lot of verbal fisticuffs between suburbanites and city dwellers over her recent blog on "saving the suburbs." She says she was surprised and dismayed to see the fur fly. The original article's topic seems to have prompted all the fuss; the contents weren't really worth fighting over. Whatever the cause, starting fights among readers could be her big break. And it will get the newspapers out of the financial mess they're in. Good plan. The second blog in some ways is much more maddening.

Sorry, Allison, but I'm all for sacking the planners. It was urban planners who came up with bedroom communities and shore bungalows to serve city dwellers. Kinda classist, seems to me. No wonder there is animosity. And the designers have got grandiose but impractical ideas that can prompt a feeling of deficiency on common home owners. The perfect home is so neat it seems sterile and each room has cathedral ceilings. Well, I have mail on my kitchen table and my plain wallboard ceilings are only eight feet high, and yet I somehow survive. As for Armageddon, I'm still here to keep the critters from taking over, although the recent cold snap has caused us a bit of a tussle with the neighborhood wildlife over who should have access to the cellar. I guess we're fifty years ahead of the curve on that front.