http://dornob.com/constructive-concrete-incredible-carbon-negative-cement/
31.8.11
kids reasct to bin Laden's death
I am concerned about these kids' perceptions of 9/11, the war on terror, and our country. I am also very concerned about how ridiculous their personalities are when they are so young. The kid with the self-effacing: "I mean, what do I know? I'm like 10." This is hilarious and strange.
past non-profit, to B Corporations
Before I received a notice from Couchsurfing.com, I never heard of B Corporations. I also did not know that organizations rejected for 501c(3) nonprofit status can find even better benefits in becoming B Corporations.
http://blog.bcorporation.net/2011/08/nine-certified-b-corporations-named-americas-most-promising-social-entrepreneurs-2011-by-bloomberg-businessweek/
http://blog.bcorporation.net/2011/08/nine-certified-b-corporations-named-americas-most-promising-social-entrepreneurs-2011-by-bloomberg-businessweek/
question: who stands like this?
answer: people who are going to fall over
Sometimes it seems mainstream fashion wants us to look like bumbling idiots.*
*Correction (agreeing with the comment): It seems mainstream fashion wants us to look like bumbling idiots.
letter to Grist from activist Tim DeChristopher
http://www.grist.org/politics/2011-08-29-letter-from-prison-tim-dechristopher-speaks
"Their willingness to let a direct action off with a slap on the wrist while handing out two years for political statements comes from their understanding of the power of an individual."
30.8.11
Flobots message with TEDX
Also known as Brer Rabbit and Jonny 5 of the hip hop group, Flobots, Stephen and Jamie share their holistic media experiment that invites listeners to "live the lyrics."
Seattle passes tunnel plans
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015928327_elextunnel17m.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/us/19seattle.html
From what I understand, the city had a window of time to develop plans to receive federal funding to replace the defunct viaduct. Of 3 proposals, the tunnel plan was put forth by city and state administration as the best feasible option, both for the waterfront and for using the federal money. Arguments against turning this stretch of 99/Aurora into a surface street include the slowing of traffic and the increased traffic it would likely add to our other nearby expressway, I-5. It would also remain noisy, like the viaduct, although Seattleites have stopped complaining about the noise for some time now. Arguments against the tunnel include the fear that the project will go the way of Boston’s Big Dig, which was drastically more costly than first projected. I want to replace the viaduct only because it is unsafe, particularly in the event of another earthquake. It’s replacement has been battled for a long time, long before I lived here, so I am certain there is a level of impatience and more factors than I have yet encountered. If you are a city resident who fears the viaduct, one solution is to choose to not use it.
However, I am still alarmed that nobody seems to notice that the phrase WATERFRONT TUNNEL is an oxymoron. I hope a Hollywood producer is just waiting for this tunnel to produce a summer blockbuster disaster film where residents are trapped in their cars, under water, in a tunnel. I am not without faith in human engineering, but I am without faith in American public works in the past few decades: we continually say that something that extreme would never happen, then cry as mother nature slaps our knuckles with a bevy of storms. Even though we are supposedly the most powerful and wealthy country, we don’t even treat ourselves to high quality infrastructure. We don’t even produce the steel here to make incredible public infrastructure works anymore.
Residents of the city were outraged to find that something as large and affecting as our major motorway is not done by referendum, but in city administration contracts. We gathered enough signatures to put a referendum to vote, but the tunnel plan still won. The tunnel will also have a toll of up to $4:
“Once finished, the highway is projected to handle less than half the traffic the current viaduct handles, in part because tolls will be charged — they are expected to be as high as $4 — and are likely to prompt many drivers to use free routes. But the tunnel is strongly supported by most top business and political leaders (after Tuesday’s vote, even Mayor McGinn said the city had spoken and the project should go forward) who say it will ease highway traffic through the city, improve transportation routes to the Port of Seattle and open up the waterfront.”
I am dumbfounded why we pushed so hard for federal money and will still collect steep tolls. I am not against the idea of tolls, I am against the idea of both federal money and tolls because the bid for the federal money forced us to take up a poor plan, then we still have to pay. I would have supported tolls or a city wide sales tax increase so we could have at least done it our way. I am unsure what is meant by “ease highway traffic through the city”. With <$4 tolls, I-5 will have increased traffic, which is not easing. Major arterials in the central city will also have increased traffic, which is a burden to residential neighborhoods, pedestrians, and distributes increased infrastructure stress and cost across the city. (Funding has been increased for these repairs too: http://conlin.seattle.gov/2011/08/08/tunnel-project-funds-seattle-street-repairs/)
A surface street plan would also force traffic and stress on I-5 and other streets, but it would not be at the cost of $4 tolls, the large inconvenience of dig construction, the future threat of either natural disaster, or the cost of maintaining a waterfront tunnel.
There are also plans to increase the Seattle Streetcar network http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/future.asp). The only streetcar line currently running is one between downtown and the South Lake Union area. This is not a high traffic area, since new residences are still being built in this formerly warehouse-heavy area. We still have that silly monorail and we also have the Central Link system, which is currently expanding to Capitol Hill and the University District. I support public transit and think many of these lines might have success, but I am concerned that having so many different systems doesn’t increase ride-time efficiency and is costly in administration and infrastructure. Overall I appreciate the amping-up on public transit options, but I don’t understand why the tunnel is a greater partner to this plan instead of a surface street.
