Creative Time, a public art group in NYC that I’ve been a fan of since their 42nd Street project (I even had the pleasure of seeing the Brooklyn Bridge anchorage installation in 2001), has unveiled a new graphic identity. Now, I’ve never been fond of people who stand in art museums and exclaim “my three-year-old could have done that!” at the abstract expressionist pieces, but… is simply stamping out the firm’s name in Trade Gothic really all that amazing?
Smart growth’s real impact yet to come
“Innovation Briefs” has an editorial concluding (largely, it seems, on the basis of anecdotes and David Brooks’ awful generalizations) that “the most recent Census Bureau data, documenting demographic trends since the 2000 Census, suggest that the “smart growth” movement is having little influence on reshaping America’s urban landscape. The demographic and economic forces driving metropolitan expansion are too powerful to be reined in by the entreaties of smart growth advocates.”
Well, yes. “Smart growth” entered the lexicon in, oh, 1996 or so. It takes an achingly long time to stop a train, much less throw it into reverse, so one wouldn’t expect smart growth to have an immediately huge impact on the way Americans live. Sprawl has been the status quo for the better part of a century now, really, and no crisis moment has arisen to give it the good kick in the rear that it needs.
I sometimes point out that the residential boom in Chicago, for instance, doesn’t reflect an actual boom in population. It reflects increased wealth, for one, but more importantly it reflects the turnaround: the slowdown and gradual reversal of 40 years of population losses. If this is just what the slowdown of the losses — just a change in the rate of change (in calculus, the first derivative) looks like, just imagine what a real boom would look like. The train is decelerating, all right, but it’s been chugging along so fast that the naysayers can still say that we’re moving right along.
Endangered buildings list released
The Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois has released its annual Ten Most Endangered list. A set of heroically scaled steel plant structures (industrial ruins, really — steelmaking here is largely dead) along the Calumet River, near 110th street, made the list. They sure look interesting — I wonder how easy access is around there.
Commute by boat
From the design competition docs for the Calumet Environmental Center (the winner of which — Studio/Gang — was announced yesterday):
“The site is accessible by foot, bicycle and automobile. Plans include extending the 130th Street and Torrence Avenue Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus service to reach the site… The site will be connected to a system of bike paths that will allow people to bike from the north side of Chicago into the Calumet region. Also, the site abuts the Calumet River and may allow access via canoe.”
I’ve always (half-jokingly) mentioned commuting by boat as a major reason to open up access to the riverfront (even before I knew anyone who actually did so). Maybe the message is sinking in?
10 steps for Earth Day
Unfortunately, many Earth Day activities focus on feel-good but ultimately ineffective ways to “save the earth.”
Canada’s David Suzuki Foundation offers the Nature Challenge, “the top 10 ways you can conserve nature.” Not surprisingly, three have to do with household operation, two with food, and 4.5 with driving.
1. Reduce home energy use by 10%
2. Choose an energy-efficient home and appliances
3. Replace dangerous pesticides with alternatives
4. Eat�meat-free meals one day a week
5. Buy locally grown and produced food
6. Choose a fuel-efficient vehicle
7. Walk, bike, carpool or take transit
8. Choose a home close to work or school
9. Support car-free alternatives
10. Learn more and share with family and friends
Ball pork or arts pork?
“It’s a pity that Lincoln Center�s board of directors can�t get their act together to unanimously threaten a move � to Providence, say, or Hartford.”
Hey, if it works for sports teams to have the public subsidize each ticket by $20, surely it should work for the performing arts!
[Link via djw.info]
Sleight of hand again
“First they sold us on tearing down public housing by promising housing vouchers. Now that there aren’t even gutted buildings to squat in, they’re taking away the vouchers.” Harold Henderson, Reader, 23 April, with news of the cuts in Section 8
I went to a lecture over the weekend — don’t remember who was lecturing, since I walked in at the very end — where the speaker declared his intention of “writing the story of public housing in Chicago as a farce.” From its initial construction, through Gautreaux, to the Plan for Transformation and its various failures, the city’s cynical weaseling and scapegoating would indeed be hilarious in satire — if only they were couched in a scenario where no one really felt any pain, and if only the whole shroud of race and class (which prevents anyone from really speaking openly about any of it) could disappear. Of course, said housing policy has caused real pain, and the wild-eyed suspiciousness of public housing residents testifies to that.
New housing vs. nature
Heard on “Wait Wait”: infill housing in Vancouver runs into a novel set of NIMBYs: naturists.
Cohousing in the burbs
This is weird: a suburban tract-house developer in Aurora is building 30 units of cohousing within one of his planned communities.
Plaza observations on a warm day
Today’s the first really warm (over 70F) day here in Chicago. While walking past the Bank One plaza, I tested out one of Holly Whyte‘s old postulates: women sit inside plazas, men sit facing outside. (This has something to do with women seeking out nurturing, sheltered spaces, and something to do with men wanting to watch the passing parade.) Sure enough, of the 14 people sitting on the Dearborn Street seating wall, two were women (14.3%), while 14 of the 30 (46.7%) people sitting on the lower level around the fountain were women. Not quite sex segregation on the level of a second-grade lunchroom, but still pretty close.
Incidentally, this plaza is among the most studied in history. A landscape architecture seminar from UIUC once studied the plaza for their class project back in the early ’80s.
Bequoth again
In the Fresno Bee, about Forest City Ratner’s job at Central Station.
My reward for staying after hours, I guess.
Former UC student arrested for LA ELF attack on SUVs
Bill Cottrell, 23, a Caltech physics graduate student originally from Concord, N.C., has been arrested on suspicion of destroying or damaging 125 SUVs at car dealerships northeast of Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of Chicago with degrees in physics and mathematics, where he also ran cross-country. (I wonder why I can’t remember anything about him.)
From the article: “Those who set fires, like those at the Hummer dealership in West Covina, are misguided zealots,” FBI Assistant Director Richard Garcia said in a statement. “The FBI respects, encourages and protects people who peacefully exercise their right to free speech. However, when extremists resort to arson attacks, which inevitably will lead to a loss of life, they have gone too far and the FBI will investigate aggressively and relentlessly to bring those who set such fires to justice.” As commentators at Portland Indymedia say, it’s equally extreme for General Motors to flood the nation’s roadways with vehicles that are, whether or not this intent is made public, designed to inflict maximum injury onto anyone/anything that happens to get in the way of one.
west north 