Posted in The next city on April 26, 2009 | 6 Comments »
What a week. Never have we heard so many say so much (and so little) about greenness. We conclude that our consumer culture has been pretty nearly completely greenwashed.
On TV we observe a young couple selecting a 4,000 square foot suburban house (with garage space for multiple vehicles) that has “so many green features.” Energy [...]
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Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: mobility, The next city: urbanism, tagged Edison, Ford, lighting, Menlo Park, mobility, Sprague, urbanism, Westinghouse, White City on April 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Edison’s first lamp, by Robert Farrow.
I am not a luddite, but I do have a very healthy skepticism about technology representing our salvation. In the past 10 generations, we have succeeded in making an enormous mess, thanks to technology, a mess of such proportions that we are only now beginning to understand what we have done, and [...]
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Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: infrastructure, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, tagged district CHP, infrastructure, Off the grid, The next city, urbanism on April 12, 2009 | 4 Comments »
I want to talk about scale and size in our urban infrastructure, but it will take me a few minutes. Stick with me.
I started off last week continuing to think about the grid, or grids, that make cities work. Kind of.
Actually, our cities don’t really work very well at all, and their grids are pretty [...]
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Posted in A Town Square on April 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Called to jury duty this week. While we’re gone, feel free have a look around.
For loyal readers, I have collected the four posts on Vernacular Urbanism, and published them in a little 30 page paperback book, which is available for purchase. Go to www.blurb.com, and search for the title “Vernacular Urbanism and the Next City.” [...]
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Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: food, The next city: infrastructure, The next city: mobility, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, tagged billions, high speed rail, scale, urbanism on April 3, 2009 | 3 Comments »
We hear every day now about the staggering sums of money being thrown at this and that sinking sector of our nation’s economy. It’s hard to understand the scale of all of this. I am just now starting to figure out what a toxic asset is, and I am struggling to grasp what $700 billion dollars means. Or $50 [...]
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