Seattle is known across the country as a progressive city (the word progressive is so useless, but since it is the common term, I am using it), but the city has decided to favor federal coddling instead of making its own bold move.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/us/19seattle.html
From what I understand, the city had a window of time to develop plans to receive federal funding to replace the defunct viaduct. Of 3 proposals, the tunnel plan was put forth by city and state administration as the best feasible option, both for the waterfront and for using the federal money. Arguments against turning this stretch of 99/Aurora into a surface street include the slowing of traffic and the increased traffic it would likely add to our other nearby expressway, I-5. It would also remain noisy, like the viaduct, although Seattleites have stopped complaining about the noise for some time now. Arguments against the tunnel include the fear that the project will go the way of Boston’s Big Dig, which was drastically more costly than first projected. I want to replace the viaduct only because it is unsafe, particularly in the event of another earthquake. It’s replacement has been battled for a long time, long before I lived here, so I am certain there is a level of impatience and more factors than I have yet encountered. If you are a city resident who fears the viaduct, one solution is to choose to not use it.
However, I am still alarmed that nobody seems to notice that the phrase WATERFRONT TUNNEL is an oxymoron. I hope a Hollywood producer is just waiting for this tunnel to produce a summer blockbuster disaster film where residents are trapped in their cars, under water, in a tunnel. I am not without faith in human engineering, but I am without faith in American public works in the past few decades: we continually say that something that extreme would never happen, then cry as mother nature slaps our knuckles with a bevy of storms. Even though we are supposedly the most powerful and wealthy country, we don’t even treat ourselves to high quality infrastructure. We don’t even produce the steel here to make incredible public infrastructure works anymore.
Residents of the city were outraged to find that something as large and affecting as our major motorway is not done by referendum, but in city administration contracts. We gathered enough signatures to put a referendum to vote, but the tunnel plan still won. The tunnel will also have a toll of up to $4:
“Once finished, the highway is projected to handle less than half the traffic the current viaduct handles, in part because tolls will be charged — they are expected to be as high as $4 — and are likely to prompt many drivers to use free routes. But the tunnel is strongly supported by most top business and political leaders (after Tuesday’s vote, even Mayor McGinn said the city had spoken and the project should go forward) who say it will ease highway traffic through the city, improve transportation routes to the Port of Seattle and open up the waterfront.”
I am dumbfounded why we pushed so hard for federal money and will still collect steep tolls. I am not against the idea of tolls, I am against the idea of both federal money and tolls because the bid for the federal money forced us to take up a poor plan, then we still have to pay. I would have supported tolls or a city wide sales tax increase so we could have at least done it our way. I am unsure what is meant by “ease highway traffic through the city”. With <$4 tolls, I-5 will have increased traffic, which is not easing. Major arterials in the central city will also have increased traffic, which is a burden to residential neighborhoods, pedestrians, and distributes increased infrastructure stress and cost across the city. (Funding has been increased for these repairs too: http://conlin.seattle.gov/2011/08/08/tunnel-project-funds-seattle-street-repairs/)
A surface street plan would also force traffic and stress on I-5 and other streets, but it would not be at the cost of $4 tolls, the large inconvenience of dig construction, the future threat of either natural disaster, or the cost of maintaining a waterfront tunnel.
There are also plans to increase the Seattle Streetcar network http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/future.asp). The only streetcar line currently running is one between downtown and the South Lake Union area. This is not a high traffic area, since new residences are still being built in this formerly warehouse-heavy area. We still have that silly monorail and we also have the Central Link system, which is currently expanding to Capitol Hill and the University District. I support public transit and think many of these lines might have success, but I am concerned that having so many different systems doesn’t increase ride-time efficiency and is costly in administration and infrastructure. Overall I appreciate the amping-up on public transit options, but I don’t understand why the tunnel is a greater partner to this plan instead of a surface street.
Seattle is known across the country as a progressive city (the word progressive is so useless, but since it is the common term, I am using it), but the city has decided to favor federal coddling instead of making its own bold move.
29.8.11
from the Atlantic: Americans Should Be Able to Sell Stuff Without a Permit
by Conor Friedersdorf
In a small municipality on the shores of Lake Michigan, a town council passed a law earlier this summer that is especially objectionable in tough economic times. "It is in the interest of public safety and welfare to require certain individuals to obtain a license before conducting solicitations or making sales transactions throughout the town," the Burns Harbor, Indiana, ordinance states. Put simply, if you aren't a resident, you'll need an expensive permit to make or sell anything, whether on the street, door-to-door, or in a brick-and-mortar business inside town.
What's required for a permit?
One hundred dollars, getting fingerprinted by police, and a criminal background check. "If the applicant has been convicted of any misdemeanor or felony, the permit application may be rejected," the law states. And if you're granted a 30 day permit? Once it expires, you're ineligible to apply again for six whole months.
