gpmarsh

07:53 am: Alien Landscapes
In his book Oblivion, David Maisel writes, in describing Los Angeles:
Left to navigate this terrain of anxiety and estrangement, with a pattern of urbanization the critic Peter Plagens calls “the ecology of evil,” the citizen of this alien landscape may begin to ponder some of the fundamental design questions of our time: Where is home? Where is our safe haven? How can we move towards such a place?



Flying from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires offered a lesson in urban sprawl as views of Sao Paulo's 20 million inhabitants spread out below the departing plane. The sprawl of Sao Paulo is a landscape extremes – wealth and poverty, magnificence and offensive – underlined by a tension of violence. Slums line the periphery of the city; tin roofs and dirt roads subjected to the whine of the airplanes engines as we fly low, escaping. Is this our future? What can we learn from this place?

Tags: sao paulo, sprawl, urbansystem

01:59 pm: Letter to the Editor - See Magazine
I am not sure if this will get published...

The article Show Transit Some Love offers 5 band-aid solutions that don't address the deeper urban problems that Edmonton is experiencing. Sure, for ETS to work, it must move people from where they are to where they want to be. But first, we need the people to move and there has to be a place for them to go.

So, rather than deal with transit as an entity separate from urban form, as the Show Transit Some Love article does, I would like to suggest some 4 modifications to our fair city that would work to increase transit ridership.

1. Increase urban density.
Greg Barker, leader of the smart growth plan for Edmonton, should demand that building on undeveloped land be restricted to 30% of new growth, not 70% or 97%. We need more people living in an urban core, in vibrant and eclectic neighbourhoods close to services and work. An increased urban population would then be the customer that transit would service.

2. Remove the municipal airport.
Downtown Edmonton is a wasteland moving towards the Whyte Avenue model urban development � more bars equals more people. By building mixed housing in the downtown core (look to all the parking lots for space), and by creating a neighbourhood at the site of the municipal airport we can start to move from that bar blight. Just imagine tall buildings in the downtown to compliment the wonderful expansion of Grant MacEwan; mixed use where people lived above stores and next to restaurants. Add to that an influx of people wanting to shop and eat within a stones throw of Edmonton's urban centre and a city worth visiting starts to emerge.

3. Starting planning like a region
The Capital Region that includes and surrounds Edmonton encompasses almost 10 000 square kilometers, including a number of sizable cities like St. Albert, Spruce Grove, Leduc and Ft. Saskatchewan. We need to link the growth of all of these communities to that of Edmonton so that planning decisions can be made on a regional level, and not limited to a local level. We need buses that efficiently go from here to there � that move people from where they are to where they want to go in the most direct manner.

4. Move planning back to planners
Establish, through research and public consultation, a set of rules that developers must follow. Some of the questions that should be asked include: What are the best practices for planning in North America? How can they be applied to Edmonton? Will it serve the public interest to limit the role of developers in the planning of our city?

01:33 pm: Angst and everything after...
It has often been said that, if one were to look at the breadth of environmental issues that need addressing, one could become paralyzed by not know which issue to tackle first. Unfortunately, I feel that way about one really big environmental issue. Climate change.

I feel that climate change is wholly unappreciated and underestimated problem. It is a problem that is neither ‘left’ of ‘right’ and will challenge all people, regardless of religious affiliation. Jew, Christian, Muslim, we are faced with one common enemy, and it is a changing climate and the human conditions that support and facilitate continued inaction. I am faced with the enemy of my continued inaction. Sure, I walk to work and live in a small condo that gives me easy access to all that I need within walking distance.

I also work for an NGO that facilitates conversations between government, industry and environmental / health NGOs on air quality issues. Some days on the job I feel that I am in a position to make a difference. When I first started, most days felt like that, now I am lucky if I get one every other week. Most days I am frustrated and disheartened by the total lack of interest in doing the right thing. More time and effort is invested in protecting the status quo.

For instance, the other day I was in a meeting with a senior civil servant from Alberta Environment. The topic up for discussion, in a round about way, were air emission graphs depicting a steady and, to my mind, alarming rise in air emissions in Alberta. It was stated by the government official that these emissions were to be expected due to the increase in economic and industrial growth that Alberta has seen in the past decade. At one level he is right. The sentiment expressed around that statement, thought, lead me to believe that there was nothing to do except manage the emissions, and not work to reduce them despite increasing growth. My stomach sank and I wondered what the hell I was doing there. Why am I working in a system that is designed to support industrial growth and not place limits on industry to support a healthy ecosystem and populations?

