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Yup. The odd thing about Bratton's rap is that it made no sense. It wasn't that I disagreed -- I just couldn't figure out what he was saying. I asked him and he got PO'd and refused to answer in any detail.
Why would I bother posting?
The guy is important:
1. He is invited to TED.
2. He is a (tenured?) university professor.
He is not a nobody like me. So I expect a certain rigor in discourse.
"We need to talk about TED" — I guess
I've never been to a TED and listened to only a very few. So my initial impression had been favorable to Bratton's critique — We need to talk about TED — as in "I love Chinese food but I am always hungry an hour later." But then Bratton said, disparagingly, "We invest our energy in futuristic ...
I'm speaking metaphorically.
The Reagan -- admired by Obama -- of pop culture is that he was a Clint Eastwood character.
My own hope is that Obama will give the Republicans a face -saving way to crawl.
If you want to know what Obama will do about the shutdown
G.O.P. Senators See Outline for Debt Deal After Obama Meeting but what would Reagan do? If you want insight into how Obama will be handling the Republican fiasco, think what Reagan would do should he do in such a situation. My guess is that he would hold tight to his blissful self-confidence a...
Thanks very much for writing.
The guy you really you should talk to about Deaf Smith County Peanut Butter is
Jon Krampner
http://www.creamyandcrunchy.com
he is the author of a book about peanut butter and mentions Deaf Smith County.
Deaf Smith County Peanut Butter
Does anyone know if it is still made? Nothing shows up on Google. Yesterday I had a craving to try it again, out of curiosity and after so many years to see if it was as good as I remember. It had a unique texture and flavor. I am sure a teaspoon-full would unleash a flood of memories. My own m...
Yes, let's definitely keep it just between us so that no one can criticize us or take our remarks out of context. Certainly all p our adversaries will adhere to our guidelines.
The irony is that I don't think Mr. Gordon said much interesting much less controversial. He was acting as a cheerleader for a particular respective -- which I probably agree with -- bu that seems to me to be very much the job of the WH -- to further certain policies.
Off the record at the White House? Then why announce it?
Email received yesterday from [email protected]: Friends: On Wednesday, May 23rd at 4:00 p.m. EDT, please join us for a budget update call with Robert Gordon, Executive Associate Director at the Office of Management and Budget. We ask that you share this invitation with your n...
Sounds about right.
Or in other words I am "retired."
It's all about the headways. Period.
Went out last night to Town Hall Seattle (the always-interesting, worthy and thank-god-we-have-it-here-in-Seattle, — thank you founder David Brewster!) to hear Darrin Nordahl and Jarrett Walker: Perspectives on Public Transit. Very stimulating discussion. To boil it down crudely, my take-away in...
Yes that's a fair critique and my only response is that transit managers should frontally discuss the utility of such experiments to induce demand. If I were a transit manager I'd go out and explain the politics to both his/her board and to the political constituencies (various pro-transit groups etc etc). Maybe they have but I guess I have never heard of anyone discussing a deliberate attempt to dramatically increase frequency way ahead of current demand on one strategic route in order to show that supply induces demand. I do emphasize that I have never heard since I am not really into the transit world.
It's all about the headways. Period.
Went out last night to Town Hall Seattle (the always-interesting, worthy and thank-god-we-have-it-here-in-Seattle, — thank you founder David Brewster!) to hear Darrin Nordahl and Jarrett Walker: Perspectives on Public Transit. Very stimulating discussion. To boil it down crudely, my take-away in...
Thanks. Very interesting and your explanation makes sense.
Good movie, great deal-making
I saw Steve Jobs — The Lost Interview last week and it was very good. Surprised that the audience (in Seattle!) was only half-full but then again maybe the advance publicity was too quick and maybe a bit meager. There is a considerable fascinating backstory and here's part, from Robert X. Cringe...
Uh...I wonder if 2008 counts for "Many years ago..."
Accessory Dwellings | a one-stop source for everything about ADUs, granny flats, backyard cottages, in law units…
Building a detached ADU isn’t necessarily different than building a house. accessorydwellings.org And actually, quite important. It's a new site and I wish it well. I'll be reading. ••• Many years ago I approached an editor at Sunset and suggested some article about ADUs. She snorted (though kin...
Easy to determine: read Sunset.
I haven't in years on any sort of regular basis but I still like it when I run into a copy.
Accessory Dwellings | a one-stop source for everything about ADUs, granny flats, backyard cottages, in law units…
Building a detached ADU isn’t necessarily different than building a house. accessorydwellings.org And actually, quite important. It's a new site and I wish it well. I'll be reading. ••• Many years ago I approached an editor at Sunset and suggested some article about ADUs. She snorted (though kin...
