I’ll make this short. I am very cranky this afternoon, and I admit it. The lead from the AP wire, a few minutes ago: “Consumers are saving more than they’re spending, and that has investors worried.” What?!?!
Okay, so what, really, is the point of our economy? A rising GDP is the whole game? After a long [...]
Archive for the ‘The next city: water’ Category
What Does Growth Really Mean?
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: food, The next city: mobility, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, tagged GDP, Growth, The next city, urbanism on June 26, 2009 | 4 Comments »
A Little and a Lot
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: food, The next city: mobility, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, tagged cities, energy, food, mobility, scale, urbanism, water on June 9, 2009 | 4 Comments »
The largest city on earth – Tokyo. Image by Altus.
I have often found myself reflecting here on matters of scale – of blocks and streets, of cities and neighborhoods. Recently I have found myself thinking about the relationship between the really, really big, and the fairly tiny. Let me explain.
We lead our daily lives in familiar, [...]
Getting Off the Grids, Part II
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: infrastructure, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, tagged infrastructure, Off the grid, Urban design, urbanism on June 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In April (April 12th, to be exact) I wrote a piece that explored how to find a way to disconnect from all the infrastructure grids in a context of existing urban (and historic) rowhouses. I concluded that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a single rowhouse to wiggle free of all the connections: sewer, water, [...]
Getting Off the Grids
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 [...]
Cities, Scale and Economics
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 [...]
American Urbanism: Shovel-ready
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: food, The next city: mobility, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, Vernacular urbanism, tagged American urbanism, Microurbanism, Office of Urban Policy, shovel-ready, urbanism, Vernacular urbanism on January 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Image from flickr.
“Once we accept that our cities will not be like the cities of the past, it will become possible to see what they might become.” Witold Rybczynski, City Life.
When he wrote those words in 1995, Rybczynski was actually “glimpsing the urban future,” and seeing it as a low-density and low-rise city, amorphous and sprawling, completely [...]
Some Thoughts for the New Plumber-In-Chief
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 energy, food policy, infrastructure, mobility, Obama infrastructure plan, plumber-in-chief, The next city, urbanism, water on December 17, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Announced just over a week ago, your new infrastructure fund is now gone, Mr. President. It’s all been spent already, several times over, by politicians, constructors, lobbyists, trade associations. Get your staff to try googling “Obama infrastructure plan,” and up pop hundreds of thousands of web sites, and nearly every newspaper, magazine, financial analyst, and [...]
Skeptics and Scarcities: Next Urbanism 101
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: infrastructure, The next city: mobility, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, tagged American urbanism, food policy, oil, The next city, urbanism 101, water on October 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have been reading my usual array of favored websites, and have run into an interesting string of comments in the last couple of days. It seems that Michael Pollan’s piece in the NYT Magazine, which I recommended in the last post, has ignited a furor in some quarters. Pollan is being accused of ”eco-armageddonizing.”
Notwithstanding the [...]
Feeding the Next City
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: water, tagged food policy, locavores, Michael Pollan, The next city, urbanism on October 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
As I have noted here previously, I have been reading up on the history of food, and how we have arrived at the current state of industrial agriculture – endless fields of monocultures of corn or soybeans, giant factories filled with chickens or pigs or cows, a diet that featured 1/2 pound of high fructose corn [...]
Islands in the Storm
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: infrastructure, The next city: mobility, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, tagged The next city, urbanism, zero carbon on October 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Sail on, O ship of state, sail on… our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee…”
Longfellow
Painting by Ron Rizk.
Here’s slightly different way to think of the next city.
Imagine that your city is suddenly an island, or a giant raft. Chicago is adrift in the middle of Lake Michigan, 30 miles off-shore of Illinois or Michigan. Washington has [...]
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November 2009 M T W T F S S « Oct 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 A Motto for the Next City
"We stand here confronted by insurmountable opportunity." PogoA Working Definition
A sustainable city is one that finds the means (forms, shapes, structures and activities) to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.The Shock of the New…
"But an architect intent on being different may in the end prove as troubling as an over-imaginative pilot or doctor." Alain de BottonHow to Make the Right Choice
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." Aldo LeopoldComplications
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong." H. L. MenckenA New Chapter Begins
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