Steve Mouzon’s “site visit of a factory making Katrina Cottages”:http://mississippirenewal.com/slides/06-08-23-slide1.html raises an interesting conundrum: in an age of instant prototyping (a porch was “keyed… into the computer, the computer had done the truss design, fabricated the steel, [and] they assembled it” in “eight minutes”), when does architecture become industrial design?
Cars make you fat
William Saletan in Slate notes that “[Chinese] households with [motor] vehicles have an obesity rate 80 percent higher than their peers.” (The link in the article doesn’t lead to a good source.) Sure, that correlation probably has two huge confounding factors: income, as rich Chinese both own cars and eat more; and maybe a bit of selection bias.* Yet it’s nice to think that such a big correlation implies at least a little bit of causation.
Incidentally, elsewhere in Slate “Joel Waldfogel”:http://www.slate.com/id/2148759 points to British evidence that taller people are paid more because they’re smarter, while “Daniel Engber”:http://www.slate.com/id/2132990/ links heavy babies to bigger adults. All of which sets me up as an outlier again: against American male norms, 87th percentile by birth weight, 5th percentile by adult height, and, well, an immodestly high figure on intelligence. Of course, earnings — well, never mind. (Of course, a decades-old British data set also wouldn’t account for Jewish or Asian Americans, two short[er] groups with above-average incomes.)
* This seems more likely in the U.S., where not driving is an anomalous choice. Bicyclists as a group may be skinnier than average, but no one claims that the act of playing football makes one hefty.
Mod
This month’s “Dwell magazine”:http://www.dwell.com/now/currentissue has two features on Chicago: a flattering, if coldly photographed, “travelogue”:http://www.dwell.com/learn/detour/3788777.html with Brad Lynch (interviewed by Lee Bey), which calls out Bari Foods with the title photograph. Elsewhere, Robert Sullivan’s paean to the “L” (wrapped in Saturn ads) calls out a notable editing error: my former coworker Heather Campbell is introduced correctly as Heather Gleason first, then as Campbell (her maiden name) later. Oh well — not that I understand the whole marriage thing, anyways.
One in a hundred
John Allen Paulos writes for ABC News about Cheney’s “One Percent Doctrine”:
bq. A companion to the Cheney 1 percent action doctrine (if the probability is at least 1 percent, act) is the administration’s non-action doctrine (if the probability is less than 99 percent, then don’t act). This latter doctrine is generally invoked in discussions of global warming, where it seems absolute certainty is required to justify any significant action. Ideology determines which of these two inconsistent doctrines to invoke.
More drilling won’t help
Even if Dick Cheney sinks exploratory drills in every single playground in America, there will never be enough oil to slake the SUVs’ unending thirst for tar:
bq. “SUVs alone burn half the total for all passenger cars, far more than their fair share and more petroleum than our entire country produces in a year.” — Mark Morford, writing in the SF Chronicle
And since we’re dealing with an nonrenewable resource, faster consumption now merely hastens “the inevitable decline and fall”:http://www.salon.com/tech/books/2004/05/19/end_of_oil/index.html :
bq. “We believe oil markets may have entered the early stages of what we have referred to as a ‘super spike’ period — a multi-year trading band of oil prices high enough to meaningfully reduce energy consumption and recreate a spare capacity cushion only after which will lower energy prices return… Perhaps the ultimate answer to high how oil prices need to go before demand destruction occurs is derived from knowing when American consumers will stop buying gas guzzling sport utility vehicles and instead seek fuel efficient alternatives… Based on our analysis of gasoline spending and the economy noted above, we estimate that U.S. gasoline prices may need to exceed $4 per gallon.” [Goldman Sachs analyst report, quoted at “Energy Bulletin”:http://www.energybulletin.net/5017.html%5D
or this, from “the Financial Times”:http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f20cfb8a-920d-11d9-bca5-00000e2511c8.html (reported by Kevin Morrison and Javier Blas):
bq. “The rapid rise in global oil demand should lead the industrialised world to promote alternatives to oil as well as energy conservation, the International Energy Agency said on Friday. The warning, from the West’s energy policy adviser, signals a sharp turnaround by the IEA, which has previously tried to cool oil markets by blaming prices on speculators and short-term supply disruptions…. The agency also plans to release a report next month entitled _Saving Oil In A Hurry_, which will cover among other issues the topic of energy efficiency in consuming nations. Energy analysts said a new drive on energy efficiency could be difficult because most of the increase in oil consumption is in transportation, where there are few economic alternatives.”
