News Roundup › Urban Ecology

The rapid demographic changes in some of New Orleans’ older neighborhoods have sparked consternation among locals as well as professional observers of the city.

Source: The Lens | Archived Copy

It’s very important to not be too structured in our thinking about soft infrastructure. There is a temptation to revert to thinking in silos, and assume that city communities can be segmented into areas of separate concern such as neighbourhoods, sectors such as “digital entrepreneurs”, or service user communities such as “commuters”. To do this is to forget where and how innovation and the creation of new value often occurs.

Source: Sustainable Cities Collective | Archived Copy

On March 21, 2012, the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority unanimously approved the 50-year, $50 billion five-year update of the state’s master plan for coastal restoration and hurricane storm surge protection, and sent it on to the Legislature.

Now in front of the Louisiana Legislature, the comprehensive, “revised plan is the result of two months of public hearings and intense jawboning by parish elected officials, legislators and others.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Ever-increasing in its complexity, the trial set to examine BP’s responsibility regarding 2010 oil spill reparations has been delayed a week. The new trial date is set for Monday, March 5th, 2012. The delay of trial has stirred some to believe a settlement between BP and the myriad individuals and businesses affected by the disaster is, perhaps, close to being reached.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

On January 12, 2012 Louisiana state officials released a $50 billion, 50-year master plan to rebuild land lost due to erosion and protect coastal communities from future storm surges. The 50-year strategy is outlined in the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s plan update. Ambitious in scope, the plan takes into account funds that “the state is reasonably sure it will receive.” Although a monumental undertaking, restoring lost coastal wetlands and marshes is integral to maintaining a healthy coastline and community.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Today, the High Line is one of Manhattan’s most popular public spaces: a mile-long, modern, high-concept park built on the old railroad track. In the 10 months after it opened in 2009, it drew 2 million visitors and — in a rare ratio for a public space in New York — about half were tourists. Half were native New Yorkers.

Source: NPR | Archived Copy

“It is critical that the Greater New Orleans region has a comprehensive water management plan that can mitigate risk while enhancing economic opportunities and improving the quality of life for our citizens,” said Senator Mary Landrieu. “We are fortunate to have a dream team in place to do this important work. Waggonner & Ball has extensive expertise in water management gleaned from projects that span the globe, and GNO, Inc. is uniquely positioned to manage the process efficiently.”

Source: GNO, Inc. | Archived Copy

Although streetcar development is nothing new, the phenomenon was rediscovered in the early 1990s and earned its own terms of art: transit-oriented development and development-oriented transit.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Ending our love affair with the automobile, no matter how unhealthy it has become, seems overwhelmingly disruptive. Although more and wider roads lead only to more congestion, states are loath to reject federal highway dollars such as those offered in economic stimulus packages. Highways are easy things to spend money on, so who cares if what they stimulate is sprawl?

Source: The Washington Post | Archived Copy

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

Those responsible for the current plan are obviously unaware of the transformative and progressive events and trends occurring in America: the emphasis on livability, on walkable urban design, energy-efficient, multi-modal transportation, compact development and sustainable building design. This hospital plan is so out of touch it doesn’t even address the needs of the dramatically changing health-care system.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“There are over 100 cities in the U.S. that have these and there is no city more perfect for it than New Orleans,” Lynch said.

Source: New Orleans CityBusiness | Archived Copy

The city and a land trust are working to create a new parkway through Treme and Mid-City.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

All three pending New Orleans area locations will be built according to a prototype the company is using in this market, which calls for about 14,500 square feet of space with a single-lane drive-through pharmacy window.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Source: Louisiana Recovery Authority | Archived Copy

Chalmette native Matt Faust’s heart-wrenching 6-minute short film has made it on to New Yew York Magazine’s list of Top 5 Favorite Short Films showing at Tribeca this year. Listen to Matt tell why he made the film when he presented it last October as part of the New Orleans Speaks Conference, co-sponsored by The Urban Conservancy.
— Editor

When he started it, Matt Faust envisioned his short film “Home” as little more than an exercise in self-prescribed, post-Katrina therapy.

With no formal background in filmmaking — and armed with just a collection of old photos, home videos and some computer expertise he picked up while earning degrees in Landscape Architecture at LSU — the Hannan High School graduate simply wanted to make a video that might help his family remember what was lost when their home on tiny Derbigny Street in Chalmette was destroyed by the storm.

“I felt like it was something I just had to do, for myself and my family, ” Faust said last week.

What he couldn’t have envisioned was that his wordless six-minute film would find its way to the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, one of the nation’s premiere film fests, where it will screen this week in competition in the documentary-short category. “Read more.”:

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

The numbers have some researchers imagining a future when enough produce to feed entire cities is grown in multistory buildings sandwiched between office towers and other structures.

Source: MSNBC | Archived Copy

All of the great challenges that confront the 21st-century city — from class, race and environmental issues to the continuing duel between history and modernity — are crystallized in New Orleans.

Yet the kind of visionary urban plan that could address these issues in a bold and thoughtful way has yet to materialize. Instead, some of the country’s greatest architectural minds are inventing the future in cities like Beijing, Shenzhen and Dubai, where their talents are more appreciated.

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

“Motivated by the desire to exploit the metered parking space as a site for art, activism, and cultural expression, REBAR offers PARK Day as a prototype for open source urban design accessible to all,” says a statement in the project’s “assembly manual.”