This is the sort of story that makes me furious. Burns Harbor officials insist their law is necessary to protect public safety, but from 2001 to 2009, an eight year stretch before the law was passed, the town had zero murders, zero rapes, and three robberies. Its police presence is 4.36 officers per 100,000 residents, compared to an average of 1.87 officers per 100,000 residents elsewhere in Indiana. Meanwhile, there are high unemployment rates and tens of thousands of people on food stamps in the surrounding Lake Michigan region. Few firms are hiring. People are looking for a way to make a living. Some of them want to sell stuff. Why burden them? Why force folks to be fingerprinted like a criminal if they want to hawk goods at a local flea market? Why exclude from commerce people convicted of a mere misdemeanor? In a global economy, why should a traveling salesman be allowed to sell his goods only at 6 month intervals inside a town of 1,156 people?
The town council is abusing its authority. Alas, theirs is a common attitude. The normal mindset among U.S. officials is that prior permission should be required to sell legal goods to a willing buyer. Kids selling lemonade on the street are shut down. A Missouri man has been fined $90,000 for selling rabbits (he made about $200). In Illinois, an artisan ice cream maker is being shut down for lack of a dairy permit. Manuel Winn was arrested, handcuffed, and booked for selling magazines door-to-door without a permit. A Maryland mother of three was arrested for selling $2 phone cards without a license. Lots of municipalities are going after food trucks. A group of Louisiana monks had to go to court to win the right to sell simple wooden caskets to consumers.
If you read enough of these stories, you'll see the targeted entrepreneurs say the same thing again and again: I just had a good idea and started a business. It never occurred to me that I needed permission. And, of course, other would be entrepreneurs don't ever get started because they're too intimidated to assess and grapple with the bureaucratic hurdles. Or else the regulations are written in a way that excludes from commerce folks who are operating at a very small scale.
These needless, onerous regulations would be objectionable at any time. But they're particularly problematic when many Americans find themselves unemployed, needful of income, and thrust into the position of doing what they can to get by. That may mean a series of garage sales, or selling fruit from a backyard tree, or making a craft to offer for sale on the street, or going door-to-door offering handyman skills, or any number of other informal businesses. We're making things harder on the least advantaged among us, and some are forced to take more social welfare because laws prevent them from making a living on their own.
This isn't a jeremiad against all government regulation. Should commercial airline pilots be required to have a license? Sure. Are zoning restrictions sometimes legitimate? Of course. But is society really going to suffer if lemonade vendors, casket makers and purveyors of $2 phone cards sell their wares without permission? The default should be that free citizens can engage in commerce with one another, sans any prior restraint by federal, state, or local governments. It's time to deregulate.
In a small municipality on the shores of Lake Michigan, a town council passed a law earlier this summer that is especially objectionable in tough economic times. "It is in the interest of public safety and welfare to require certain individuals to obtain a license before conducting solicitations or making sales transactions throughout the town," the Burns Harbor, Indiana, ordinance states. Put simply, if you aren't a resident, you'll need an expensive permit to make or sell anything, whether on the street, door-to-door, or in a brick-and-mortar business inside town.
What's required for a permit?
One hundred dollars, getting fingerprinted by police, and a criminal background check. "If the applicant has been convicted of any misdemeanor or felony, the permit application may be rejected," the law states. And if you're granted a 30 day permit? Once it expires, you're ineligible to apply again for six whole months.
This is the sort of story that makes me furious. Burns Harbor officials insist their law is necessary to protect public safety, but from 2001 to 2009, an eight year stretch before the law was passed, the town had zero murders, zero rapes, and three robberies. Its police presence is 4.36 officers per 100,000 residents, compared to an average of 1.87 officers per 100,000 residents elsewhere in Indiana. Meanwhile, there are high unemployment rates and tens of thousands of people on food stamps in the surrounding Lake Michigan region. Few firms are hiring. People are looking for a way to make a living. Some of them want to sell stuff. Why burden them? Why force folks to be fingerprinted like a criminal if they want to hawk goods at a local flea market? Why exclude from commerce people convicted of a mere misdemeanor? In a global economy, why should a traveling salesman be allowed to sell his goods only at 6 month intervals inside a town of 1,156 people?
The town council is abusing its authority. Alas, theirs is a common attitude. The normal mindset among U.S. officials is that prior permission should be required to sell legal goods to a willing buyer. Kids selling lemonade on the street are shut down. A Missouri man has been fined $90,000 for selling rabbits (he made about $200). In Illinois, an artisan ice cream maker is being shut down for lack of a dairy permit. Manuel Winn was arrested, handcuffed, and booked for selling magazines door-to-door without a permit. A Maryland mother of three was arrested for selling $2 phone cards without a license. Lots of municipalities are going after food trucks. A group of Louisiana monks had to go to court to win the right to sell simple wooden caskets to consumers.
If you read enough of these stories, you'll see the targeted entrepreneurs say the same thing again and again: I just had a good idea and started a business. It never occurred to me that I needed permission. And, of course, other would be entrepreneurs don't ever get started because they're too intimidated to assess and grapple with the bureaucratic hurdles. Or else the regulations are written in a way that excludes from commerce folks who are operating at a very small scale.
