Can you guess where this is?

For some this may be easy . . . there's a major landmark in there, but for others it may take awhile for your eyes to adjust . . . and focus . . . and believe.   The answer after the leap. . .

Detroit -- musings on metropolitan makeover

It's losing its symphony?  It's flirting with Hollywood.  It's burning, it's shrinking, it's artistic, it's stinking . . . what is to be expected from the next decade in Detroit?

the Spirit of Detroit

pizzicato on the heartstrings
I want so much to be that rotting giant's Jane Jacobs . . .
move myself, a garden, and the power of theater and music
out of the hall
and into the husk of fled industry,
sing folk songs on the twisted steel and
light the toppling bricks with amber-gelled hope for renaissance . . .
and teach the kids to love to listen
to move around and
cluster all the left-behinds to become
strong villages, and the in-betweens to become
fields of strong corn.
and the singing and the working meet the
hammers that forge huge windmills
sending the Spirit of Detroit back
to the Pantheon of Industry
but this time,
cloaked in green.


And now from some hastily jotted poetry, to a hastily assembled gallery after the JUMP:

Better Block Project -- $1,000 and two days to a better block!

Looky here!  I'm proud of TEXAS?  Yes, yes I am.  Proof that anyone can get these concepts :)  I kid Texas, we love each other.  And the work done here was not expensive, horrifying, or impossible.  Ask Janet Sadik-Kahn in NYC.  We get it.  You can too.

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No grime, no crime. Durban students scrub-tag their world

A group of students in Durban, South Africa have taken to removing grime from buildings and retaining walls, in what could be seen as pro-community graffitti or positive negativity.  Less is certainly more :) 

Gallery HERE from inhabitat
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Bike Lanes Around the WORLD

Some good, some great, some not so much:  GALLERY HERE

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Congratulations Wingnuts!!! Take out your OWN trash.

I wonder if these THOUSANDS of Christians are praying for trash collection?  I don't think Jesus does that, but Colorado Springs -- home of freakishly popular and dangerous fringe operations like Focus on the Family and the Teabagger Revolution, is beginning to see what it means to have no taxes to bolster public services.  From the Denver Post:

"More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday.

The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

Americans Spend More on Driving than Healthcare, Education and FOOD.

The healthy and wealthy bike, the poorest spend 1/3 of their income on TRANSPORTATION . . . mostly on cars.  From The League of American Bicyclists:

More and VIDEO after the jump!

37% and rising in Copenhagen!

Under the scrutiny of the world's greenies, Copenhagen is shining brightly as a biker's paradise.

"Tens of thousands of people from nearly every nation on earth have descended on Copenhagen this month for the UN climate summit. As the delegates try to piece together a framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they're also absorbing lessons from one of the world's leading cities in sustainable transportation. In Copenhagen, fully 37 percent of commute trips are made by bike, and mode share among city residents alone is even higher."

Great video HERE. Shows some cool advances like bike counters, innovative lane updates, and the SUV's of Denmark (they're bikes). 

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MTA faces massive cuts - where's Bloomberg?

From the NY Daily news HERE, the same sweeping cuts the MTA threatened before the wimpy bailout earlier this year are back on the schedule including the elimination of the W and Z lines, and the late-night shuttering of stations in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn along the N and R lines.

" Facing a massive budget crisis, the cash-squeezed MTA is moving to implement sweeping service cuts – again – including shutting down dozens of bus routes. Two subway lines also would be wiped off the map and four stations would be shuttered overnight under the plan expected to go before a Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee on Monday. If it sounds familiar, it is. The lineup is the same roster of reductions threatened earlier this year when the MTA was lobbying for a state bailout. The cuts never happened.

But in recent weeks the MTA has been rocked by bad news. The state – struggling with its own budget mess – slashed transit funding by $143 million. And cash from state payroll taxes is coming in about $200 million short of what the state had planned for mass transit. Even with 2010 service cuts, the MTA will have to find other ways to plug the sudden budget gap, sources said.

“We’re not going to rely on anyone else to do anything for us. We’re going to rely on ourselves,” MTA board member Mitchell Pally said."

Bloomberg, who ran on promises of salvaging and fortifying the MTA, has been silent on the topic. Hello Mike? Is this thing on?

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From the I Told You So Department

A little looking down the nose thanks to the NYC Dept. of Health.

"Humans have been finely tuned over eons of evolution to move our limbs a lot to get around (as opposed to driving) and exercise in general has documented psychological benefits so it's shouldn't be surprising that walking and biking are good for your mind.

But this is a 40 percent increase in mental distress for people who don't walk or bike. These mental benefits are significant, and they're often overlooked in our discussions about transportation."

I have also long thought that the rush of adrenaline and feeling of competitive fun that biking, in particular, provides must serve to fill some primal need for former hunters. Similar to the need met by video games, but WAY better.

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Obama, the Super-project Void, and Me

See that iconic bridge there? It wasn't always there. It seems like it was, but in fact it was one of our great nation's greatest public projects -- one of many Super-projects the likes of which we rarely see now. It was not built by WalMart or Microsoft (although private investors historically chipped in). Along with umpteen railroads, canals, roads, parks and monuments, the Golden Gate Bridge was an undertaking so grand we could only realize it as a nation. A step forward of such massive length, that the states had to snap together like Voltron to take it.

Actually, the US Post Office I'm seeing out the window in front of me (the historic James Farley Building) is the product of just such government bravery. Here's a pic I just took:

Cool, right? It boasts the longest giant order Corinthian colonnade in the WORLD. Of course it now faces the craptastic Madison Square Garden (great job aces), but nevertheless, the Post Office stands as an anchor in a struggling neighborhood.