Within this context, the New York Times reported that:

While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

Prof. Emmanuel Saez, the University of California, Berkeley, economist who analyzed the Internal Revenue Service data with Prof. Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, said such growing disparities were significant in terms of social and political stability.

“If the economy is growing but only a few are enjoying the benefits, it goes to our sense of fairness,” Professor Saez said. “It can have important political consequences.”

The analysis by the two professors showed that the top 10 percent of Americans collected 48.5 percent of all reported income in 2005.

That is an increase of more than 2 percentage points over the previous year and up from roughly 33 percent in the late 1970s. The peak for this group was 49.3 percent in 1928.

The top 1 percent received 21.8 percent of all reported income in 2005, up significantly from 19.8 percent the year before and more than double their share of income in 1980.

The underlying issue with this whole climate change thing is consumption. From Wal-Mart to Starbucks to vehicles, North Americans consume way more stuff than they should (I say this while writing at Stakbucks and drinking my second Grande Americano at $2.60 + GST a pop). The irony is that it is in the best interest of those in the top 1% earning bracket for the bottom 90% earners to keep consuming. The owner of Wal-Mart needs as many of those 150 million Americans at the bottom of the earning heap to shop ‘til they drop. Those 150 million Americans are keeping him (Wal-Mart Owner) in the lifestyle that he is accustomed to. All the while purchasing cheap stuff that they (Mass Consumer) need. WMD aside, this has got to be one of the greatest lies supported by mass media.

Who is being served by this economic growth? Is there a better way to measure economic growth that is a more accurate reflection of what people everyday people need? A way to factor in things like happiness and literacy?


In terms of physical structure, I feel that a well-designed city could go a log way to address some of this social and economic disparity, address climate change and increase the overall happiness of people. A tall order for the lowly city.

Mike Davis, in a recent interview about his new book, Planet of Slums, states:
IN THE abstract, cities are the solution to the world environmental crisis. From Patrick Geddes to Jane Jacobs, urban theorists have correctly emphasized that the city, not the idealized small farm, is our ultimate ark: potentially the most efficient system for recycling energy and matter between ourselves and Gaia.

Some cities are closer to this ideal than others (Vancouver vs Edmonton, for instance), but all cities are still light years away from addressing the full potential available to them. Cities, if designed correctly, could add layers and depth of visual beauty, complex systems of energy recycling, and a myriad of choices as to what services the consumer wants.

We, as a society, are stuck in a 1960’s idealized model of how we should live in close proximity, where the individual has more rights than the collective. Remember Spock? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…or the one?

While very far from perfect, urban slums may have much to teach ‘first world’ urban planners in how to think about urban growth. Slums grow in an organic manner and are more complex looking than gated communities. Children play on the street, and in the best case, people are community minded where services are traded at a very local level. Please do not misunderstand. I am not indicating that those billion people who live in slums all over the world amidst violence and economic decay, who do not have access to basic human rights such as the right to drinking water, safety and shelter, live in an ideal place. Far from it. I am simply advocating that we may have something to learn from their economic and social systems.

This is where I feel that I can make more of a contribution. Understanding how cities work. Advocating for Urban-Systems Planning, not Urban Planning, where Urban-Systems are as complex and varied as healthy ecosystems.

Tags: planning, slums, urban-system

07:10 pm: The environment needs more, Canada
JON K. GRANT
Special to Globe and Mail Update
As chair of the board of a Canadian public company with 34 plants in 15 countries around the world, our operations, including our plants in Canada, are governed by a multitude of environmental regulations from virtually every level of government — country, state and municipality.

What was once a Canadian environmental-stewardship legacy, and what we thought was world leadership, is now at the back of the pack. Developed countries' regulations would be expected to challenge Canada's. But increasingly in the developing and newly emerging economies, such as China's, South America's, Mexico's and Eastern Europe's, environmental regulations are becoming more demanding.
In fact, as Canadian environmentalists trumpet the Kyoto accord as being the answer to our environmental problems, our own greenhouse-gas-reduction performance is falling behind our neighbour to the South. We can't even get a passing grade by Kyoto standards. So, with or without Kyoto, Canada is falling further and further behind not only the Kyoto-membership countries, but even those who didn't join the pact.
One can argue with some justification that the buying and selling of CO2 emissions is not a very effective way of stimulating people to become stewards of our planet. The economics of emissions trading may be one of the lynchpins of the Kyoto Accord, but do not stimulate the imagination of people to act to, indeed, improve their environmental heritage.

What happened to Quaker Oats in the late 1980s when I was president and CEO was, at that time, a microcosm of a broader and significant opportunity for business. Following a decade characterized by wastefulness and a widening gap between wealth and poverty, Canadians were yearning for a rehabilitation of personal values and community reality. Traditionally, economic productivity and environmental conservation had long been portrayed as opponents, battling for the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers. As Canadians entered a period of more intense world competition, environmental conservation, coupled with an intelligent use of resources, would not only reduce our drain on land, air and water, but would sharpen the focus on business to breed efficiency.

At Quaker Oats, we began this environmental odyssey with a conservation ethic that affected all our employees from factory floor to corner office. In essence, we became more efficient, more concerned about disposability, and a stronger conserver of Quaker's assets. Practised at all levels, a corporate environmental ethic can create models of efficiency and standards of excellence. Our employees responded with pride to the environmental culture that was much more in tune with what they were hearing from their children about the environment and conservation.

In 1990, as chair of the Ontario Round Table on the Environment and Economy, I worked with a group of business, labour, environmental and aboriginal leaders who encouraged companies to develop environmental reports with the same intense seriousness as their financial reports. It seemed to me that we were on the road in taking a leadership position not only in Canada, but around the world.

Alas, after encouragement from both the Peterson and Rae governments in Ontario, and the Mulroney government in Ottawa, those initiatives were "downplayed" by the Harris government in Ontario and the Chrétien government in Ottawa. Most disturbing were the activities of the federal Liberals, who literally decimated the Environment Ministry to a tertiary position at the cabinet table. The environment became a bureaucrat's wasteland. Canada signed the Kyoto accord with no firm commitment to improve our environmental performance — in fact, we fell behind other countries. We seem to join any and all world bodies that have a political environmental affiliation with the public. But we can't pay the annual dues.
If Kyoto is not right for us, then we must quickly find a strategy to replace it with a better program that can engage people not with the process, but with the results. Very few Canadians even understand what Kyoto is about and yet, some are quite prepared to support it. How can we support something we don't understand?
We need again to ignite Canadians' imagination and become true stewards of our environment. We need again to bring together leaders in all the constituencies that make up this country to engage Canadians in a discussion about our environmental future and where we want to be, not only in this generation, but the next. We must stop the record of falling behind other countries and become leaders in the world.
Here, to that end, are some initiatives to consider.

First, the federal government must clarify what their environmental strategy is, if they don't want Kyoto. The fact is, if we cannot even meet the Kyoto accord standards, difficult to understand as they are, how can we bring on a plan to improve that?

Second, we must put strong teeth into our Ministry of the Environment, both at the federal and provincial levels — with the right ministers in place to have clear influence around the cabinet table, and the clear support of the Prime Minister and provincial Premiers. Without that, we will not be successful.
Third, we must set goals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, particularly to reduce fossil-fuel usage, by setting goals over the next five to 10 years on a yearly basis, and then sticking to them.
Fourth, we must put Canadian research into our Arctic, global-warming problem. Too often, the Canadian government has relied on international activities to point out problems that we have in our North — particularly with the melting of the icecap, and the reduction of caribou and musk ox herds, a major food source for the Inuit. A "made in Canada" research project must be initiated to find solutions in our Arctic.
Fifth, we must begin to develop, locally, a strong enthusiasm for, and commitment to, environmental initiatives. Without the support of young people in the schools, university students and communities, governments will not react. Support has to be strong, clear and focused.

And we must stand up in world bodies, with our environmental plan in hand, to reconnect with our traditional commitment on environmental stewardship. We've been away from the table too long, to the embarrassment of Canadians and disappointment to the rest of the world.

Jon K. Grant is chair of the board of CCL Industries Inc. He was the CEO of the Quaker Oats Company from 1976 to 1993, chair of the Ontario Round Table on the Environment and the Economy from 1990 to 19 92, and chair of the Nature Conservancy of Canada from 2003 to 2005.