These needless, onerous regulations would be objectionable at any time. But they're particularly problematic when many Americans find themselves unemployed, needful of income, and thrust into the position of doing what they can to get by. That may mean a series of garage sales, or selling fruit from a backyard tree, or making a craft to offer for sale on the street, or going door-to-door offering handyman skills, or any number of other informal businesses. We're making things harder on the least advantaged among us, and some are forced to take more social welfare because laws prevent them from making a living on their own.
This isn't a jeremiad against all government regulation. Should commercial airline pilots be required to have a license? Sure. Are zoning restrictions sometimes legitimate? Of course. But is society really going to suffer if lemonade vendors, casket makers and purveyors of $2 phone cards sell their wares without permission? The default should be that free citizens can engage in commerce with one another, sans any prior restraint by federal, state, or local governments. It's time to deregulate.
from the Atlantic: Hurricane Irene and American Self-Centeredness
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/hurricane-irene-and-american-self-centeredness/244239/
From England: "rest of world doesn't care are watching Libya coverage on Sky or AJE or BBC or RT, what is CNN!!?"
From Serbia: "I cannot speak for the whole world, but I think, nobody outside takes 24/7 US 'news'-media serious. We study you like ants. ;-)"
From India: "Wait, u don't like that CNN is doing that? Wonder how I feel when they always have their anchors air from ghettos in New Delhi?"
And perhaps most tellingly, also from Britain: "Ask a tourist where they're from. A Londoner will say, "England". A Frenchman: "France". An American? "Delaware"!" fro
From England: "rest of world doesn't care are watching Libya coverage on Sky or AJE or BBC or RT, what is CNN!!?"
From Serbia: "I cannot speak for the whole world, but I think, nobody outside takes 24/7 US 'news'-media serious. We study you like ants. ;-)"
From India: "Wait, u don't like that CNN is doing that? Wonder how I feel when they always have their anchors air from ghettos in New Delhi?"
And perhaps most tellingly, also from Britain: "Ask a tourist where they're from. A Londoner will say, "England". A Frenchman: "France". An American? "Delaware"!" fro
"Number of American civilians who died worldwide in terrorist attacks last year: 8 -- Minimum number who died after being struck by lightning: 29."
Meanwhile, much of the anti-Terrorism weaponry in the U.S. ends up being deployed for purposes of purely domestic policing. As the LA Times notes: those aforementioned BearCats are "are now deployed by police across the country; the arrests of methamphetamine dealers and bank robbers these days often look much like a tactical assault on insurgents in Baghdad." Drones are used both in the Drug War and to patrol the border. Surveillance measures originally justified as necessary to fight foreign Terrorists are routinely turned far more often inward, and the NSA -- created with a taboo against domestic spying -- now does that regularly.
http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/08/29/terrorism
http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/08/29/terrorism
25.8.11
imported from an old blog
This is a discussion started with my friend Kai in early 2009. I am copying it here to keep these ideas going.
Here is an excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. The character Kilgore Trout is a science fiction writer riding with a trucker in this part.
The driver said he used to be a hunter and a fisherman, long ago. It broke his heart when he imagined what the marshes and meadows had been like one a hundred years before. "And when you think of the shit that most of these factories make- wash day products, catfood, pop-"
"He had a point. The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large. (Kilgore talks about not being much of a conservationist for a while, citing that the Creator of the Universe regularly destroys things with natural disasters.)
They rode in silence for a while, and then the driver made another good point. He said he knew that his truck was turning the atmosphere into poison gas, and that the planet was being turned into pavement so his truck could go anywhere. "So I'm committing suicide," he said.
"Don't worry about it," said Trout.
"My brother is even worse," the driver went on. "He works in a factory that makes chemicals for killing plants and trees in Vietnam. Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes. The chemicals he mentioned were intended to kill all the foliage, so it would be harder for communists to hide from airplanes.
"Don't worry about it," said Trout.
"In the long run, he's committing suicide," said the driver. "Seems like the only kind of job an American can get these days is committing suicide in some way."
"I can't tell if you're serious or not," said the driver.
"I won't know myself until I found out whether life is serious or not," said Trout. "It'sdangerous, I know, and it can hurt a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean it's serious, too."
"At least it's olives," said the driver.
"What?" said Trout.
"Lots worse things we could be hauling than olives."
"Right," said Trout. He had forgotten that the main thing they were doing was moving seventy-eight thousand pounds of olives to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I am also not sure that there is a reason to take life seriously, but that is at odds with how frustrated I am about our consumer based economy. I had this conversation with a guy in the MN airport and we both didn't know how to respond to: what can we do now, where can we go from here?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is an excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. The character Kilgore Trout is a science fiction writer riding with a trucker in this part.
The driver said he used to be a hunter and a fisherman, long ago. It broke his heart when he imagined what the marshes and meadows had been like one a hundred years before. "And when you think of the shit that most of these factories make- wash day products, catfood, pop-"
"He had a point. The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large. (Kilgore talks about not being much of a conservationist for a while, citing that the Creator of the Universe regularly destroys things with natural disasters.)
