National September 11th Memorial - 2011

After two months of waiting for the date of our reservation to arrive, Andy and I went last Friday to survey the progress on the 9/11 Memorial.  The experience was moving, impressive and well managed.  After being asked by seven (7) different attendants for our proof of reservation and I.D. along the maze of stanchioned entry paths, we arrived at the airport-style security room.

"Rub and Jostle"

-- or -- How Traffic Affects Neighborhoods and Social Interaction.

Two films -- 41 years apart -- that identify the same problem with contemporary streets:  cars.  In the earlier film, the solutions of Ulrich Franzen are campy, adorable, unfeasible, and stink of Robert Moses.  In the modern film, Donald Appleyard has taken what Jane Jacobs served up 40-odd years ago and made it sexy and sensible.  Both are worth a view.  Enjoy.


Revisiting Donald Appleyard's Livable Streets from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

The Popsicle Test

Can a child on foot get to the store, purchase a Popsicle, and make it home without it's melting?  Here is a short and bright piece about designing livable spaces from placeshakers' Scott Doyon that not only introduced me to the concept of the Popsicle Test, but also addresses the modern scourge of trying to buy your child happy.

Great Short Film on Highway Removal

From Streetfilms:

I'm Impressed and Just a Little Scared -- China's City of 42 Million

I don't know whether I should be impressed, saddened, or just stay very very still and look away.  The Chinese have decided to create a beast.  By incorporating the 9 (quite large) cities of the Pearl River Delta, they will be making a megalopolis of 16,000 square miles -- 26 times bigger than the London metro area, and far and away the worlds largest city.   From Reuters:

"The idea is to merge all nine cities around the Pearl River Delta (under the aptly-named plan, “Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One”) and connect them via power and water, telecommunications networks and 29 new rail lines."

Now, while the 26 new high-speed rail lines are cool, and emblematic of China's commitment to come out on top of the race to modern transport, and the idea of dense urban living being modular (city centers linked by rail forming a network of urban cores) is on-track with most futurist visions for megalopolis living, the sheer SIZE of this project is terrifying.  If you ask me.

Detroit: Rising from Ashes

I recently took a day to tour Detroit, Michigan by bicycle -- armed with my point-and-shoot and a desire to find out if what we've heard was true.  Was Detroit a wasteland?  Was it beyond help?  Was it artistic, scrappy, rising? (UPDATE: HERE is an artistic duo that seeks to re-invent Detroit ruins) What's the feeling on the ground in the Motor City?  I biked for about 5 hours, and was only really able to get a glimpse, but what I saw was:

this picture probably sums it up best . . . next to a completely bombed out crack den of an apartment complex -- Spaulding Court (slated, I understand, for renewal itself), a newly renovated house with a great backyard and cute little fence. . . a few blocks from downtown.  This kind of defiant reclamation, a sort of guerrilla gentrification, is what is exciting and inspiring about this Detroit renaissance.   (UPDATE:  Here's that complex's kickstarter PAGE and home PAGE.)

I started in the vicinity of Wayne State University (Michigan's only urban public research University) located in the Cultural District.  Here's the University's first building, Old Main, behind some massive new de/construction project. 

 

Demolition and construction seem to be not quite as prevalent as apathy and general decay, but change is happening.  

Still near the Cultural District, I passed the Masonic Temple, which is the largest Masonic Temple in the world, and boasts some pretty sharp neo-Gothic architecture . . . some of which was fashioned with George Washington's own tools (famously a Mason himself) brought in from VA for the job.  It opened in 1926, and houses the second-largest stage in the country (in the Main Theatre), a Scottish Rite Cathedral, a Ritual Tower and about 5 million other amazing nooks and crannies.  Those Templars are sneaky.  You know, our founding fathers were predominantly NOT Christians, but WERE Masons . . . Way cooler.  More after the jump . . .