Urban Neighbourhood

Japan’s Solar Shift

One thing that you can say about disasters is that they are rare opportunities to redo everything. A tabula rasa opportunity when it comes to rebuilding affected areas.

Japan is still recovering from the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11th and the nuclear crisis that it triggered.

The AFP is reporting that Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is expected to announce Japan’s decision to continue operating nukes in order to meet the countries current power needs, but to also a mandate that would require all new homes and buildings to be outfitted with solar panels as part of the upcoming G8 Summit in France.

Of course a mandate isn’t legislation, but the construction required does present an opportunity for a solar company to step in and take advantage of the increased opportunity for demand if they can offer an efficient solar option.

Welcome to the Banana Republic of America

I don’t often write about income equality and politics in this blog, even though my inital degree was in Political Science I prefer to stick to Urban issues that are a little more lite and friendly then things like economic inequality and the division of wealth, these topics tend to be divisive and are often better left to the many political blogs out there. Today however, a news article came across my desk today that made me rethink my decision to ignore these topics given that the economic vitality of our cities is directly tied in with income distribution and the ability of  a cities citizens to spend money. If the stratification between income classes is too far apart then, and the majority of a city’s residents don’t have access to capital, then the social order tends to break down.

Anyway the information I am talking about comes by way of an opinion piece in the New York Times Titled A Hedge Fund Republic,

It turns out that in the United States in United States the income equality between different classes of citizens is worse then in most so called banana republics. It turns out that the US is on par with, if not worse than Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana. While this is a pretty strong statement  its the statistics behind the statement hat make a more compelling argument.

Let’s compare the United States in Argentina and consult the statistics, in the 1940s the top 1% of Argentina controlled 20% of the country’s net income versus the United States where the top 1% controlled only about 10% of the national income.  Most of the wealth was concentrated in a small percentage of the population and this would later assist Juan Peron in his populist rise to power in 1946.

Now fast forward those statistics to today or rather 2007 ( the most recent years to which the data is available).  In Argentina the top 1% has reduced its share of the pie down to 15% of net income whereas in the United States the top 1% has now gained control of approximately 34% of America’s private net worth. To further illustrate the disparity of wealth one only needs to expand the statistics from the top 1 percent to the top 10% and you end up with a situation where 10% of America owns 71% of Americans’ total net worth. Leaving with 90% of the country with only 29% of net worth.

The times article goes on to further discuss why the supporters of the republican party who fall in that 90% are absolutely insane for letting the party convince them that it is necessary for health of the American economy to keep the bush cuts going, but I will let the New York Times finish that story as they do a much better job.  Read the rest at the New York Times

Art, Activism, and the Brazillian Favela

In Rio a pair of Dutch artists and a paint company have triggered a change in the urban landscape of Rio. The artists had an idea to change the living environment of the Favela as a means to try and change how residents and the city at large related with the slum. After the success of the first couple of projects the Coral paint company got on board and now the slum is becoming known for something other then its drug trade.

A favela is the generally used term for a shanty town in Brazil. The name ‘favela’ comes from a tree commonly found on the side of hills in sub-tropical regions named the favela tree. As favelas are also often found on the sides of hills, the slang term ‘favela’ was formed. In the late 18th century, the first settlements were called bairros africanos (African neighborhoods), and they were the place where former slaves with no land ownership and no options for work lived. Over the years, many freed black slaves moved in. However, before the first settlement called “favela” came into being, poor blacks were pushed away from downtown into the far suburbs. Most modern favelas appeared in the 1970s, due to rural exodus, when many people left rural areas of Brazil and moved to cities.

From Wiki.

Learn more at the organization’s website. FP Favela Painting.

Gary, Indiana: Unbroken spirit amid the ruins of the 20th Centry

A look back at the effectiveness of federal stimulus past and present by the BBC. Gary In was a town that received federal stimulus money after the great depression and once again when the Obama administration announced its stimulus package after the recent economic collapse. The movie takes a look at how effective stimulus can be, and the politics behind its delivery.

Watch this video over at the BBC.

To put this in context you have to know that Gary, home to what is still US Steel Corp’s biggest plant, is suffering from one of the most advanced cases of urban blight in the developed world. Its city centre is near-deserted by day. The texture of the urban landscape is cracked stone, grass, crumbled brick and buddleia.

Gary is one third poor, 84% African American, and has seen its population halve over the past three decades. If crime, as the official figures suggest, has recently dropped off then – say the critics – that is because population flight from the city is bigger than the census figures show.

Gary in the end got $266m of stimulus money and has, according to the federal “recipient reported data” created a grand total of 327 jobs. That’s $800,000 per job.