They rode in silence for a while, and then the driver made another good point. He said he knew that his truck was turning the atmosphere into poison gas, and that the planet was being turned into pavement so his truck could go anywhere. "So I'm committing suicide," he said.
"Don't worry about it," said Trout.
"My brother is even worse," the driver went on. "He works in a factory that makes chemicals for killing plants and trees in Vietnam. Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes. The chemicals he mentioned were intended to kill all the foliage, so it would be harder for communists to hide from airplanes.
"Don't worry about it," said Trout.
"In the long run, he's committing suicide," said the driver. "Seems like the only kind of job an American can get these days is committing suicide in some way."
"I can't tell if you're serious or not," said the driver.
"I won't know myself until I found out whether life is serious or not," said Trout. "It'sdangerous, I know, and it can hurt a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean it's serious, too."
"At least it's olives," said the driver.
"What?" said Trout.
"Lots worse things we could be hauling than olives."
"Right," said Trout. He had forgotten that the main thing they were doing was moving seventy-eight thousand pounds of olives to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I am also not sure that there is a reason to take life seriously, but that is at odds with how frustrated I am about our consumer based economy. I had this conversation with a guy in the MN airport and we both didn't know how to respond to: what can we do now, where can we go from here?
from NPR: Knowing What You Buy
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99311943
When Scott Ballum turned 30, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based graphic designer started the Consumer®econnection Project: a yearlong effort to only make purchases if he could make a personal connection with someone along an item's production chain. Now in its 10th month, the effort has been both challenging and life changing.
24.8.11
wind farms taking a hint from fish
Schools of fish help squeeze more power from wind farms
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14452133
article: The Emotional Landscape of Vacancy
http://rustwire.com/2011/07/22/the-emotional-landscape-of-vacancy/
The Emotional Landscape of Vacancy
by: Richey Piiparinen
Our physical world plays a big part in our mental state. This is the basis for architecture—or the motive to design a buildable quality that can stir the better parts in us. Yet there are two sides to this coin, as there are physical stimuli like abandoned houses that can arouse various feelings we’d prefer not to feel. After all, a home is perhaps the archetypal symbol of security—you know: home is where the heart is, or where you lay your hat …
The Emotional Landscape of Vacancy
by: Richey Piiparinen
Our physical world plays a big part in our mental state. This is the basis for architecture—or the motive to design a buildable quality that can stir the better parts in us. Yet there are two sides to this coin, as there are physical stimuli like abandoned houses that can arouse various feelings we’d prefer not to feel. After all, a home is perhaps the archetypal symbol of security—you know: home is where the heart is, or where you lay your hat …
And as is the case when our surroundings provoke a constant, if low-level, unease, there inevitably follows attempts to become comfortable in our homes, as well as in the immediate context of our homes. To reassert control, folks have dealt with the perceived insecurities of vacancy a number of ways:
- They Leave: Cities shrink because people leave. People leave what they perceive as fearful because it is ingrained into our amygdala, or our “lizard brain”. Vacancy, as such, invokes insecurity which invokes a diluted “fight or flight” response, with the emphasis on the latter in this case.
- They Fight: This is the “fight” component coming from the lizard brain. Here, folks literally take it to abandonment like it was a bully. Examples: Detroit’s Devil’s Night, or the annual arson rampage in which vacant houses are used to turn the city into a campfire. Recently, a Clevelander and his two sons were arrested when the teens doused an eyesore with lighter fluid and lit it up. A year and half ago, a natural gas explosion that was later ruled arson wiped out a chunk of W. 83rd St. in Cleveland (see right). The examples are surprisingly endless really.
- They Learn Helplessness: If Pavlov’s dog showed one thing it was that a creature will disable an emotional response to something that is perceived as being out of its control. Given that housing courts cannot get at the root of abandonment due to such sand-in-the-eye practices as real estate owned transactions, what’s a lone individual supposed to do besides say: “fuck it”?
Summing, our vacancy-littered cities can create for a context of insecurity, or an emotional landscape that folks become resigned to, flee, or fight with fire and gas bombs. And while these are bad coping mechanisms, there is little an individual can do, as rampant vacancy is a societal problem that needs societal solutions.
Organizationally speaking, while a city can and does use bad coping mechanisms to fend off the existential crisis of shrinking (e.g., mass demolition of otherwise great built stock = “fight”), a better alternative is through rationalization, or problem-solving—i.e., land banking for strategic reinvestment, code enforcement, block club chain letters to vacant property owners. Still, such responses are limited as they are logical attempts to address problems of an emotional context[1]. Yet this is what urban planning has historically done: bricks, plans, and mortar to fix what doesn’t feel right. What is needed is a complimentary perspective in which innovative urban planning interventions address the totality of the city landscape, or its heart, its mind, and its body.
The beauty in vacancy. Photograph by Andrew Moore courtesy DAP.
Enter art. To wit: the interesting thing about Ruin Porn was that the photographs of “abandonment beauty” effectively challenged our perceptions of decay. In other words, what was once only associated as dead, losing, lost, and disinvested in became the notion of the frontier. Folks, then, flocked to empty factories and houses near and wide to make art, with the Ruin Porn aesthetic even morphing into an evolving “new genre of Americana”, or Rust Belt Chic. And while Ruin Porn, as a form, has begun to take on somewhat negative connotations, what cannot be argued is the fact that it opened up a perceptual door to what vacancy—disrobed of its emotional baggage—may actually mean.