09:23 pm: Wikipedia
Just picked up Wikinomics to read on a trip down to Calgary. It got me thinking about this discussion MylesK initiated about participatory democracy. In the opening paragraphs the authors of Wikinomics challenged all of the assumptions that I had about collaboration. For me, collaboration occurs when a bunch of people sit around a table and talk about their issues in an open way. For the Wiki folks, collaboration is not confined to boardrooms in Edmonton, Calgary or any other city. Collaboration occurs on-line at sites that can be accessed by anyone with a computer, an Internet connection and a will to contribute.

So, within this context, can Internet tools such as livejournal, Wikipedia etc., help in the evolution of shared governance? Can, though Wikipedia, social or environmental policy be developed? Stay tuned for a CASA Wiki.

Tags: shared goverance

09:10 pm: Wikipedia
Just picked up Wikinomics to read on a trip down to Calgary. It got me thinking about this discussion MylesK initiated about participatory democracy. In the opening paragraphs the authors of Wikinomics challenged all of the assumptions that I had about collaboration. For me, collaboration occurs when a bunch of people sit around a table and talk about their issues in an open way. For the Wiki folks, collaboration is not confined to boardrooms in Edmonton, Calgary or any other city. Collaboration occurs on-line at sites that can be accessed by anyone with a computer, an Internet connection and a will to contribute.

So, within this context, can Internet tools such as livejournal, Wikipedia etc., help in the evolution of shared governance? Can, though Wikipedia, social or environmental policy be developed? Stay tuned for a CASA Wiki.

Tags: shared goverance

10:50 pm: The Mall

10:26 pm: Transportation - Edmonton and Vancouver
I have wandered away from my line of discussion these past few weeks. Here is an attempt to get back to it…

Jane Jacobs, who died on April 25th at the age of 89, prophesized that cities could serve the car or the pedestrian, but never both.

Personally, I vote for the pedestrian and for communities. But, how do we make that work? Which urban communities in Edmonton or Canada work? And by work, I don’t mean allow people to live isolated lives behind walls, but neighbourhoods that help create a sense of community for all those who live there.

This is where I start to struggle. I know what I want in transportation, I know that the design of transportation systems impacts, for good or bad, how communities develop. It is here where I struggle with how to improve what is already out there.

Fewer cars. I drives me nuts as I walk to work in the AM to see folks drive their big safe SUVs and cars to work. There is an influx of people into the downtown core every workday. If they are coming from the south side, they are required to drive over one of 3 bridges that span the N. Saskatchewan River.

I spent a few days in Vancouver over the Victoria Day Long Weekend – 3 days that were completely free of obligation and two days on course. I was staying on Denman Street and had to walk through downtown to Seymour and Hastings. Although the walk was substantially longer than my commute in Edmonton, it was so much more fun. Stuff to look and people on the streets.

I was immediately struck by the activity and the opportunity for activity on the street. Small shops opening early in the morning, pulling their fruit cards out in front of their shops. Coffee shops spilling onto the sidewalk and cyclists riding by on the street. Sure there were cars driving down the road, but it was somehow less intrusive and frustrating.

I also noticed that there were many types of residences and other accommodation in this area. On Davie Street, there are many hotels, and on the streets between Davie and Robson, there are many houses, walk-ups and high-rise condos. Mixed housing that supports a wide variety of services within walking distance. A short car ride through downtown Vancouver brought us to Yaletown. Agian, more shops, housing (and boats...I love boats), and a diversity of people using the streets and the board walk next to False Creek. Lots of public space that was accessable by anyone who had the inclination to walk, ride or drive down to this part of town. But, the thing is, where every there are people in the downtown Vancouver area, there are public spaces. The thing that I find depressing about Edmonton are the rows and rows of houses in the 'burbs where there is not a soul to be found. Just big houses with the blue glow of the TV emitting from behind the closed curtains. And now back to the vacation in Vancouver...

On the weekend, my fiancé and I rented bikes to get around more quickly. While tooling around downtown, Stanley Park, Granville Island and Kits, I noticed that bikes often had lanes and paths set out for them granting them equal status. Pedestrians and cyclists often had to navigate the same paths, but that there were many paths going many places and plenty room for both.