I went back determined to find out how the stimulus dollars had been spent; to get beyond the ideology and recriminations and see why President Barack Obama’s stimulus has failed to turn the country around.

The striking thing is that they are all structurally dangerous and yet totally accessible. I did not have to cross a single piece of wire, tape or fencing to get in, nor did I encounter a security guard or dog patrol. The city seems to have given up even securing these ruins.

Standard Exhibitionism

It hasn’t been in the news much lately the standard hotel in New York that straddles The High Line, is relatively infamous.  It captured a lot of attention last summer after opening with its sexually charged advertising campaign.  An early promotional advertisement declared “We’ll put up with your banging if you put up with ours,” and the Hotel’s Facebook page stated the situation a bit more clearly.

“We encourage you to exercise your inner exhibitionist. Please share your intimate, and explicit photos with us — those floor to ceiling windows aren’t just for the views . . .”

Whether you agree with the strategy or not you can’t deny that it was effective.  The campaign and its results generated a lot of press last summer.  Some positive and some negative.

The Standard Hotel New York.

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“We saw a naked girl jumping up and down on a trampoline right in front of the window,” said Shannon Brickner, who works at a boutique on West 13th Street.

“From the street, I saw a man and a woman. Everyone was looking up at them.

“They were facing outwards, and I could see their backsides pressed up against the window. I thought it was a photo shoot or porn.”

Complained a waitress at the Brass Monkey, “It’s a free porn show.

“You hear the cheering, then you look up and see naked people. You get some people that don’t realize. Then you get the real exhibitionists.”

Some unhappy passers-by were disgusted, too. “Recently, I saw a man masturbating in one of the windows,” said one person who asked not to be identified. “That’s when it left the funny side and moved to the gross, dark side.” S.

Not everyone was surprised, some see it as par for the course for an edgy neighbourhood.

Grandparent Gwen Barrett said “That kind of stuff here is anticipated,”
Still, “I definitely wouldn’t want to bring my grandkids here,” she added.

The controversy over what takes place in front of The Standards windows raise questions of decency, control, and responsibility.  A City Counciler has gone on the attack declaring that “The alleged actions of The Standard are unacceptable.” Of course what exactly is the hotel to do?  Sure the Hotel can tone down the advertising that invites people to stand naked in front of the windows, but people have been going to hotels and stripping down in front of the windows for long time, even before The Standard opened.  It’s just that most don’t happen to have a public park / viewing deck right below.  It isn’t really possible to legislate that people must close their blinds when they plan have a nude romp inside their own homes, so we can’t really do it for hotels either.  Whatever your position on the nude antics that take place in the windows it certainly keeps the city interesting!

Where Construction Stalls The Iceberg Rises.

Woods Bagot architects have come up with an innovative and better yet, inexpensive way to a number of the approximately 100 stalled construction sites scattered around Manhattan.  As the recent economic downturn demonstrated when times get tough,  cranes and construction tend to slow down, or stop entirely. When this happens the construction sight turns into a boarded up hole in the neighbourhood. Architect Jeffery Holmes calls them “Urban-life killers,” but what is a city to do with these sites? Enter Icebergs by Woods Bagot.

In Woods Bagot’s own words:

Across New York City, the dilapidated blue boards covering stalled construction sites are a constant reminder of troubled times and a blight on the urban landscape. Enter Icebergs NYC.

With this innovative concept, Woods Bagot has stepped up to address a community issue – simultaneously solving a problem and creating an opportunity. Representing fresh thinking about the intersection of use, function and design, Icebergs NYC embraces the financial and temporal realities of our current times. Big in volume and light on resources, like their namesakes, these 100% recyclable structures have been designed to turn stalled construction sites into  unique, multi-purpose spaces.

Icebergs NYC provides an iconic venue for a variety of functions, while creating a revenue stream on an otherwise dormant site. Designed for quick assembly and disassembly, the modular structures are constructed of a steel frame topped by inflated pillows of ETFE to create a dynamic, memorable form. Transportable in a single shipping container, Icebergs can quickly be set adrift to sites in cities around the world.

In collaboration with Arup, Design on Earth, Pentagram, and AECOM Economics.

The structure is a modular  steel frame wrapped with a polycarbonate base and architects favourite new material ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene, or ETFE.

Montreal 2025

A copy of the Montreal 2025 part of the city of Montreal’s counter proposal to Transport Quebec’s $1.5-billion Turcot redevelopment project.
Présentation médias_2010-04-21

Panel Gallery

The Sheppard Line Subtext

Some call it the ‘subway to nowhere.’ Mel Lastman knows better

(Published by National Post on August 12, 2000 1:31 PM)

Malcolm Kelly
National Post

Walking eastward down the quiet westbound tunnel of Mel Lastman’s “Subway to Nowhere,” still two years away from seeing its first official train in mid-2002, a thought suddenly strikes: Despite its now well-known nickname, the new Sheppard Avenue line does indeed go somewhere.

At a cost of $932.9-million, the subway goes to Fairview Mall. And it goes to the North York General Hospital and Seneca College’s Leslie Campus.

And to the Bayview Village Shopping Centre, Michael of Willowdale’s Hair Design and the Altima Dental Centre.

It goes to a pair of Esso stations and a Shell station. And to Ikea.

It’s Mel’s Subway to a Shopping Mall.

Was the Mayor out of his mind when he proposed this? Or was he smarter than the rest of us?

Jump to this article

The Most Populated Cities of the World

The Top 100 cities in the world listed by population.

NOTE: Numbers shown include population within the recognized metro area of the city, and they include people living in the immediate surrounding area outside of the established border of the city. Referenced From: World Atlas

1. Tokyo, Japan – 28,025,000
2. Mexico City, Mexico – 18,131,000
3. Mumbai, India – 18,042,000
4. Sáo Paulo, Brazil – 17, 711,000
5. New York City, USA – 16,626,000
6. Shanghai, China – 14,173,000
7. Lagos, Nigeria – 13,488,000
8. Los Angeles, USA – 13,129,000
9. Calcutta, India – 12,900,000
10. Buenos Aires, Argentina – 12,431,000

11. Seóul, South Korea – 12,215,000
12. Beijing, China – 12,033,000
13. Karachi, Pakistan – 11,774,000
14. Delhi, India – 11,680,000
15. Dhaka, Bangladesh – 10,979,000
16. Manila, Philippines – 10,818,000
17. Cairo, Egypt – 10,772,000
18. Õsaka, Japan – 10,609,000
19. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 10,556,000
20. Tianjin, China – 10,239,000

(more…)

The Mobile Phone Pandemic

City’s exist because of people, lots and lots of people. Otherwise lets face it it would just be a town. When you have lots and lots of people heathcare and sickness are a concern. Concern over infection control and pandemics has been on our minds lately, but how do you simulate a pandemic?  Clinical trials are not exactly an option.

Well leave it to a nation where mobile phones are more common then watches to figure out another way to use them. In a few months a very contagious disease will start to spread through an elementary school in Japan. An unwitting child will act as patient zero and the infection will spread as the students attend class and walk through the halls.

In just a matter of time the sickness will spread through the student body and beyond, parents, officials, bus drivers, the shop keeper on the corner. Officials will try to stop the epidemic and save the school, but it all comes down to their mobile phone.

Its a virtual sickness funded by the Japanese government using mobile phone technology and implemented by a subsidiary of Softbank Corp. The company will pick an elementary school with about 1,000 students and everyone will be provided with a cellphone equipted with a GPS tracker so that thier movements, and the spread of the disease can be recorded and tracked.

The system will provide a simulation on how an infection spreads and the governement also hopes to test using the GPS data to backtrack on the spread of the disease and send people text messages warning them to go and see a doctor as they might have been infected. A system that it hopes could be used in the future in the event of actual epidemic.

Via CBC/AP

NVS: The City of Tomorrow Today

A short documentary of life in Troy, Michigan

Andres Duany's Editorial Brawls and Agricultural New Urbanism

New Urbanism’s Andrés Duany is no stranger to editorial brawling, back in December I followed a progression of stories sparked by a his unveiling of a 64-point litany of mistakes that have been made by British architects and planners over the last 50 years. He charged architects with being infantile and too focused on ego and prestige, that they were “heedless of technical and social dysfunction and widespread lack of popularity” of their modernist designs. Well architects are a pretty sensitive bunch, and the flood gates opened; modernists struck back with an equally harsh criticism of Duany’s new urbanism. In the opening line of an article titled Thou shalt not follow Duany’s architectural gospel he is called the ‘Billy Graham of American architecture.”  The modernists claim that Duany with his strict guidelines for design and faux traditional styling lead to settlements more tailored to ‘wannabe Stepford Wives’ then real people. Next came an article by Stephen Bayle, and the gloves really came off when Bayle wrote  a scathing review of Poundbury, Duany’s British version of Seaside.

“To visit Poundbury is to be delivered to the furniture floor of a provincial department store in 1954, translated into architecture. It is fake, heartless, authoritarian and grimly cute.”  Then there were some salvo’s back by David Brussat who stated that “Prince Charles and Andrés Duany are making it harder for the modernists to whistle past the graveyard.”