Source: MSN City Guides | Archived Copy

A year after the introduction of the sturdy gray bicycles known as Velib’s, they are being used all over Paris. The bikes are cheap to rent because they are subsidized by advertising, and other major cities, including American ones, are exploring similar projects.

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

For years, New Yorkers have grown basil, tomatoes and greens in window boxes, backyard plots and community gardens. But more and more New Yorkers like the Wilkses are raising fruits and vegetables, and not just to feed their families but to sell to people on their block.

This urban agriculture movement has grown even more vigorously elsewhere. Hundreds of farmers are at work in Detroit, Milwaukee, Oakland and other areas that, like East New York, have low-income residents, high rates of obesity and diabetes, limited sources of fresh produce and available, undeveloped land.

Source: New York Times | Archived Copy

The company, which spent $4 million installing its New Orleans network, has not been able to pinpoint a specific reason why its venture into municipal wireless failed.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

Murders went down within 250 feet of the cameras, but the reduction was completely offset by an increase 250 to 500 feet away, suggesting people moved down the block before killing each other.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Archived Copy

The Mayor of Paris is about to launch another novel scheme for fighting congestion and pollution: self-service cars Bertrand Delanöe aims to start with 2,000 electric-powered vehicles that subscribers can drive off without booking at dozens of sites 24 hours a day and then leave anywhere in the city.

Source: The Times | Archived Copy

Available free to the public at www.bigboxevaluator.org, the web-based interface allows users to learn about commercial and retail development in general, but also to input specific information from their communities and receive customized reports on economics, values, planning and municpal services, and ways to improve the development process.

Source: The Orton Family Foundation | Archived Copy

The mere mention of gentrification has so inflamed the discussion … that stereotypes and political grandstanding have obscured the facts and tangible impacts on real people. Austin succeeded, at least in part, in detaching itself from much of the hyperbole by conducting a set of separate, relatively rigorous studies on the intersection of gentrification and preservation. The city’s efforts have suggested that the answer to gentrification is not found in broad-brush generalizations, but rather in analyzing each neighborhood’s specific economic and social concerns, understanding them as inextricably tied to a complex local history, and devising appropriate solutions and strategies responsive to the community’s needs and aspirations.

Source: The Next American City | Archived Copy

The office of Farr Associates is no next-generation green-building prototype — it’s located in the historic 114-year-old Monadnock Building, Chicago’s tallest all-brick skyscraper. But inside, green spores of sustainability burst forth. The open studio spaces have walls that have been painted by a local artist who used milk-based, non-toxic paints. The desktops are made of natural linoleum, and a translucent divider embedded with leaves separates one desk from another. “Occupancy sensors” trigger energy-conserving lights in the kitchenette, conference room, and main studio. Large, operable First Chicago School windows gaze over nearby Printer’s Row, letting in eastern and southern light that is welcomed by the many living creatures in the space.

Source: Grist | Archived Copy

One example is an organization in Portland Oregon called City Repair, which reclaims neighborhood intersections for common use. Local artists, with the permission of the city, paint brilliant murals on the intersections. People build cob structures, such as bulletin board kiosks and tea houses. Residents start to see the streets and in fact the whole city differently — as something that is theirs, rather than as a grid of obstacles and boundaries. In at least one neighborhood that was repaired in this manner, crime has dropped measurably.

Source: On the Commons | Archived Copy

Question: How did you go from neighborhood rallies to running a nationally renowned organization?

Answer: Well, the street protests were cute and motivating and all, but eventually I decided it was time to get serious. In 2001, I founded Sustainable South Bronx — not as a moral crusade, but as an economic-development group that was about planning our future, not just reacting to environmental blight. I wanted to play offense, not defense. I wanted to give our community permission to dream, to plan for healthy air, healthy jobs, healthy children, and safe streets.

Source: Grist Magazine | Archived Copy

I walked toward my father’s old house. I’d shot it last year for documentary B-roll, and walking along the even numbered side of the street, I noted nothing much had changed… But I couldn’t find it.

I paced back and forth in the brightness of mid-day, like a caged animal, searching for the numbers “1461.” I found “1458,” and “1463.” What lay in between sent me reeling, cursing, shaking my head in the heat.

Source: Strawberry Blog | Archived Copy

Guerrilla gardeners are sowing the seeds of resistance in south London, with a spot of illicit gardening in its neglected public spaces.

Striking at night, armed only with shrubs and plants, they set out to brighten up roundabouts and verges.

Source: The BBC | Archived Copy

Analyses of the failure of all levels of government to prevent or effectively manage the Katrina calamity in New Orleans have generally missed a crucial point. Alongside bias against poor people and African-Americans is automobile apartheid, born of fifty years of suburban sprawl. First-class citizens drive motor vehicles, second-class Americans walk, cycle, or ride public transit. Certainly many of the latter are poor, but millions more are middle-class Americans.

When emergency response largely ignores the plight of second-class citizens, no one should be surprised.

Source: Grist Magazine | Archived Copy

“When there are laws on the books, you shouldn’t have to ask citizens to buy property to save their neighborhood,” he says.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

This last group [Gen-X professionals] holds tremendous hope, for three reasons: 1) They’re young, and still have the stomach for major renovation projects. 2) They’re in their prime child-bearing years, and thus likely to inject a healthy dose of middle class kids into urban neighborhoods. 3) Many of them are from out of town, escaping the barren vapidity of Anywhere, U.S.A., in search of an originality only New Orleans can offer; these newcomers help counteract the brain drain.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy