News for Monday, April 6, 2009
Farm could make Detroit hot spot for fresh foods
Detroit could become a center of locally grown food and put large swaths of vacant land back on tax rolls under a proposal to create the city’s first large commercial farm.
Business John Hantz of Detroit, in an exclusive interview with the Free Press, unveiled his plans for Hantz Farms — a concept that would convert hundreds, even thousands, of vacant parcels in the city into urban agriculture.
Offering jobs and an ability to produce fresh fruits and vegetables locally, Hantz Farms could help Detroit “become a destination for fresh, local and natural foods and become a major part of the green movement,” Hantz said.
Detroit already is home to hundreds of smaller community gardens. But Hantz’s proposal is the first to envision large-scale commercial farming.
Pittsburgh, Sunday Forum: Suburbs - our new slums?
Jobs continue shift to suburbs from downtowns
Opportunity-seeking urban dwellers, get ready to start padding that commuting budget. Private sector jobs are continually moving out of city centers to further-flung suburban areas, according to a report out today from the Brookings Institution, an independent public policy institute.
Brookings Insitutiion: Job Sprawl Revisited:
also of interest: Shrinking Cities Institute; Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative
How to Save the Suburbs: Solutions from the Man Who Saw the Whole Thing Coming, Christopher Leinberger
James Howard Kunstler: Investing in Infrastructure for An Age of Scarcity
Chinese Electric cars coming to Wal-Mart and Costco ?
Yes, the big-box discount store Costco could be selling the Chinese-designed and Mexican-built vehicles says one auto exec. The CEO of GS Motors — Kathleen Ligocki — told the Hybrid Cars website that she thinks the US will follow in Mexico’s footsteps. GS Motors sold 4,000 China-made vehicles in Mexico last year at…Costco and Wal-Mart.
O Canada! Placemaking Sweeps the North Country
April 1, 2006, Ottawa, ON - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today the creation of a new Cabinet department: The Ministry of Placemaking and Public Space Revitalization (PPSR).
In what amounts to nothing less than a fundamental reorganization of Canada’s government, the Prime Minister told reporters today that the Ministries of Public Works and Government Services; Transport, Infrastructure and Communities; and Human Resources and Social Development will now be under the jurisdiction of the new Ministry of PPSR. Surprisingly, PPSR was also vested with the authority to overrule the Ministry of National Defence in determining when to deploy troops. “Sometimes,” Harper explained, “a few well-placed café tables and chairs–and maybe an ice cream vendor–is all that’s needed to make the nation safer for its children.”
Glen Murray, former Mayor of Winnipeg and outspoken proponent of PPS’s “Power of Ten,” was appointed to head the new Ministry. His first act as “Place Czar” was to order that all new and existing developments within 100 metres of a body of water include vital public spaces at the ground floor. “Our waterfronts look like something straight out of a Le Corbusier sketchbook. We’ve got to get a grip! We’ve almost completely forgotten how to create active uses around the base of buildings. And besides, the guy’s been dead for decades. Enough already.”
BABY BOOMERS: THE GENERATION THAT LOST AMERICA
Questioning Culture, The Cord turns to culture to Investigate creative ways of raising consciousness
Cityscapes: Welcome, Creative Destruction and Climate Change
Ottawa builders’ group - like Calgary’s - says anti-sprawl plan doomed social engineering
OTTAWA — The city’s proposed new land-use plan, which calls for more density and less sprawl, is an unprecedented exercise in social engineering and needs to be rethought, the Ottawa homes builders’ association says.
The reaction is similar to the one in Calgary earlier this month, when builders and residential land developers gave the Plan It proposal a chilly reception.
Denser Calgary will save taxpayers $11B versus sprawl, officials say
Students turn backs on subdivisions and cars - Calgary
A Goat on the lawn at city hall - in Vancouver
“In the Pittsburgh suburb of Homestead, I found longtime Mayor Betty Esper. She spent three decades working in U.S. Steel’s massive Homestead Works, a sprawling mill across the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh that shut down in 1986. She was elected mayor several years after the mill closed.Esper says her community lost tax revenue during those years with so many people out of work. The town had to slash its budget and cut services.
Over time, Homestead recovered. The key, Esper said, was redeveloping the site of the old mill. It’s now a sprawling waterfront shopping and business complex. And the money generated from the property is fueling Homestead’s economy — and helping the town weather the current recession.”
Can Detroit be Reinvented? Motor City Stalling from the Globe and Mail
City Officials Favor “Stupid Growth”
To answer Mark Boscariol’s thoughts: Austrailia town uses Facebook to revitalize
A 100 year old film of Barcelona: A model of Streets Today?
Making the entire globe your backyard
VICTORIA - Look beyond your backyard fence and “follow the money!” appears to be the rallying cry of small and medium-sized business as the world deals with continued economic uncertainty.
