…the most important qualities in a city planner are “principled”, “integrity”, “professionalism”, and “passion”.
Source: straight.com
My task today: outline the best potential design options to reuse this mid-century building (or not).
Moon Colonization an Important Issue? Really?
Great discourse on an important subjuct by robertreich that ends up loosely tied to city planning on the moon of all places:
Newt’s latest idea, for example – to colonize the moon – is typically whacky.
As Reich reminds us, American citizens should not be so flippant as to simply assume a Newt nomination equates to an Obama victory. Our social and economic future is not something to gamble with — especially with weird speculation about moon colonization.
Source: robertreich
Walkability Report Generates Questions
New walkability benchmarking report out with some provocative results. I’m curious how Alaska can be the highest ranking state with regard to walking levels, but not have a city that ranks in the top 50.
Also, not surprising, the places with the most walking look like they have the most bike-ped related fatalities, but such inferences generate their own set of questions. All are significant areas of opportunity for research.
Sea Ranch a ‘Beautiful Example of Environmental Architecture’
” the totality of The Sea Ranch offers an example of an environmentally sensitive development and place that is also sublimely beautiful…”
I find this quote by Sarah Williams Goldhagen in the New Republic to be very provocative and am wondering how she objectively supports such a strong claim. Her article mentions nothing about sustainability — For example, the embedded water / energy use, lack of transportation services, loss of valuable agricultural land and lack of affordability / equity espoused by the development. It would seam to me that at best The Sea Ranch was an experiment in design with environmental aspirations. It may have aesthetic merit but many environmental factors went unheeded and in the ethos of ‘sustainable design’ the simple act of putting 2,000 homes on a greenfield site within feet of a pristine coast would render the aspirations unsuccessful.
Source: tnr.com
