Advocates of alternative transit are often trying to lobby for new infrastructural systems so that increased access can create opportunities for a new rider base that move away from relying solely on automobiles.In designing a pedestrian-oriented space, success not only comes from making pedestrian access an easier option, but making it the easiest. The same can be true for all modes of transit. Reaching parity with cars in terms of convenience isn’t always enough to alter people’s use patterns. Sometimes this could mean not just opening up new avenues for transportation, but constricting old vehicular ones as well. Continue Reading…
Archives For progressivetimes
Given our propensity for streamlining information paired with our dangerous addiction to hype, we have a tendency to pull things out of context to weigh them each as isolated ideas. This is just as true with sustainability as it is with everything else. Merits and shortcomings are all too often examined on one specific gadget, product or system, but everything (especially sustainability) is really a system of systems. More often than not, the real opportunities for progress come with linking individual solutions together. A great example is renewable energy and electric cars. Continue Reading…
New York’s bike sharing program has been in service for just over a month now, met with plenty of enthusiasm and criticism alike. I had some colleagues that were skeptics (even fellow bikers) of how often those blue bikes would be touring across the city grid, but the latest statistics are painting a picture of quick acclimation into local culture. At the same time, the greatest value of CitiBike may not just be the bike availability. In the digital age, a system like this has the potential to have a much broader influence on the future of the city.
Leading up to last week I was excited about the prospect of getting excited about the President’s new climate change plan. Given the level of secrecy and surprise that created all of the build-up to the plan that would map out the environmental goals of the administration’s second term, I was waiting eagerly for a chance to help spread the seeds of environmental progress around the digital ecosystem.
And then it came and went. Continue Reading…
The success of a thriving downtown hinges on achieving a critical mass of businesses and homes inside a given radius. The allure of the city is built around having quick access to a myriad of amenities just a short trip away. Having public space, shopping, cultural institutions and employment all within minutes of your front door is the boon of urban living–made possible by tens of thousands of people in close proximity in order to support all of those individual destinations. The value placed on that access translates into higher home prices that tend to shrink the average size of urban residences by shedding “extra” uses.
But some of our cities are becoming the victims of their own success. As a finite amount of land becomes more desirable, prices begin to migrate outside the realm of accessibility for a larger portion of the population. The degree of socio-economic diversity begins to wane and lower-income residents are forced to move farther to the urban edge. The very density that defines the city is beginning to run counter to the forces of its own market inertia. Continue Reading…
Why are streets with trees better received than those without? Why is dappled light through leaves more pleasant than sun beating against the pavement? What is our affiliation to rolling streams and bubbling brooks? Why do little kids love playing in piles of fall leaves? According to biologist E.O. Wilson, the answer is because a connection to nature is hardwired into our DNA, leaving us with a biological propensity to feel better in the presence of natural systems.
A growing number of Americans can look back and remember a yard of green grass as part of their childhood. The patriotic image of a single-family home and a white picket fence would seem momentarily out of place without the mowed lawn, but how often are they actually used? What is the underlying impetus besides their (seemingly) traditional picturesque quality? Given a closer look at what all of real costs of having a lawn actually are, it may be time to question whether or not they’re as vital as American culture would suggest.
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Mayor Cory Booker said it well: “from the Transcontinental Railroad to the Hoover Dam, to the dredging of our ports and building of our most historic bridges – our American ancestors prioritized growth and investment in our nation’s infrastructure.” Throughout history the image of new infrastructure has been synonymous with progress. The need for newer, larger and faster services brings the perception of an advancing society. The perception of progress and political tenure have proven to go hand in hand, so we seem to be able to find money to finance large infrastructural additions.
But when we look around at our infrastructural landscape, most often it is not progressing, but languishing. This is partly because fixing old infrastructural systems is not nearly as glamorous as building ones. Whether its the systems that move water, power, waste or people, the neglect of these essential systems has left them decayed, at times to a point requiring wholesale replacement. There have been designs that reuse dilapidated infrastructure for something new, but what if part of the problem is not just that systems are old, but that their relationship to the public encourages their neglect? Continue Reading…
As Americans we use a lot of water—per capita, more than any other country on the planet. A huge portion (49% as of 2005) of what we use goes to thermoelectric cooling, or removing heat from our fossil fuel burning power plants. That’s around 200 billion gallons a day, but we have a lot of power plants out there. How much does one of these plants actually use? The biggest culprits are the oldest plants that are the least efficient, built before the days of harnessing cogeneration. Taking the coal-fired power plant in Salem, Massachusetts (set to be decommissioned next year), the word is that the plant currently uses up to 359 million gallons a day when it is running at full capacity. How much is that? Continue Reading…
We often use the utilitarian, rational deployment of street grids as a boon to our best cities. American cities like New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. stand as the result of a preplanned order deployed to guide expansion over time. In many ways it has worked. Partitioning up the city has helped to shape a straightforward process for development, creating defined districts for zoning along with a web for transportation. But as the way we interact with the city evolves, including the buildings within it, the grid lags behind, representing the same functions that it did centuries ago. These massive infrastructural frameworks have grown to the point of being outmoded, trailing the urban evolution around and within them. We are at a point for a reassessment for how best to use this wealth of connective tissue that provides access to and from our homes, our jobs and our leisure both inside and outside of the city. Continue Reading…