At least that’s been the working motto for some local firms that have grown and prospered despite a global economic downturn. “If you don’t think your backyard is the entire globe these days, you’re out of business,” said John Juricic, partner with Etraffic Solutions, an online learning company that supplies virtual media and textbooks to schools. “The world has shrunk. The market is one and the sooner people get that the better.”
How not to build a city: Dubai; A cross between Vegas and Mississauga
JOBS! JOBS! Saskaboom and Atlanticboom
Taking the bus: Chicago commuters find public transit pays off
Ontario cash helps Hamilton move on transit
A $3-million infusion of transit cash is a “strong indication” the province understands the needs of Hamilton, says Mayor Fred Eisenberger.
The funds are slated to help the city push forward on two proposed rapid transit lines, one on the King-Main corridor and the other on the James-Upper James corridor.
“We are clearly positioning ourselves to be part of the … $11.5-billion Move Ontario funding envelope” that still has $2.5-billion in it, Eisenberger said. Hamilton’s two projects are estimated to cost $1 billion.
Also in Hamilton:
April 03, 2009
The City of Burlington, the region of Halton and McMaster University made their partnership official yesterday, when Mayor Cam Jackson, regional chair Gary Carr and McMaster president Peter George signed an agreement on the university’s expansion plans.
McMaster is planning to build a centre for advanced management studies — an extension of its DeGroote School of Business — along the QEW near Appleby Line.
The university is also planning to build a medical clinic in downtown Burlington as a training centre for family physicians, and plans to create a formal affiliation with Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital.
The new $28-million campus is expected to open in September 2010, the clinic in July 2011.
The Future of Boston in the Age of the City
As theorists predict we are entering the age of the city,Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell reflects on what this shift will mean and how Boston’s landscape will change as a result.
“Cities have two qualities: They’re densely populated, and they mix a lot of different kinds of people and activities close together. As a result, you’re not in a car all the time, burning carbon to get from place to place. You’re in touch with your neighbors. Your apartment can be heated or cooled more efficiently than your cousin’s home in the suburbs. (We’re not yet a leader in the energy race. The Swedish city of Gothenburg, with a climate as harsh as Boston’s, now heats itself entirely with recycled garbage.)
The Future of Research Parks and Technology-led Economic Development
Based on interviews with experts in innovation and entrepreneurship, scientific collaboration, university research management and urban design and development, we have identified external trends that will challenge our existing models for technology-based economic development in coming years:
The Biological World. If the 20th century wasdefined by physics, the 21st century will be defined by biology.Biomedical clusters will grow according to a very different set of rules thanIT industries did.
Global, Networked Science. Science is becoming globalized, whichmeans that local clusters cannot exist in isolated. To succeed they need to beconnected to other innovation hubs.
The New Scientist. The lone genius is rapidly becoming a thing ofthe past, as young scientists pioneer massively collaborative work styles.Science 2.0 will shake the institutional foundations of science, from journalsto patents to university departments.
Big Science, Lightweight Innovation. As the federal government pours money into basic research, companies are stripping their R&D organizations to the bone, instead favoring lightweight and openinnovation strategies. The inevitable disconnect means a need for new systems that can take raw breakthroughs and prepare them for commercialization.
New Public Agenda. Turning federal dollars into jobs fast is the order of the day. But it’s not clear if research parks and incubators can deliver at the pace demanded.
The Persistence of Place. While science is taking full advantage of the web, place is more important than ever for the creative collaborative work that can’t be virtualized. But the way young innovators use space will bemore dynamic, ad hoc and flexible.
Universities Transformed. Today’s leading research universities treat intellectual property like corporations of yesterday, while the most innovative companies are opening up and becoming more like yesterday’s universities. As universities shift roles from ivory tower to economic engine, fundamental flaws in technology transfer mechanisms will become all too clear.
Towards a New Model: Building Regional Knowledge Ecosystems
The trends described in the preceding section are global trends, which means there is little that economic developers in any one community can do to shape the speed or scope of how they play out. But there is one more important trend, the growth of regional approaches to technology-based economic development. Unlike those, the rise of technology regions is a trend that you can help shape.
We are just beginning to see the outlines of this approach, which involves many partners – research parks, large research-driven companies, startups, universities, investors and professionals – working together to develop regional knowledge ecosystems. These networks consist of a number of elements, someformal and other informal:
Zero Emissions Vehicle Goes on Sale for Less than $1,000
And finally, since Chris is rewiring his old house, this article is hot off the presses
Tags: Atlantic provinces, Australia, Baby Boomers, Barcelona, bus, buses, Calgary, Detriot, Dubai, employment, Facebook, Farming, goats, Hamilton, Heritage, intensification, Kunstler, Leinberger, Pittsburgh, Placemaking, Research Parks, Saskatoon, social engineering, sprawl, Suburbs, zero-emissions
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GM and Segway create new vehicle ..with a pic
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7987301.stm
US carmaker General Motors is joining with scooter maker Segway to make a new type of two-seat electric vehicle.