ASIDE – For example, in Edmonton, I often cross the street at the intersection of 109 Street and 103 Avenue. There are lights at this intersection, but not an automatic pedestrian cross signal. If the light is changing in my favour as I approach the intersection on foot, I have to wait for the next light cycle after I push the pedestrian cross button before I can cross. The lights are set up for cars, with pedestrians having to make the effort to use the intersection. Although it is not a long wait, I find it frustrating. Frustrating because the cars are given a higher value at that intersection than pedestrians. Why? Why have the city transportation planners made that choice?

10:54 pm: Self Identities
Buying a Prius or Honda Civic hybrid is less about careful economic reasoning than about self-expression and self-understanding. "People construct their identities as a narrative. The project of our lives is to tell a more interesting story about ourselves," says Kurani. "In large part that's what we see happening with hybrids."

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/neo.html

How can this apply to building cities?

07:36 am: Fuel prices transforming public transit: Rising ridership puts pressure on urban systems across the
The Edmonton Journal
Tue 09 May 2006
Byline: Sharon Adams

Sky-high gasoline prices are galvanizing changes in commuting patterns across the country as the cost of getting to work eats up more of Canadians' household budgets. With gasoline prices above $1 per litre across the country and projected to stay high, many commuters are trading their car keys for bus and train tickets, and transit systems are struggling to meet the increased demand, says Michael Roschlau, president of the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA). "It's a problem everywhere," says Roschlau, whose association represents 120 public transit systems across Canada, as well as government transit agencies and private-sector suppliers and consultants.

After years of growth between one and two per cent, the average daily ridership in Winnipeg increased in the last five months of 2005 between 4.4 per cent (after hurricane Katrina hit the oil-producing area on the U.S. Gulf Coast) and 8.4 per cent in December 2005, after the first of the recent gas-price increases.
"Normally, after an occasional spike, we saw the impact for a couple of weeks and it died back down again," says Bill Menzies, manager of planning and schedules for Winnipeg Transit. "But this looks permanent.

"We're getting close to being stressed," he said. "The problem this year for a lot of transit systems will be how to increase capacity." "The services we're putting out are filling up right away," said Bill Jenkins, director of customer service for Go Transit, an interregional public transit system that carries 47 million passengers a year on its bus-and-train network between Toronto and surrounding regions. A 25-per-cent increase in ridership followed the recent addition of a fourth peak-hour Newmarket train. Ridership in Greater Vancouver, from March 2005 to March 2006 increased six per cent on buses and nearly 10 per cent on the heavy-rail passenger service from Mission, B. C., says TransLink spokesman Ken Hardy.

That system has breathing space, however, as the University of British Columbia wraps up its heaviest term. By the time the 60,000 college and university riders return in the fall, the first of 109 new buses to be added to the system this year should be in operation. Meanwhile, daily transit ridership is up across the country: between January and March 2006, ridership was up 6.8 per cent in Victoria, 7.1 per cent in Calgary and 4.1 per cent in Ottawa, compared to the same period in 2005. Ken Koropeski, director of service development for Edmonton Transit, says ridership is up "a bare minimum of four per cent -- and I think it's going to be more."

By year's end, transit systems across the country could be groaning, says CUTA's Reschlau. "There is a limited ability for transit systems to increase capacity. Some are at their limit." Some others welcome the increased ridership. Economic necessity may accomplish what years of good intentions have not, as individuals, cities and governments move to find more efficient and economical ways for Canadians to get to work, says Daniel Spence, sustainable transportation co-ordinator of the non-profit Ottawa EnviroCentre. "If you can't afford to fill up your tank to make it to work, you're going to have to think about car pooling or buying a bus pass," says Spence. With more and more metro areas suffering gridlock, traffic congestion in the country's four urban centres is pegged at a cost of up to $3.7 billion annually. As cities run out of space and funds to build new roads, governments are beginning to get serious about public transit, Reschlau says. And, he adds, transit systems are investigating new means to meet the demand, such as suburb-to-suburb commuting, with programs such as express buses with traffic priority so they don't get bogged down in congestion. "It's a relatively inexpensive way to provide rapid-transit service where you can't justify
rail service." But where there are no public-transit options to fall back on, suburb-to-suburb commuters – whose numbers are swelling across the country will simply have to pay the higher gas prices.

"People who live and work in different suburbs are captive to their car," Roschlau says. And if gasoline prices remain permanently higher, ridership will erode, predicts Ron Drolet, senior vice-president of B.C. Transit in Victoria. "We do have reaction to price shock," he says. "But there's a transient nature about this -- even today's fuel prices don't create a sustained change."