After all, there is a fine line between emptiness and space.
Now, how can cities begin to institutionalize not only a city’s emotional context into their thought processes, but the power of creativity to soothe where the city hurts? Recently Aaron Renn at the Urbanophile posted a piece asking “Do Cities Need a Creative Director?” While his intent was for the director to address (and carve out) the unique brand of the city, I’d add an additional role: to identify and attend to the unique emotional needs of a city that have arisen out of its history and that are tied to its physical landscape. Part psychologist, part artist, such a person could begin the surfacing of that which is bubbling beneath the topography of most places, but in the Rust Belt: that which is living beside us as we sleep.
[1] You could argue getting rid of the vacancy would get rid of the fear. But this is like saying you can get rid of a bridge phobia by strategically mapping one’s way around the city without ever having to cross a bridge. It would be better to get at the source of fear, which in the case of the Rust Belt city goes beyond the existence of abandoned structures and to the overall theme of loss that each city has been struggling with since the 50’s.
–Richey Piiparinen
the problem with American transportation planning: mind-set
For decades, many cities across the States have wasted public funds on developing transportation plans that seek to gain ridership from a very individualistic citizenry. When I read articles about the failures of these plans, I always think that the planning board or city administration was far too optimistic about getting Americans to join the idea. They seem to not be able to figure out functional incentives to get people to use mass transit.
Here is an op-ed from an American living in Amsterdam. I shared many of his observations and sentiments when I lived in Holland.
The Dutch Way: Bicycles and Fresh Bread
by: Russell Shorto
As an American who has been living here for several years, I am struck, every time I go home, by the way American cities remain manacled to the car. While Europe is dealing with congestion and greenhouse gas buildup by turning urban centers into pedestrian zones and finding innovative ways to combine driving with public transportation, many American cities are carving out more parking spaces. It’s all the more bewildering because America’s collapsing infrastructure would seem to cry out for new solutions.
Here is an op-ed from an American living in Amsterdam. I shared many of his observations and sentiments when I lived in Holland.
The Dutch Way: Bicycles and Fresh Bread
by: Russell Shorto
As an American who has been living here for several years, I am struck, every time I go home, by the way American cities remain manacled to the car. While Europe is dealing with congestion and greenhouse gas buildup by turning urban centers into pedestrian zones and finding innovative ways to combine driving with public transportation, many American cities are carving out more parking spaces. It’s all the more bewildering because America’s collapsing infrastructure would seem to cry out for new solutions.
Geography partly explains the difference: America is spread out, while European cities predate the car. But Boston and Philadelphia have old centers too, while the peripheral sprawl in London and Barcelona mirrors that of American cities.
More important, I think, is mind-set. Take bicycles. The advent of bike lanes in some American cities may seem like a big step, but merely marking a strip of the road for recreational cycling spectacularly misses the point. In Amsterdam, nearly everyone cycles, and cars, bikes and trams coexist in a complex flow, with dedicated bicycle lanes, traffic lights and parking garages. But this is thanks to a different way of thinking about transportation.
To give a small but telling example, pointed out to me by my friend Ruth Oldenziel, an expert on the history of technology at Eindhoven University, Dutch drivers are taught that when you are about to get out of the car, you reach for the door handle with your right hand — bringing your arm across your body to the door. This forces a driver to swivel shoulders and head, so that before opening the door you can see if there is a bike coming from behind. Likewise, every Dutch child has to pass a bicycle safety exam at school. The coexistence of different modes of travel is hard-wired into the culture.
This in turn relates to lots of other things — such as bread. How? Cyclists can’t carry six bags of groceries; bulk buying is almost nonexistent. Instead of shopping for a week, people stop at the market daily. So the need for processed loaves that will last for days is gone. A result: good bread.
There are also in the United States certain perceptions associated with both cycling and public transportation that are not the case here. In Holland, public buses aren’t considered last-resort forms of transportation. And cycling isn’t seen as eco-friendly exercise; it’s a way to get around. C.E.O.’s cycle to work, and kids cycle to school.
It’s true that public policy reinforces the egalitarianism. With mandatory lessons and other fees, getting a driver’s license costs more than $1,000. And taxi fares are kept deliberately high: a trip from the airport may cost $80, while a 20-minute bus ride sets you back about $3.50. But the egalitarianism — or maybe better said a preference for simplicity — is also rooted in the culture. A 17th-century French naval commander was shocked to see a Dutch captain sweeping out his own quarters. Likewise, I used to run into the mayor of Amsterdam at the supermarket, and he wasn’t engaged in a populist stunt (mayors aren’t elected here but are government appointees); he was shopping.
For American cities to think outside the car would seem to require a mental sea change. Then again, Americans, too, are practical, no-nonsense people. And Zef Hemel, the chief planner for the city of Amsterdam, reminded me that sea changes do happen. “Back in the 1960s, we were doing the same thing as America, making cities car-friendly,” he said. Funnily enough, it was an American, Jane Jacobs, who changed the minds of European urban designers. Her book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” got European planners to shift their focus from car-friendliness to overall livability.
