Greener without Grass
Incentives for Drought Tolerant Lawns in LA
In Los Angeles, you can now cash in on all those years of devoted turf farming at one dollar per square foot.
Verdant Urbanity
Friday, 12 June 2009
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Agribiz Brandishes Squash
Vegetative Implications for the ACES
Shocking! Large industrial interests are opposed to change! Seriously, though, this article has tons of great links.
Also: previously.
Toxic Soil
Soil Remediation Ideas for the Home
This is a very light article about what to do about contaminated soil but it might be a good launching point so I'm posting it for future reference.
Cohousing Tour
The End of Posts that Begin with ‘G’
This is an interesting article about tours of cohousing in Oakland, California. This has been on my mind a lot since thinking about community gardening as it relates to urban planning. Since the entire point of urban agriculture, for me, is about decentralizing the production and distribution of food for urban areas, cohousing always comes to mind as an ideal partner to this approach. My problem with it, though, is the same problems I have with housing associations. I’m just not into obligating behavior. The article mentions some of the challenges of cohousing, like meeting fatigue caused by a consensus decision-making process. I can imagine a host of other problems as well and some of them may well be unavoidable but for my money, I tend to lean toward solutions that put the inconveniences at the beginning and end of the arrangement rather than throughout it. If the hard choices are placed on getting in and getting out of the cohousing arrangement, along with plenty of significant rewards for cohousing participation throughout, that should be enough to motivate acceptable levels of participation without any arbitrary quotas.
Nevertheless, more cohousing experiments are better than none. More power to all of them.
Grand Paris
City of Compromised Dreams
Sarkozy dreamed of leaving his mark on Paris with a grand reimagining of the city, integrated with its suburbs and focused on a environmental responsibility. When he woke up, he settled for some improvements to the transit system that would begin in 2012 and be done by 2022, and more housing.
Green China
China Matches Renewable Energy Goals of the West
This is a rather giant, China-sized reversal of expectations. With all the bad environmental conditions highlighted by the recent Olympics in China along with the seemingly frustrated negotiations on climate change, the fact that China is setting forth on a renewable energy plan that basically matches plans in the West, 20% renewables by 2020, puts a great big competitive spin on the future of sustainable electricity infrastructure. This is the smart choice for China, and it should have welcome effects on how seriously the West, and more specifically, the US, approaches these inevitable and necessary changes. The pervasive and stubborn myth that short-term costs outweigh the long-term rewards must come to terms with the broader economic reality that there will be trillions upon trillions of dollars in future markets in which we can either be profitable innovators or paying customers. And with the huge investment demands of such markets, the unilateral dictates of China’s system will have inherent advantages over our multilateral democratic plus market-based system. This has to be addressed in the early stages. With China now crowding in on the competitive mix, we’re going to have to come to terms sooner than later.
UPDATE: See also: this.
Google Search: “Grid Parity”
Getting Close to Renewable Energy for Less Than Coal
Google says it’s close to paying the same price for renewable energy compared to coal. If that sounds optimistic, that’s because it is. They are hoping for grid parity in three years, with “multiple megawatts of plants out there,” through various renewable sources including solar, geothermal, and wind.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Grand Boulevard
North Temple Community Plan
The Salt Lake City Department of Community & Economic Development is sponsoring a public discussion of plans for the redevelopment of the North Temple corridor. It will be June 18th from 5:30 to 7:30 PM in the Grand Building at the Utah State Fairpark. There will be free pizza and drinks.
I presume this will mostly be about the Fairpark side of North Temple and reworking the North Temple overpass area to accommodate a transit station the UTA plans to build there, as well as make the area more pedestrian friendly and a better gateway into downtown.
The UTA North Temple station was brought up at the Utah APA chapter luncheon held at the UTA offices today. They also mentioned they will be contributing money to the redevelopment project, and one UTA rep specifically mentioned that the transit station might be a good economic development opportunity for the area.
All of this plays very well with my ideas for the area, specifically the North Temple overpass. Right now, it’s a wasteland and because of the train tracks, I was worried there might be some reluctance to modifying the area enough to make it more bike and pedestrian friendly but UTA’s involvement makes me a little more hopeful. Ultimately, what I’m hoping for is a more accessible and inviting corridor between downtown and the west side, and it sounds like that’s what everyone already involved wants as well.
I might write something up for the luncheon soon but I did want to mention one interesting thing I want to look into as soon as possible: Transit Oriented Development. The first presenter brought this up by mentioning that every Park & Ride is for sale for this TOD program. It would be nice to know the terms and what, if anything, has been done so far. And maybe this will motivate me to find out if the city is still planning on closing the 1000 North freeway access since the Park & Ride on that east corner would be a nice candidate for some kind of transit related development if the onramps and off ramp were no longer there.
DC Urban Farming
MSNBC Spotlights the Common Good City Farm in Washington DC
The video mentions that the farm sells its excess produce at a local farmers market with the proceeds going back into the farm, so there’s more confirmation that my whacky idea for Rose Park Community Gardens is potentially viable, though I’m still looking for any case studies of the brand name/member entrepreneurial opportunity idea.