Then today I came across another article in ARCADE where the magazine was good enough to reprint an exchange between Trevor Boddy and Andrés Duany from the editorial section of the Globe and Mail.  Duany has been selected to lead a design team that is heading up a plan by the Century Group for the Southlands project in the Vancouver suburb  of South Delta. Mr Boddy is most definitely not impressed with Duany’s plan and starts off an exchange between the two of them.

The 56th Street Interface A lake fronting on 56th Street will form the foreground of a pleasing vista over the open farmland. The lake will function as a reservoir for natural drainage and irrigation water. image courtesy of the southlands project — www.southlandsintransition.ca

I have to admit that while I generally agree with the principles of New Urbanism in terms of compact walkable communities after reading this exchange I don’t really understand how Duany’s position and plan for this town is in fact urban.

“Southlands, which is designed specifically to embody food self-sufficiency, devotes 42% of the land to agriculture and keeps 26% open for other purposes. That kind of diversity — and not a crude single standard — is what authentic urbanism calls for.”

42% of the land for agriculture? This sounds more like a farming town then an urban environment. He then goes on to specify that residences will have a significant amount of this space FOR agriculture. Of course specifying that the open space in your back yard is for urban agriculture does not by any way shape or means guarantee that it will actually be USED for agriculture. Sure food self sufficiency is an important direction for cities in the future but to assume that everyone is actually going to plant and tend a full garden in these yards is just a little naive. As a general rule people are just way too lazy for that, what happens when homeowners don’t decide to make use of these agricultural spaces? My guess is that it looks a lot like a lawn. Furthermore what is stopping existing suburban municipalities from claiming that they meet these qualifications for new urbanism, just convert those vanity lawns into gardens and you’ll be well on your way to new urbanism.

I know  I am over simplifying things  but I don’t think I’m too far off the mark . Take a look at the linked articles, decide for yourself, and please comment  if you have a different opinion. I would love to hear other perspectives on how you think we should build our cities. I think I should mention , I don’t think that the Southlands project is bad, it looks like a pretty nice place to live, I just dispute the statement that it is urban. It looks a lot like my grandmother’s town.

Not everyone agrees with me though; to read the perspective of people who love Southlands new  urbanist project go here: http://www.southlandsintransition.ca/

Advertising in the public realm

“Advertising physically separates us from the lived experience of the urban fabric, however ugly or beautiful.” Joseph Rykwert

An article in The Architects Journal about billbords gave me an opportunity to think about the issue once again, not that going to a fairly liberal university hasn’t given me plenty of opportunity to hear the discourse on advertising but i appreciated the articles perspective with reguard to public space and the built environment. Read the Article.

The use of advertisements in the public realm has long been considered a bit of a thorny issue. Most populists or anti capitalists feel that advertising has crept too far into the public realm, buses, on top of buildings, bars, bathrooms, and even on top of the gas pump. What happens then when a public structure turns what was supposed to be a façade for public art into a giant billboard? Such is the case with the British Film Institute (BFI), in London. The BFI owns the IMAX building at the base of the bridge, when the building was originally built it was designed as a glass shell over an inner wall that contained the IMAX equipment. The architect Bryan Avery envisioned the outer shell as a place that would be treated by an artist to give passing motorists and pedestrians a taste of public art. Until 2006 things went as envisioned until one day the BFI, citing financial needs decided to sell the space for advertising and what was once a giant piece of public art, became a giant piece of public advertising.

The financial needs argument is a hard one to fight, however an interesting footnote to this is that “being a grant-aid body, it will only receive a fraction of any large advertising revenue.” My question is where is the rest of the money going, and god forbid that they are offering the space at a cut rate. While I personally don’t feel that public buildings should be able to turn their facades into ad space. Rogaine ads on the side of city hall? I do think that if they are forced to resort to that they should get full market value for the space. Of course in my ideal world London and a number of other cities would follow São Paulo, Brazil it instituted the ‘Cidade Limpa’ (‘City Clean’) campaign, which banned all advertising in the public realm. It has turned out to be a bit of a boon for the city coffers since the city has collected about $8 million US from advertisers who decided to take their time pulling down their billboards.

The removal of a lot of these billboards has had a mixed effect on the cityscape, a number of historic gems have been uncovered but a number of shantytown sweatshops have been exposed as well. While the advertisers may not be too happy popular opinion appears to support the initiative with 70% in favor of the policy. Of course a policy like this implemented in other cities then begs the question of what happens to place that are famous mostly because of advertising, Times Square in New York City and the Ginza district in Tokyo come to mind. Perhaps cities could create marketing preserves where certain areas are left open to billboards, a way to look back on the proliferation that was once allowed, lest we forget.

