It’s that time of year, but it’s no holiday party in most city budget meetings. Cities across the continent are looking for ways to make ends meet. A quick survey turns up some sobering city deficits: New York $4.4 billion, Toronto $225 million, Washington DC $188 million, Houston $120 million, L.A. $87 million, San Diego $72 million, Cleveland $28 million. States are worse still: California $6 billion, Illinois $15 billion, Arizona $1.5 billion. Those are some major gaps to fill, before we make it to the federal level.
December 10, 2010 | 9:38 am
Let’s Get Small: Placemaking as Antidote for Shrinking City Budgets
October 22, 2010 | 12:01 am
Today’s “Eco-Warriors”: Giving Them Something Worth Fighting For
This week I’d like to share a few thoughts on infill and sustainability that coalesced while preparing this week for another Pecha Kucha presentation on Retrofitting Suburbia.
I’ll begin with a little background. My daughter came home from her International Baccalaureate Elementary School with a new sticker in her daily planner proclaiming her an “Eco-Warrior!” Continue Reading
October 15, 2010 | 12:01 am
Retail Redemption: Skivvies Uncovered, then Promptly Covered
A couple months ago I rambled on here about my inability to purchase a particularly critical item of men’s apparel during an extended tour of new urban projects throughout the southeast. Modesty was not my problem. Rather, despite healthy commercial activity most everywhere I went, I could find no walkable stores catering to such day-to-day basics.
Food and drink? Sure. Tchotchkes and novelties? You betcha. Skivvies? Not a chance. Continue Reading
September 24, 2010 | 3:46 pm
Fat-tastic! Can Small Thinking Solve Our Super-Sized Problems?
According to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — more commonly known for crunching global budget and employment numbers — the United States is on track to be 75% obese by 2020.
3 out of every 4. And if you check with researchers at Johns Hopkins University, they’ll tell you to expect 86% by 2030. Continue Reading
September 9, 2010 | 11:59 pm
Katrina’s Fifth Anniversary: Getting Real in Mississippi
Every year since Hurricane Katrina mauled the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts, I’ve returned to Mississippi around the storm’s August 29 anniversary to renew friendships and refine my capacity for humility. The friendships have turned out to be the most rewarding outcomes of the 2005 Mississippi Renewal Forum, the historic charrette in Biloxi six weeks after the storm. The humility training is less fun, but it’s starting to take.
What’s clear is how naïve I was about the extent of the devastation and the appetite for “building back better than ever.” At least in the ways we outsiders imagined. Continue Reading
August 9, 2010 | 11:27 am
The Suburbs: Arcade Fire, Childhood Memory, and the Future of Growth
I’m in my 40s. I grew up in the suburbs. It was awesome. And then it wasn’t.
Never before and, perhaps, never again will there be as efficient and reliable a machine for manufacturing idealized childhood memories. The suburbs of the 60s and 70s, maybe even the 80s, were like some sort of paradise. Continue Reading
August 3, 2010 | 8:59 am
Brave New Codes Reach Tipping Point: When, Where, Why?
A year ago, Apple’s sales of its iPhone and iPod Touch eclipsed 40 million units, confirming their potential to fundamentally retool our future opportunities and patterns of daily life.
Today, a year later, form-based codes hit a similar milestone, with similar implications, as over 330 cities and towns around the world — representing over 40 million people — have embraced the idea of form-based coding as an alternative to the sprawl-inducing zoning models of the past century.
We’ve hit the tipping point. Welcome to the other side. Continue Reading
June 11, 2010 | 4:07 pm
Back to the Farm (And to the Bunker)
Just when reporters were beginning to buy into the hopefulness of “sprawl repair” and “ag is the new golf,” Andres Duany trips them up with visions of the dark side. Or at least the really hard side, as in the hard work ahead if we’re to reverse the direction of 20th century excesses.
“Our wealth as a nation allowed us to become stupid in planning and we separated everything – residential areas, commercial, industrial,” Duany told an Oregon audience May 12. “Our wealth allowed us to do that for 50 years – but those days are over.” Continue Reading
May 26, 2010 | 3:19 pm
Beaches, Booze and Briefs: A New Urban Odyssey and Retail Lament
Last week I hurriedly packed for my 10 day New Urbanism adventure in the Southeastern United States. In my rush I was only able to find and pack nine pairs of clean skivvies, but assured myself that I would be able to pick up a new pair while traveling through Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Continue Reading
May 14, 2010 | 12:13 pm
Original Greensta: Steve Mouzon Gets Medieval on Sustainability
The Original Green is all about architecture and urbanism. But it’s also about reflection, living, inspiration, and delight. We can achieve sustainable living only when we “want to” or “love to” instead of feeling that we “have to” or “ought to” balance the needs of our society, economy and environment. Miami architect Steve Mouzon’s new book looks carefully at the building blocks of community, and what needs to shift to making living on earth a long-term proposition. Instead of repeating the cases others have made to quantify the drivers of sustainable living, Steve suggests honoring the Original Green of how we lived in the pre-petroleum era, while leveraging the technological and urban advances of the last 100 years. Continue Reading
