The article was great though, it’s journalistic thoroughness painted a good picture.

Duany wants to conduct an “historically sensitive redevelopment of a war-wrecked block in central Berlin.” By which he means he intends to turn it back into a department store. Pending legal disputes, however, he, erm, generously decided to wait ten years before he pushes the punks out. That stay expires in 2012.

No argument that New Orleans is rather different from other American cities, and perhaps I was harsher than I should have been in describing what I thought I liked as “accidental”. If I’m disposed to think of Duany as condescending, though, it’s because, in my experience (apparently more limited than yours — one lecture, a book, various interviews and comments in articles), I’ve found him to be rather dismissive of alternate viewpoints. In this particular case, I thought both (a) the dismissal of Pitt’s project as “bullshit” and (b) the characterization of New Orleans as by-nature “ill-governed… full of ill-educated people, with a great deal of crime, a great deal of dirt, a great deal of poverty”, in a way that implied that those things should be accepted (that implication is what is particularly objectionable), could be described as condescending. Which isn’t to say that he couldn’t also be empathetic; we all contradict ourselves.

But, that said, and while I don’t know about what he did in Berlin, I think you’re right to assume condescension (he’s not far from saying “Lower standards for lower people!”).