Ok, back to the Super-project Void. Louis Uchitelle writes in this ARTICLE in the NY Times,

"So what are we missing, exactly? Huge public works — or more precisely, their historic absence — didn’t cause the recession any more than their renewal would quickly draw the country out of it. But their effect on the economy is almost always noticeable if not easily measured. Some economists argue that the continual construction of new megaprojects adds a quarter of a percentage point or more, on average, to the gross domestic product over the long term. Again, cause and effect aren’t clear, but the strongest periods of economic growth in America have generally coincided with big outlays for new public works and the transformations they bring once completed.

If their absence creates a void, particularly in a recession, what can fill it? "

The article is a quick read, and it again opens debate about Obama's commitment to lifting us out of this recession with down-payments (and jobs) on similar projects. Here's

MY GREAT IDEA:

• High-speed rail lines link Detroit with Pittsburgh, Philly, and Chicago.
  
  
• The Detroit auto industry is encouraged (read: forced) to transform itself into the national center of manufacturing and R&D for wind turbine technology and photo-voltaic innovation.
  
  
• Automobile production in Detroit ceases.
  
  
• China, India, Canada, Mexico and Russia begin ordering our super-fantastic green energy products like mad.
  
  
• The idea of the Super-project is re-imagined as Detroit becomes the first Super-Urban-Project, and Obama leads us merrily into the 21st Century with Detroit the shining green flourishing city.

You listening, Mr. O?

14 blocks of biking fall under pressure from a few.

UPDATE!! IT'S ALREADY HAPPENING

Bad news HERE. 14 blocks of bike lanes DESTROYED in Williamsburg. Some neighborhoods just can't take the horror of cyclists. Outrageous. This FIGHT has been going on too long.

"The Department of Transportation's decision to eliminate a section of bike lane from the borough's longest street is a surprising move, considering the agency's recent efforts to bolster the city's cycling network under the leadership of bike-loving Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan."

Recognizing the city as a whole, diverse, interconnected entity is important, and communities who wish to wall themselves off should purchase and gate communities away from terrible threats like green transit and progress. If you ask me.

LA by bicycle?

In the seven long years I lived in Los Angeles, I have to admit I never had a bike. It wasn't until I moved to NYC full-time that I discovered the joy and freedom of cycling in the city. This ARTICLE is optimistic about the future of cycling in LA . . . and it almost makes me want to move back to test the theory. Almost.

"Despite its reputation, L.A. is home to a large, diverse, and ever-growing population of cyclists. With pleasant weather year-round, mostly flat terrain, and an easily navigable street grid, L.A. is in many ways suited to cycling."

The canyons, on the other hand, would be a living hell.

Dallas' future looks green (?)

Way to go Dallas! Check out the renderings HERE.

RE-BURBIA WINNERS. Yes! [fist pump]

The winners of RE-BURBIA have been announced. I honestly don't know when it happened, but HERE they are and they are awesome!

"After a dizzying week of heated debate and lively discussion, Reburbia is very pleased to announce the winners of our month-long competition to redesign the suburbs! The competition called for design solutions that would address the problems that plague present-day suburbia by envisioning different scenarios for the future. Proposals tackled McMansions, big box stores, strip malls, parking lots and more with design fixes ranging from community agriculture and algae-based biofuels to transplanted tract developments and zeppelin-based transit."

I can see why the people's choice winner was so popular, and I love the one that's really just a zoning change.

CitiChix or UrbHen, I suppose.

Taking "buy local" to it's limit, some urban locavores are keeping coops in their city co-ops. HERE are the proud chickens from good.is

Shrinking cities movement means farming Detroit?

THIS from newgeography is amazing. The basic idea: Farm the abandoned "urban prairie" that is the largely empty Detroit (see pic). Build a sustainable progressive web of urban villages surrounded by green belts, and be the first American city to be 100% self-sufficient in the food department!

"Detroit has achieved something unique. It has become the test case for all sorts of theories on urban decay and all sorts of promising ideas about reviving shrinking cities."

Read the whole article, it's worth it, but one of the more interesting points is that Detroit's fairly ineffective and myopic government is actually beneficial to the situation!

People's Design Award 2009

The 2009 People's Design Award goes tooooooo . . . this cool city bike for, well, anybody.

"A simple city bike with an upright riding posture, the Lime uses Shimano's Coasting automatic three-speed transmission (a pretty complex system with a very simple user interface) and a back-pedal brake rather than hand levers."

I'm kind of uncertain whether I could count on an automatic transmission and pedal brakes when I'm flying and weaving down Second Ave., but that's why we need those 100 plus new miles of bike lanes that Janette Sadik-Kahn has proposed (and it just might happen since Bloomberg's still here and if the City Council doesn't sit on her all year).

Philly cycles the most!

I've spent the week in Philly, and from the first I noticed the bikers. Lots of bikers. Not so many helmets, but lots and lots of bikers, and guess what?

"The Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition reports, based on a US Census survey, that Philadelphia is ranked number one among the ten largest US cities for bicycle commuters per-capita."

They are crazy with it! And I've been told that it is the same even when SEPTA is not on strike . . . which it is currently, so that has made it even BETTER! Go PHILLY!

Librarian not wanted

What started as a community lending library -- a bunch of beer crates and used books -- became a fully stocked and self-sufficient outdoor public library. The facade of an old warehouse, and plenty of greenspace carve out a block of quiet community in the former East Germany.

Full gallery HERE

I love these projects that serve the community in a still, calm, democratic way.