At a new year’s party, the conversation turned at one point to survivalist techniques for dealing with the forthcoming civil war between Red and Blue — with the assumption that we Blues are in trouble since the Reds obviously have a better armed populace. (And no, I’m not a good shot.) At the rate we’re going, we may very well end up in armed conflict, but I’m a bit more optimistic. Even in the event of a peak-oil situation or currency crisis (both of which some pessimists predict will happen this year), I’m encouraged by the natural resilience of diverse ecosystems — human in the city and natural in the countryside — to absorb shock.
Toby Hemenway, formerly a permaculture farmer in rural Oregon, came to different conclusion than most of the pessimists–the socially denuded countryside, completely stripped of social capital by capitalism, would implode during a crash while the socially diverse cities would maintain their resilience. It’s worth reading in its entirety; an excerpt follows the jump.
DOAP
There was one other set of camera crews dancing around the Billionaires for Bush “this past March”:https://westnorth.com/2006/03/19/15-seconds-of-fame/ — a British crew filming, they said, for a “documentary” about the antiwar movement. However, upon further inspection, it turned out to be more like a docudrama for a project they called “DOAP.” Hmm: sure sounds like “Death of a President,”:http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=88 which has “the blogs”:http://technorati.com/search/%22death%20of%20a%20president%22 as excited as they were about “Snakes on a Plane.”
Trib editorial: raise (gas) taxes!
Newsflash: the Tribune has editorialized not only in favor of higher taxes, but on behalf of the wildly unpopular (Bush’s people even called it “wacky,” in a 2004 anti-Kerry ad) notion that higher gas taxes would spur conservation. [“Link”:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0508290118aug29,1,2292431.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed or full text after the jump]
Instead, they apply some common economic sense to the highly emotional subject of gas prices. Imagine if George W. Bush had applied a $1 per gallon “Oil Freedom Tax” on gasoline in September 2001, pegging gasoline to $3 a gallon and rebating based on the price of oil. Prices would be no higher than today, except that our nation could have invested hundreds of billions of dollars on a crash course in energy independence (and, oh, maybe paid for some of this war with revenue instead of debt). Instead of importing high-tech hybrid car engines, solar cells, and wind turbines from Japan or Denmark, Americans might have the leading edge on these technologies. Instead of skirting bankruptcy and cancelling orders for new equipment, Chicago’s transit agencies could be laying new track to bring a 19th-century transit system into the 21st century. Residents seeking to cut transportation costs would drive demand for new transit-oriented and walkable housing and commercial development, reinvesting in our region’s stagnating inner suburbs instead of sprawling over ethanol- or biodiesel-producing farm fields.
Instead, the coffers of Saudi oil sheiks and oil-corporation executives are overflowing, while the Treasury’s balance sheet plunges to new lows amidst seas of red ink.
In related news, thanks to the leadership of our beloved CBF for inserting a “conserve energy by bicycling”:http://biketraffic.org/biketraffic/bt0905/durbin.html provision into recent federal legislation, to study ways that communities can conserve energy by helping drivers switch to bikes
In less related news, but perhaps more pertinent to the current discussion, with your advocacy and interest Chicago may soon begin “weekly road closures”:http://biketraffic.org/biketraffic/bt0905/sundayparkways.html to promote walking and cycling on key routes. I have a hunch that the “60 mile” route includes a certain prominent lakefront highway.
In even less related news, Slate has “an article”:http://slate.msn.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/nav/tap1 praising the Dutch for looking suave atop their cycles.
Vanity
Here’s a first for me: bought a pair of pants recently. (Being at the thin end of America’s ever-widening size spectrum makes this a considerable challenge; indeed, this was from one of the few chains which carry my size.) In the fitting room, I thought “these are definitely too wide” but otherwise thought them fine. Once home, brought out the measuring tape and — sure enough — the tape says they’re 3″ wider than the label!
I’d heard last year that a certain large apparel chain had begun inching up men’s pant sizes (34″ was really 34 1/2″), but that chain had already excised my size years ago. Oh well; instead of hopping to New York to buy clothes, I guess I’ll have to try London and Hong Kong.
Possible NY plan links quality of life to better public space
“StreetsBlog”:http://www.streetsblog.org leaks a Sneak Preview of Bloomberg’s 21st Century Urban Vision, wherein consultant Alex Garvin (former czar of LMDC and author of the encyclopedic _The American City_) recommends that New York build upon its competitive advantage as a lively urban destination by enhancing public space — including reducing traffic through congestion pricing and street closures — and welcoming another million residents in new neighborhoods built in opportunity areas, like decked-over railyards. However, as with many Bloomberg initatives, the public process appears to be, well, lacking.
Also, trying to post proper (non-cameraphone) Flickr photos while I’m still in NYC.