When I noted that Manhattan’s bike lanes seem to be used more for recreation than transport — cyclists in Amsterdam are dressed in everything from jeans to cocktail dresses, while those in Manhattan often look like spandex cyborgs — Mr. Hemel told me to give it time. “Those are the pioneers," he said. “You have to start somewhere.”
What he meant was, “You start with bike lanes” — that is, with the conviction that urban planning can bring about beneficial cultural changes. But that points up another mental difference: the willingness of Europeans to follow top-down social planning. America’s famed individualism breeds an often healthy distrust of the elite. I’m as quick as any other red-blooded American to bristle at European technocrats telling me how to live. (Try buying a light bulb or a magazine after 6 p.m. in Amsterdam, where the political elite have decreed that workers’ well-being requires that shops be open only during standard office hours, precisely when most people can’t shop.)
But while many Americans see their cars as an extension of their individual freedom, to some of us owning a car is a burden, and in a city a double burden. I find the recrafting of the city in order to lessen — or eliminate — the need for cars to be not just grudgingly acceptable, but, yes, an expansion of my individual freedom. So I say (in this case, at least): Go, social-planning technocrats! If only America’s cities could be so free.
19.8.11
Couchsurfing Cares
An incredible way to show compassion is to offer transitional housing. I am posting this so people will know it exists:
http://www.couchsurfing.org/cares
http://www.couchsurfing.org/cares
Mapping Compassionate Seattle- please volunteer to be interviewed or to help on the project!
I volunteer with Compassionate Action Network, helping to organize interviewers for "Mapping Compassionate Seattle".
Please contact me:
-If you are interested in giving some words on "What is Compassion?"
-If you can think of people in the Seattle area who would have something vivid to say about compassion.
-If you would like to meet terribly interesting people by becoming an interviewer.
-If you are willing to donate a few hours to learning to edit the interview videos (very simple, great experience!).
For more information:
http://my.compassionateactionnetwork.com/group/mappingcompassionateseattle
Please contact me:
-If you are interested in giving some words on "What is Compassion?"
-If you can think of people in the Seattle area who would have something vivid to say about compassion.
-If you would like to meet terribly interesting people by becoming an interviewer.
-If you are willing to donate a few hours to learning to edit the interview videos (very simple, great experience!).
For more information:
http://my.compassionateactionnetwork.com/group/mappingcompassionateseattle
15.8.11
Alex Steffen: We Can’t Avert Climate Change Without Dense Cities
"Our economy, by and large, operates, as Paul Hawken said "bystealing from the future, selling it in the present , and calling it GDP."
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang///id/1207
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang///id/1207
9.8.11
A Different Education: Compost and Community, Not Literacy
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/08/a-different-education-compost-and-community-not-literacy/242874/
an excerpt:
The school seeks to "create a resource-rich safe space for youth empowerment and sustainable community development," according to its mission. In a neighborhood notorious for violence, it's a place where students can explore their interests, learn skills like blogging, and formulate and pursue goals. But before you can plan where you're going, Turner says, it helps to understand where you are. Local history is an important part of the curriculum. "They learn that things didn't just happen this way, that certain things led up to it."
an excerpt:
The school seeks to "create a resource-rich safe space for youth empowerment and sustainable community development," according to its mission. In a neighborhood notorious for violence, it's a place where students can explore their interests, learn skills like blogging, and formulate and pursue goals. But before you can plan where you're going, Turner says, it helps to understand where you are. Local history is an important part of the curriculum. "They learn that things didn't just happen this way, that certain things led up to it."
8.8.11
"Slowing Down the Consumer Treadmill" from the Humanist
http://thehumanist.org/july-august-2011/slowing-down-the-consumer-treadmill/
If solving the climate change problem were as simple as handing out light bulbs, we’d be all set.
...
Slowing Down the Consumer Treadmill
If solving the climate change problem were as simple as handing out light bulbs, we’d be all set.
...
The economist Juliet Schor, in her 2010 book, Plenitude, advocates a path to sustainability in which people work shorter hours, so they earn less and spend less, but have more free time to enjoy life. With less money, they’ll have to spend their leisure time in a less resource-intensive and more leisurely way. “In general, doing things faster tends to use more resources,” Schor said. “To truly get to sustainability, we’re going to have to slow down.”
5.8.11
Scientists Invent Heat-Regulating Building Material
http://www.buildings.com/Magazine/ArticleDetails/tabid/3413/ArticleID/12655/Default.aspx
The energy storage phase change material (PCM) has possesses a larger energy storage capacity with faster thermal response than existing materials and could be cheaply manufactured.
If the desired temperature in a room is 22°C, the material can be adjusted so that it starts absorbing any excess heat above that temperature.
The material is the size of a large coin and can be manufactured in a variety of shapes and sizes. It also can be used in both existing and new buildings.
>>>But how much fossil fuel does it use to create?
The energy storage phase change material (PCM) has possesses a larger energy storage capacity with faster thermal response than existing materials and could be cheaply manufactured.
