It seems the Onion is on an urban planning jag these days. DB sends in this link to an article decrying the aristocratization of gentrified neighborhoods.
[T]he enormous treasure-based wealth of the aristocracy makes it impossible for those living on modest trust funds to hold onto their co-ops and converted factory loft spaces.
I’ve been meaning to post this topic sent in by Floyd Lapp for a while. The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission’s report Transportation for Tomorrow, published in Dec. 2007, says we need to invest 25 billion annually from all sources for the next 50 years to upgrade our existing system to a state of good repair and create a more advanced surface transportation system. We are spending less than 40% of this amount now.
The NYTimes reports that hopes for municipal wireless service are waning. Apparently the rising cost of installing and operating routers and the passing of Earthlink’s municipal wireless enthusiast CEO have led Earthlink to abruptly begin withdrawing from its municipal contracts. Gavin Newsome, mayor of SF, suggests that the move is being made in bad faith.
RV sends this link to a 1′33″ BBC clip on the emergence of tent cities populated by former home owners in LA.
Alvaro Huerta at UC Berkeley points out this thought provoking article on crime and immigration by Robert J. Sampson. It suggests that the cultural diffusion of immigrants who have not embraced America’s frontier mentality of violent reprisal in defense of personal integrity are leading to reduced crime rates.
The Onion on the magical amulet of zoning.
At the end of this week’s class at Woodbourne, I was trying to cut down the list of readings (more for me than them), when I realized that they have consistently read even the articles I haven’t assigned. That led to following humorous exchange:
“Wait, you guys are going to read everything anyway, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Dang! At Columbia the students don’t read anything until you tell them to.”
“Well, we’ve got a lot more time on our hands.”
“Yeah, but they’re paying for the privilege.”
“So are we!”
Here is a simplified version of the Eisenhower interstate system in a gridded format. A rather nice graphic.
Folks, the dearth of posting lately is an effect of my four plus day indulgence in my mild tech fetish. Last week, I finally ordered and received the parts for the super-computer I’ve been talking about buying for a couple of years now. Everything arrived Friday morning. I’ll spare you the tech specs, but suffice it to say that my new strategy is to buy second tier, i.e., items that are just behind the cutting edge and thus demonstrate remarkable cost savings. (Note that this also simplifies complementarity with Linux, since many companies opt not to support the Linux community with drivers.) So my gear is pretty slick. Anyway, spent Friday afternoon assembling it. The evening and the next two plus days was spent installing Linux, sorting through the usual issues of getting the parts to work, and then tweaking settings. There’s still more to go, but the basic unit is up and operative. I’m already in love with my dual, 21.6″ wide-screen monitors rotated ninety degrees.
And I’m overjoyed to be moving steadily into the open source world of Linux. I’ve got programs running that are as good or better than the Windows versions (though I’m sure to have some that don’t work so well, too!). Outside of a little technological patience, I see less and less reason not to use Linux.
And a quick message to those folks for whom I provide occasional technical assistance: Expect that my support for Windows will be decreasing. I will help anyone switch over to Linux, but I will stop supporting Windows in the foreseeable future. I mean, if Microsoft can do it, why can’t I?
The NYTimes reports that a banner signed with the initials of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) was found at the site of the arson of five luxury homes marketed as ‘green built’. The homes were built on or near wetlands in a ‘rural cluster development’ (RCD) designed to minimize environmental impact (essentially a PUD, or planned unit development). The underlying conflict obviously depends on one’s attitude toward urban expansion. If one believes that urban expansion is inevitable, then the project may be one of the best ways to sustain that growth by minimizing our adverse environmental impact (though building vertically is another option). If one believes it is not inevitable (or prefers going vertical, as Le Corbusier did), then the project’s expansion into a green field is faulty to begin with. It’s a horrible personal decision to have to make actually. I’m almost certain that I would prefer to live in one of those homes in the sticks than up in some tower, but at what cost?
Could Le Corbusier have been right? Should we be building dense cities with rapid access to rural beauty instead of sprawling all over? Would we have to cut down on our work hours so that people have the time to access and enjoy the rural setting rather than having to purchase it for consumption in passing moments?
