Life between buildings

Life between buildings
http://www.rudi.net/books/3610

How does the design of urban spaces accomodate the "need for contact" between people? There must be spaces for random, spontaneous face-to-face interactions to occur--something between being alone and being intensely involved with other people in an activity like school or work. There has to be a forum for just mingling, bumping into people, passing by--just being around other people. Just shopping, dining, and parking with other people, which is the thrust of much of the "mixed-use development" today, won't cut it.

"The varied transitional forms between being alone and being together have disappeared. The boundaries between isolation and contact become sharper - people are either alone or else with others on a relatively demanding and exacting level. Life between buildings offers an opportunity to be with others in a relaxed and undemanding way. One can take occasional walks, perhaps make a detour along a main street on the way home or pause at an inviting bench near a front door to be among people for a short while. One can take a long bus ride every day, as many retired people have been found to do in large cities. Or one can do daily shopping, even though it would be more practical to do it once a week. Even looking out of the window now and then, if one is fortunate enough to have something to look at, can be rewarding. Being among others, seeing and hearing others, receiving impulses from others, imply positive experiences, alternatives to being alone. One is not necessarily with a specific person, but one is, nevertheless, with others. As opposed to being a passive observer of other people's experiences on television or video or film, in public spaces the individual himself is present, participating in a modest way, but most definitely participating."

This is the urban manifestation of Tocqueville's emphasis on the importance of face-to-face interaction in a democracy:

"Sentiments and ideas renew themselves, the heart is enlarged, and the human mind is developed only by the reciprocal action of men upon one another. I have shown that this action is almost nonexistent in a democratic country. It is therefore necessary to create it artificially there. And this is what associations alone can do."

Designing good public spaces encourages and facilitates the messy, haphazard, unplanned face-to-face interaction that makes democracy work.

Phoenix: US wholesale drug capital

Phoenix: US wholesale drug capital
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/drugs-inc/episodes/cartel-city-arizona/

As drugs, guns, and violence come across the US border the city of Phoenix, AZ has become the hub for distribution of drugs out across the US.

Built in the northernmost regions of the Sonoran Desert which stretches far into Mexico, Phoenix is the epitome of a decentralized "suburban sprawl" city with most of the population spread out in low-density housing developments around a very small downtown.

Thomas Jefferson: anti-urbanist

Thomas Jefferson: The Founding Father Of Sprawl?by Leonardo Vasquezhttp://www.planetizen.com/node/18841

Thomas Jefferson was a proponent of the "Gentleman Farmer" an ideal of an educated agriculturalist. By contrast, he followed Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the belief that cities do more harm than good when it comes to mores and the arts:

"I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice."

8 development projects that will transform DC this year

8 development projects that will transform DC this year
http://www.elevationdcmedia.com/features/devprojects_011315.aspx

DC is constantly gentrifying building new housing, especially condos. However, almost none of it is affordably priced.

When I was in high school taking the Metro into DC each day from the suburbs, Gallery Place was a neighborhood you did not want to get off at: boarded up buildings, drug deals, homeless. "Chinatown" was barely perceptible, a few Chinese restaurants. Today anchored by the Verizon Center this area has become a hub of nightlife. Similar total makeovers have occured all over DC with many more to come.

Ironically, the founding fathers believed strongly that the nation's capital should not be a place for the wealthy and privileged. A fan of the anti-urban French philosopher Rousseau, Jefferson agreed that big cities were often a place where immorality took root:

"The mobs of great cities add just so much to support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body."

For over a century DC was a sleepy southern town, even a backwater. How times have changed.

Shipping containerization history

The "containerization" of shipping made modern globalization possible through vastly increased speed and vastly reduced cost. Containers are uniform sizes around the world and use software to quickly organize and load cargo in contrast to the slow process of having thousands of marked boxes, barrels, and sacks loaded onto a ship.

Containerization: the world in a box - financial Times
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3544453973261662672#editor

China's solar cities

Rizhao City
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2007/05/chinas-solar-powered-city-48605

"In Rizhao City, which means City of Sunshine in Chinese, 99 percent of households in the central districts use solar water heaters, and most traffic signals, street and park lights are powered by photovoltaic (PV) solar cells."

Great interview on China-Africa relations

Great interview on China-Africa relations with Howard French author of "China's Second Continent"

http://www.france24.com/en/f24-interview-2014-10-06-1645-french-china-africa-economy#./f24-interview-2014-10-06-1645-french-china-africa-economy?&_suid=1431185061527012200812251525472

-Chinese wave of migrants to Africa began with Chinese workers on projects there who stayed afterward
-Many Chinese very happy to be away from Chinese corruption, communism--find less corruption in Africa
-China-Africa resource-for-infrastructure swaps
-Africa has more middle class people than India--predicts a huge expansion of wealth and the middle class in Africa
-Chinese immigration not a big issue for Africans generally except Zambia and maybe Ghana; Chinese have had a relatively smooth and friendly reception

Old growth forest and bison in Poland

Stuff of fairy tales: stepping into Europe's last old-growth forest

http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0709-hance-interview-mazurek.html

Asia for educators

Great resource with key points in Asian history

Asia for educators
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/main_pop/kpct/index.html#kp4

Iran's dying lakes

Iran has a number of dying lakes due to prolonged droughts. Lake Oroumieh and Lake Hamun are both in danger, both on borders with Turkey and Afghanistan respectively.


Iran's Lake Oroumieh has shrunk more than 80%
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2563031/Lake-Oroumieh-shrinks-80-400-square-miles-ten-years.html

Evictions in Cambodia

The effects of globalization on Cambodiaby Chak Sopheap
https://futurechallenges.org/local/the-effects-of-globalization-on-cambodia/

"Yet despite such positive effects from  globalization, Cambodia has yet to make use of  this potential for better social-economic development to bring about sustainability and wellbeing for the population.

The problem of forced evictions and land grabs is getting worse amid the increasing need of land for economic purposes. This is leading to violence fuelled by deep dissatisfaction over existing resettlement schemes. While the government justifies evictions and land grabs for the sake of beautifying and developing the country, there are many eviction cases involving violence and legal abuse where little or no  development has taken place. Unfortunately, most of the areas that have been cleared to make way for development projects have been turned over to private companies owned or chaired by high-ranking officials and affiliated powerful businessmen."