Hoarding names
The future looks bleak and lonely for Marshall Field & Co., according to “the Trib’s”:http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0607230300jul23,1,4982727.story?coll=chi-business-hed Sandra Jones:
bq. Federated, for the most part, isn’t using the mothballed brand names in any substantial way. And the retailer has expressed no interest in selling or licensing them. But it doesn’t want competitors to gain access to the names, either. It’s a common tactic, and one that has become more widespread, particularly in the technology industry, as American business consolidates.
“Clean” cars sprawling & wasteful
I must have written this in 2001 or so; it was posted to the Critical Mass list.
My deep hatred of cars stems first from having grown up in ugly,
inaccessible suburban sprawl. (Only later did I realize the magnitude of
the environmental damage wrought by cars.) Sprawl was *enabled* (note: not
“caused”) by widespread automobility; cars allowed people to exponentially
increase the distance that they could live from train stations,
workplaces, shopping areas, even friends and family. “Clean” cars, even if
they have limited ranges, won’t do ANYTHING about traffic congestion,
about sprawl, about parking woes, about dooring. To fight those, we need
*fewer* cars, not necessarily *cleaner* cars.
Also, “clean” cars still require far more materials (for construction)
than mass transit or bikes or Rollerblades or scooters or even Manolo
Blahniks. “Clean” cars are still far heavier than the pedestrians they’ll
run into (and thus kill). “Clean” car motors are still nowhere near as
energy efficient as a pair of human feet. (Even a very efficient, tiny VW
is one-twentieth as efficient as a bike – mostly because of the added
weight, but also because car engines are notoriously inefficient. Only 1%
of the energy a car burns goes to move the driver!) “Clean” cars are
currently heavily reliant on nonrenewable fuels like methane (CNG), but
cyclists use renewable (and tasty) fuel.
this was my comment from another thread on this topic a few months ago
(thanks to Jim Redd for helpfully putting it on the CCM website): “Even if
every car on the road was powered by corn oil, cars (and SUVs) would still
be cutting us off, dooring us, running us over, recklessly accelerating,
clogging up city streets (in motion and while parked), consuming tons of
nonrenewable resources in their construction, fostering the continued
growth of suburban sprawl, shutting people off from each other and from
fresh air, leaking nasty fluids into parking lots, and in general making
life miserable. That’s why the only ‘clean’ car is… a bike.”
If we completely get rid of cars, what are you going to tell all those union
workers who want to preserve their automaker jobs?
What jobs are you going to give them if they aren’t going to make
alternative cars? The auto industry employs a lot of people.
they can make BICYCLES, naturally. I’m not kidding, either. This “what
about the economic impact?” straw-man argument is always held up whenever
someone wants to do something good for the environment. I’m sorry, but
economics is not a zero-sum game. If demand for a certain product suddenly
and precipitously drops, then the money spent on that product will
reappear elsewhere in the economy. Indeed, given the immense social
*costs* of automobiles, one could probably make a pretty good case that
their production and consumption is a net loss or (at best) only a
marginal gain to the U.S. economy — especially if one factors in the
enormous opportunity costs involved. The $billions that automakers spend
every year on advertising, for instance, could be more productively used
feeding the hungry — but the twisted logic of capitalism misallocates
those resources to an endeavor of dubious ethical or economic merit.
(Advertising, after all, exists to sell otherwise unnecessary goods to
otherwise unwilling consumers.)
Besides, auto production is not very labor-intensive. Hundreds of
thousands (if not millions) of American jobs in auto production have been
moved overseas or eliminated due to technological change. Bikes, solar
cells, and adobe walls (just three examples of sustainable technologies)
use less *energy* in production than cars, nuclear power plants, and
drywall, but are more labor-intensive. As energy prices increase from
their currently absurdly low levels, that trade-off will make more
economic sense. More jobs, less energy, a cleaner environment. Aaah.
1930 population density
The Regenstein’s “Map Collection”:http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps, among a goodly number of assorted (mostly sociological) maps of Chicago from 1890-1935 and 1990-2000, has a population density map of Chicago, circa 1930 online. It appears to be based on section (mile grid), rather than community area. Four major sectors of the city had more than 50,000 persons per square mile, even before “high-rises”:http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps/chisoc/G4104-C6-1933-U5-o.html sprouted outside downtown: the north lakefront (east of Halsted/Clark to Lawrence); west and east Ukrainian Village/Wicker Park, from Humboldt Park to the river; Pilsen and Lawndale; and the Black Belt, Washington Park, and Woodlawn. Now, perhaps two CAs would come close; most of the above areas now average 20-30,000 per square mile, with the abandoned South Side much lower.