Model Activism: Townhouse Neighbourhood 1:35

Model Neighbourhood

It isn’t every day that you come across a new kind of activism, but I would like to suggest model activism as a new term. Wouter Osterhold and Elke Uitentuis, the artists in residence at Cairo’s Townhouse Gallery, used architectural modeling to spur their neighbours into action and spur discourse on the plans for this city neighbourhood.

The Artists have recreated the urban area they live in in Downtown Cairo into a miniature model (1:35 scale as the title suggests) in an effort to stimulate the individual ideas of its inhabitants. The goal is to enable residents and workers in the neighbourhood to understand the urban fabric in its complexity and reflect on their surroundings. The city of Cairo has targeted this area for redevelopment and gentrification and wishes to ‘clean up’ the central city;

The government has the wish to ‘clean up’ the Downtown area. They want to remove the improvised extensions and commercial signs, they want to clean the roofs, renovate the monumental colonial architecture and relocate and accommodate the small businesses on the outskirts of Cairo. In addition to this a group of architects and urban planners developed a plan to transform the abandoned ‘Said Halim Pasha palace’ into a museum of Cairo. The ‘Townhouse neighbourhood 1:35′ project focuses on the development of an alternative vision on the future urban renewal developments.S

As is roof details

The Artists are hoping that by bringing the scale of the neighbourhood down to a level that is easily understood by its inhabitants it will empower them to become involved and try to influence the government’s current top down approach to development in the area.

We try to create a participatory exhibition in which the inhabitants will be challenged to think about their own ideas with regard to the future developments of their direct surrounding.S

The First Gallery Show was from January to March of the past year. The models are not just of the buildings but of everything from the broken windows to abandoned furniture, posters, laundry lines, and even the garbage. The level of detail gives residents a whole new perspective on their properties and this has caused some residents to see their homes and buisnesses in a new light. “When he noticed the trash on his roof in the model, one man decided he finally had to do something to clean it up,” S

The artists plan to take the results of the first gallery show, workshops and other feedback gathered from residents and compile them into a publication that they plan to present back to the residents and more importantly to the architects, urban planners, and politicians who are deciding what to do with the neighbourhood.

The second Gallery Show is from January 1st 2009 to March 8th 2009 at the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo Egypt.

Balconies on the left side of the townhouse model

The local coffee shop

The Townhouse Model

Model of the factory building

The Townhouse Gallery is located in the rear of the factory building

Model of the neighbouring Prince Said Halim Pasha Palace

If you are a planning nerd, or would just like to see even more pictures and write ups on the residents of this Cairo Neighbourhood check out the blog, it has a wealth of information, and it is all just so darn interesting…

Wouter Osterholt en Elke Uitentuis, residency at the Townhouse Gallery, Cairo

Big Brother is Watching, but don’t worry it is for your own good.

Big Brother Is Watching, but its for your own good!

The Future of defence in New York City is taking shape, and it looks a lot like 1984, or the UK for that matter.  Part of the plan is for over 3000 security camera’s to keep a watchful eye on things.  While social libertarians most likely are not impressed with the increasing presence of security features in our day to day lives, New York is also not interested in being hit, again. The 1.7 square miles below Canal Street boasts the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Bank, City Hall, and four major bridges and tunnels. An attack at any of these locations would most likely kill hundreds, and shake up the world financial markets even more. Not to mention cost the city a lot of money.

Plans are in place for an upgrade of the subway surveillance systems, electronic licence plate readers, that are both stationary at a number of access points to the island and mounted on police cruisers. It will also be possible for the city to block off a number of streets, with massive vehicle barriers embedded in the streets that can be raised within moments by a command from the city’s counter terrorism bureau.

Of course on a counter point a number of vehicle barriers have also been removed as they have been deemed pretty much useless, or at worst counter terrorism experts have concluded that a poorly anchored planter, struck hard enough by explosive force or a speeding vehicle could become, to use police jargon, “weaponized”: it could shatter into deadly shards or go flying. s

The whole thing is both frightening and reassuring at the same time.  What interests me most, is what do people who live in New York think about all the security.  When I do a google search for security opinions most of it is all official, or companies who sell security services, I have had a surprisingly hard time coming up with a personal opinion from a New Yorker, so I if anyone reading Urban Neighbourhood is a New Yorker with an opinion on this, please comment, or if you now of a blog or two with a New Yorker’s opinion on the security initiative please point me the right way.

via NYC Panopticon Plans Take Shape | Danger Room from Wired.com