If the desired temperature in a room is 22°C, the material can be adjusted so that it starts absorbing any excess heat above that temperature.
The material is the size of a large coin and can be manufactured in a variety of shapes and sizes. It also can be used in both existing and new buildings.
>>>But how much fossil fuel does it use to create?
3.8.11
David Foster Wallace interview from 1997
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5639
This interview is incredible, topics include: pedagogy, Lynch films (a much more intelligent analysis than I have heard many places), the use of the term "post-modern", women not often enjoying Western films (I was raised on them, so this excludes me), Paul Cézanne's desire to make a large, great painting: "What the really great artists do is they are entirely themselves". He also refers to his early self as a "library wieny".
This interview is incredible, topics include: pedagogy, Lynch films (a much more intelligent analysis than I have heard many places), the use of the term "post-modern", women not often enjoying Western films (I was raised on them, so this excludes me), Paul Cézanne's desire to make a large, great painting: "What the really great artists do is they are entirely themselves". He also refers to his early self as a "library wieny".
2.8.11
another American hoax: 'the pursuit of happiness"
Last month's cover article in the Atlantic was about how the cult of self esteem is ruining our kids (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine). I've been thinking about the pursuit of happiness and happiness as a goal. I don't think I like the word. I looked it up: eudaemonia is a Greek word commonly translated as happiness, however "human flourishing" is a more accurate translation. "Human flourishing" sounds like something that can include the timely depths that are needed to bring reflection, change, and satisfaction in people's lives. I don't think happiness is my goal and I am going to stop mindlessly participating in its constant promotion. I think compassion is a better personal campaign and it will probably lead to more human flourishing.
1.8.11
gas consumption of American cities
http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/mint-data-shows-where-the-gas-money-goes/?display=wide
Cheers to Seattle and of course Madison, but a surprising cheers to Chicago as well.
America's Coming Infrastructure Crash By Michael Mandel
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/americas-coming-infrastructure-crash/242489/
When President Obama took office in January 2009, he promised that " to lay a new foundation for growth....we will build the roads and bridges." And in his 2011 State of the Union address, he promised to "put more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and bridges."
But as all attention is focused on the debt ceiling battle, here's what's happening on the infrastructure front. Highway, street, and bridge construction jobs through the first five months of 2011 are running 18% below 2007 levels, and the stimulus money is fading. House Republicans are proposing to cut future federal infrastructure funding by roughly one-third. And any defaults among state and local governments would raise borrowing costs for infrastructure bonds across the country and in some cases make the bonds unsellable.
In short, a difficult infrastructure situation is about to turn worse. The U.S. seems likely heading for an infrastructure crash that will terribly damage both our prospects and those of our children.
But in the spirit of making lemonade from lemons, budget austerity may offer an opportunity to rethink our priorities and consider our vision for the future of infrastructure. The big question is: Do we want to build roads, bridges, harbors and airports to support the current consumption- and import-oriented economy? Or should we focus infrastructure spending to encourage the shift to a more sustainable production- and export- oriented economy?
What's our priority: smoother roads to shopping malls or more spending on key ports?
The shift from a consumption economy to a production economy is probably the most important--and most difficult--task that the U.S. faces. The clearest sign of the problem is the apparently intractable trade deficit. Over the past ten years, the country has run up a cumulative deficit of $5.7 trillion with the rest of the world, and there's no sign of that reversing any time soon. To put it a slightly different way, the U.S. imports almost as much goods ($1.9 trillion in 2010) as the country produces (value-added of $2.2 trillion in manufacturing, mining, and agriculture).
Both Democrats and Republicans agree that one way out of this dilemma is to increase exports. But with resources scarce, that means tough choices for infrastructure spending. For example, consider our spending on ports. The Port of New Orleans is a major shipping point for our agriculture exports. Meanwhile the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, with many more loaded inbound containers (imports) than outbound containers (exports), are running a significant trade deficit. Should we devote more resources to beefing up the Port of New Orleans, or to improving the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach?
Or think about road and bridge construction. Should we spend scarce resources on improving road links to a regional shopping mall? Or should we place top priority on infrastructure improvements that might entice foreign firms to locate manufacturing facilities in the U.S.? These are tough questions to answer. I know which way I lean--towards production rather than consumption--but there are good arguments on both sides. What's more, there are a couple of other big wild cards. For example, the retirement of the baby boomers will change infrastructure needs, as more and more people will want to be located in inexpensive areas near hospitals.
The other big concern is defense surge capacity. If the U.S. were engaged in a major global war, heaven forbid, the country would need an efficient transportation system (there's a reason why the construction of interstate highway system was originally justified on defense grounds). A major war would require that the U.S. beef up its manufacturing very quickly, and we wouldn't want to have to divert manpower to rebuild our transportation infrastructure at the same time. A good infrastructure base is an insurance policy against future events.
What Washington needs is a coherent strategy for infrastructure that goes beyond "shovel-ready." We need to shift project selection and investment decisions away from a politically-driven process to one that fits our overall economic aims as a country.
Treating infrastructure spending as an essential part of a shift towards a production-oriented economy may provide the right framework for good decisions that can get support from both Democrats and Republicans.
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