News, Tuesday, June 16, 2009
What’s the use in fighting sprawl if the Province of Ontario doesn’t care, when they ignore their own laws, commissions and make secret deals with developers!!!
A question of sprawl: Live in the past or plan for the future?
Too many stimulus projects are about pushing money into today’s economy, without enough attention to building tomorrow’s
Which Is Greener?
Which uses less energy and emits less pollution: a train, a bus, or a car? Advocates of rail transportation rely on the public’s willingness to take for granted the assumption that trains–whether light rail, subways, or high-speed intercity rail–are the most energy-efficient and cleanest forms of transportation. But there is plenty of evidence that this is far from true.
Mobile Street Furniture Over the past two weeks, in two separate cities, multiple sightings of IDEO-likeuser-generated adaptations have reframed the motorbike as an intriguing addition to the emerging category of street furniture.
Give Me Your Hungry; The Farm as Metaphor The farm is a mythical and enticing entity, romanticized by city dwellers, many with farm roots somewhere in the last generation or two. Some actually make the trip and visit, while others keep hoping to.
On World Oceans Day, consider the jellyfishburger and fries Around the world, fishermen and swimmers are running into a problem: jellyfish. The slick, stinging blobs are showing up in increasing numbers, earlier in the year, and in more places than ever before. Is there a reason for the jellyfish invasion? Unfortunately, yes—and like most reasons for ocean decline, it relates to how we are changing the environment.
Rethinking the Mall
Ah, if only the designers and developers of shopping malls paid as much attention to the foot traffic outside the mall as they do to the orchestrated promenade within it.
I like this idea/gadget! Charge Your Gadgets While You Walk or Ride
Niagara winemaker does it his way Riesling made from one vineyard cannot ever be duplicated in another place or different year
Return to real food, Pollan urges But the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma doesn’t turn up his nose at deep-fried goodness
With Windsor’s parks (IMOP - wanna be cemetaries) returning to meadows and attracting birds not seen in this city in what a fifty to seventy years this article is interesting to read Urban Sprawl Is for the Birds
Thinking by the Square Foot” Can obscure a home’s real value-Ron Jones, Green Builder Magazine, in The Washington Post.
CHICAGO: PREVENTING THE SELF-DESTRUCTION OF DIVERSITY
Chicago’s urban core has boomed in a way that makes most other cities jealous. Every time you turn around, it seems, another gem is added to it. The Renzo Piano designed Modern Wing at the Art Institute recently opened its doors to general, if not universal, acclaim, for example.
From Garden Weeds to Salad Greens We think it’s wise to eat plants that share our environment, plants that basically have been mainstays of the world’s societies for many years.
Portland’s streetcar architecture — past becomes future
New Urbanism: Very Misunderstood “As I (author) attend the conference for the next three days, I am going to try to understand how and why it happened that this movement of architects and planners trying to make the places where people live better became the object of hostility and condescension.”
Flint’s vacant spaces could become urban gardens for food, raising chickens
Fri, June 12, 2009 SUSPICIOUS FIRES: Absentee property owners will need to secure their properties
Sour Deal for Ontario Grape Farmers
Urgent government action needed to protect Ontario Grape Growers
TORONTO - Ontarians who think they are supporting Ontario farmers by buying wine sold as “Cellared in Canada” are unknowingly supporting foreign grapes or grape products, the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance warned today. Under the current Ontario law, Cellared in Canada wines can contain up to 70% foreign grapes or grape product.
Kevin Surace invents eco-friendly drywall - TED talk
An Aussie view of Kitchener Waterloo The Good, The Brand and the Ugly
More women, more bachelors Cities with large female populations also have higher divorce rates, more unwed mothers, a heightened interest in women’s rights _ and higher hemlines.
Shattering The Meat Myth: Humans Are Natural Vegetarians Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today.
Neighbor, Can You Spare a Plum?
A year and a half ago, Ms. Wadud, who studied urban sociology in college and bartended at Chez Panisse, began organizing a little neighborhood fruit exchange called Forage Oakland. She did it as much to build neighborhood relations as to get her hands on some of that fruit.
Sleep In to Save Money at Your Local Farmers’ Market Sometimes the early bird doesn’t always get the worm.
Bikers seeking good ride get naked, and more
TV writers - study the Leamington Big Tomato
Stimulus cash is flowing – down a hole A closer look at Canada’s Economic! Action! Plan!
The border isn’t thickening, its getting block arteries U.S. to boost Canada border presence by 45%
These are great points Top Ten Reasons Why Art is Essential to the Human Spirit
Boy (Canadian) discovers microbe that eats plastic
Plant pollinator palaces
SAN FRANCISCO — Trash collectors in San Francisco will soon be doing more than just gathering garbage: They’ll be keeping an eye out for people who toss food scraps out with their rubbish.
San Francisco this week passed a mandatory composting law that is believed to be the strictest such ordinance in the nation. Residents will be required to have three color-coded trash bins, including one for recycling, one for trash and a new one for compost _ everything from banana peels to coffee grounds.
Post Feedback
Found this article that was linked to from the Windsor Star, surprisingly very much in tune with some of the ideas SD promotes. The only thing that bugs me about it is that it pitches this type of housing as simply a solution to have more “affordable housing” - it definately is more affordable but what about all the other benefits of lving in a more densley populated community. Anyways, read on:
Affordable housing ideas
http://www.househunting.ca/buying-homes/story.html?id=41be3e73-3454-4479-9685-5f0cc664ce08
Here is an interisting live blog that will start shortly:
Live, today at noon PT
Rethinking Vancouver
Chat with architect Rob Grant about his ideas for bike-friendly cities
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/rethinking-vancouver/article1181838/
After 15 years in suburbia (Sollentuna), we are now leaving for cool downtown living. Farm
Bulldozers, US cities and Detroit
US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive http://tiny.cc/oE2Ay
“Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic “shrink to survive” proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline”
Bulldozing America’s Shrinking Cities http://tiny.cc/cNIGN
“This idea is hardly new. Youngstown, Ohio, and its mayor, Jay Williams, have long aimed at transforming that declining Rust Belt polis into “a sustainable mid-sized city.” Detroit’s last mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was elected in 2002 on a promise to raze 5,000 houses. The Telegraph article’s novelty was the suggestion that the Obama administration is interested in supporting bulldozing, which prompted the Drudge Report headline: “Obama Era: Bulldoze Shrinking Cities?”
Don’t demolish Detroit http://tiny.cc/5xepf
“Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.
Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes.
Most are former industrial cities in the “rust belt” of America’s Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.
In Detroit, shattered by the woes of the US car industry, there are already plans to split it into a collection of small urban centres separated from each other by countryside.
“The real question is not whether these cities shrink – we’re all shrinking – but whether we let it happen in a destructive or sustainable way,” said Mr Kildee. “Decline is a fact of life in Flint. Resisting it is like resisting gravity.”
This is the type of neighborhood that the government wants to disurbanize. It is located in central Detroit…”
NEWS FLASH!
Anyone and everyone is invited to the unveiling ceremony of Transit Windsor’s 18 new Hybrid-Electric buses tomorrow at 9AM at the City Center International Transit Terminal.
I will be going and waving my pro-transit flag.
(That’s JUNE 22nd, 2009 @ 9AM at The downtown bus terminal, to be clear)
Wave it extra for me Timothy, I have to be at work at that time but I am a public transit user.