The prototype, which will debut in New York, is aimed at urban driving. GM aims to start making them by 2012.
The vehicle, named Puma, has a top speed of 35mph and can go as far as 35 miles on a single charge. It will use lithium-ion batteries.
GM, having been bailed out by the US government, is looking to smaller vehicles to secure its future.
Puma stands for personal urban mobility and accessibility.
Recommended to design Cleveland’s new downtown waterfront….
Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects to be recommended to design Cleveland’s new downtown waterfront
http://tiny.cc/NA5Qh
A nationally respected planning and architecture firm that has designed acclaimed waterfront developments on the East and West coasts is lined up to do the same for Cleveland.
Staff members of the Port of Cleveland today are to recommend to the port’s Real Estate Committee that Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects of New York should design a new plan for more than 100 acres of downtown waterfront controlled by the port.
The assignment, for which the Ehrenkrantz firm will be paid up to $400,000, calls for completing a 20-year vision for the downtown docks west of Cleveland Browns Stadium and east of the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, an area now occupied by scattered warehouses, gravel piles and a pair of cement silos.
“This for us is a really major, inspirational work,” architect Stanton Eckstut said Monday by phone from New York. “We have a wonderful site in a great city.”
Plans for the downtown waterfront are linked to the port’s other big ambition: creating a modern shipping and container port on 200 acres of new landfill north of East 55th Street, several miles east of downtown.
The Ehrenkrantz firm edged out two other finalists for the Cleveland job: Sasaki & Associates of Watertown, Mass., and the Chicago office of Hellmuth, Obata + Kassalbaum (HOK).
Port officials said they felt that the Ehrenkrantz firm is best-positioned to deliver a flexible, market-based plan capable of transforming the city’s image with a large-scale development on the downtown waterfront.
“We hope that excitement in the community about the waterfront is really a signature for Cleveland,” said port President Adam Wasserman.
The port’s Real Estate Committee is expected to approve the recommendation today, followed by the full port board on Friday, April 17, Johnson said.
Work on the Cleveland plan is expected to begin formally at the end of April.
No money for Windsor…Yet! But Oshawa gets 9.2M for port and marina
Cash for shovel-ready Oshawa harbour
Flaherty comes to town with $9.2M to help with contamination cleanup, new marina and port
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/616043
No money? Who paid for the pedestrian bridge across Huron Church? Who paid for the Walker Road Grade Separation project? Who is paying for the Howard Road Grade Separation project? Who offered $300 million for interim road improvements between 9/11 and DRIC? Who is willing to spend over $1.5 billion on a border road? I’m fairly certain that the Province and the Feds are picking up most of the cost of any Tunnel Plaza expansion.
*Not that I’d want to see more road work - its the opposite of what I’d like to see actually, but it still pains me to read about other municipalities getting their cash-grab for infrastructure projects so quickly from the Feds and the Province - haven’t heard much yet in regards to Windsor’s share of Federal and Provincial stimulus dollars =\
Anyways, infrastructure does not have to mean more / wider roads… Best thing to happen to our city would be to re-introduction of electric trams / light rail transit.. anyways….
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2009/04/08/9054866.html
When you get stuck in traffic at a road construction site in London this summer, thank the generosity of the Ontario and federal governments.
Their largesse - rather, yours, since the money comes for your tax dollars - has allowed city hall to afford more than 100 road projects this year.
INTERACTIVE MAP: London-area road projects
It’s a huge list of improvements that stretches across the city and will cost tens of millions of dollars.
“It’s an especially busy year because both senior levels of government have come forward with funding,” said Dave Leckie, city hall’s director of roads and transportation.
“All levels of government came to realize . . . ‘Hey, it’s time to pay the piper.’ A lot of infrastructure is deteriorating and we need to invest in (it).”…..
Mark we have a marina. It is has a 40% vacant rate. Why would we build another the demand isn’t there!
we don’t have shovel ready lands either. Where are the services connected to these lands? Would it not be more important to do that then build more “ideas” without the funds to maintain them?
While you state Windsor doesn’t get the money. We have over $2 billion waiting to be spent here for various projects yet that is all being held up by a petulent, petty mayor. BRING ON THE JOBS! Now compare that with Oshawa’s paltry $9.2 million.
Dave, you got what I posted right! As I go through my news alerts every morning, I see other communities in Ontario getting money for shovel ready projects for one thing or another.
I used that posting as an embrassament as I think Tim also did above. Where is the money for Windsor? Are we going to have to wait 30 years for any other project to get done in this city?