Thanks but I really have little experience in long-form writing...telling a longer story.
Lawrence Block on the Guy who Sold A Million Books on Kindle in 5 Months
A couple of months ago I downloaded a 99¢ novel by John Locke. I’d become aware of him as a dominant presence on the Kindle bestseller list and figured I ought to see what all the fuss was about. I don’t remember which book it was, and I don’t see why it should matter. I didn’t finish it, not bec...
Yes it is odd that so many people think that the High Line is a manifestation of Landscape Urbanism. Even James Corner doesn't have the nerve to make such a claim, though by indirection (using a photo of the High Line but without comment in a book about Landscape Urbanism) he tries to do so.
LANDSCAPE URBANISM FOLLOWUP
Since my last post, about the new Race Street Pier in Philadelphia, there have been challenges on my Facebook link to the post as to (1) whether the High Line is Landscape Urbanism and (2) whether landscape architect James Corner was involved in designing the High Line and (3) whether James Corne...
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about what "design" means. Of course there is a tactical element of design -- Corner's work. But while it is good work, it is by no means os enormous novelty or genius. It's just good, competent, professional work.
The real element of genius of the High Line is to have been recognized at all -- that it should be re-used as a park.
But we do agree on one point: the emphasis should not be on buildings but the space between builidings. That's what new urbanism is all about.
Landscape Urbanism: sometimes an enemy is good to have
I hadn't heard about this new thing called "Landscape Urbanism" -- LU --until just a few weeks ago, thanks to a must-read article by Michael Mehaffy here which then led me, somehow, to The Maestro, Andres Duany, who gave a talk last year at the Congress for the New Urbanism titled "The Next Urba...
Done.
Thx.
The gaffe remains yet the teaching moment is lost.
As I wrote here, one of many unfortunate things in our society is that we are unable to engage in serious conversation about unpleasant things. When Juan Williams says something awkward (or whatever you choose to call it), rather than forcing a clarification, explanation, nuancing or retractio...
Thanks, I will try to find it.
Use of language in Landscape Urbanism and New Urbanism
As I've been looking to learn about Landscape Urbanism, one of the things which has struck me is the generally poor quality of its writing. It seems to me that one of the signs of intellectual weakness in LU is that its language is opaque, turgid and pseudo-intellectual. NU, by contrast, is gene...
Superb! Thanks for the refinement!
Here's a bit more:
http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/cities/2009/12/oh-god-not-again-the-density-debate.html
http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/cities/2005/05/attention_tyson.html
http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/cities/2005/05/density_again.html
and my comments in
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/09/arlington-vs-tysons-corner.html
Finally some substance: Charles Waldheim says that New Urbanists are going to take away your car
I've been trying to get a handle on Landscape Urbanism and found a fairly interesting interview with Charles Waldheim . And what seems to be the central theme of Waldheim's Landscape Urbanism is this: He likes suburbia and doesn't want it to change. Charles Waldheim: ....Instead of using buildi...
Thx.
I will refresh my memory.
Use of language in Landscape Urbanism and New Urbanism
As I've been looking to learn about Landscape Urbanism, one of the things which has struck me is the generally poor quality of its writing. It seems to me that one of the signs of intellectual weakness in LU is that its language is opaque, turgid and pseudo-intellectual. NU, by contrast, is gene...
Excellent! Thanks!
Wish I could find Waldheim's thesis.
Finally some substance: Charles Waldheim says that New Urbanists are going to take away your car
I've been trying to get a handle on Landscape Urbanism and found a fairly interesting interview with Charles Waldheim . And what seems to be the central theme of Waldheim's Landscape Urbanism is this: He likes suburbia and doesn't want it to change. Charles Waldheim: ....Instead of using buildi...
Yes there is much in Landscape Urbanism which appears odd and it doesn't make sense, even on its own terms. Of course since I don't really get that it has any clear premises, except being in opposition to New Urbanism, I am doubly at sea.
Finally some substance: Charles Waldheim says that New Urbanists are going to take away your car
I've been trying to get a handle on Landscape Urbanism and found a fairly interesting interview with Charles Waldheim . And what seems to be the central theme of Waldheim's Landscape Urbanism is this: He likes suburbia and doesn't want it to change. Charles Waldheim: ....Instead of using buildi...
Michael,
What you say is totally reasonable.
But has it been done? That's my question. Has it been done? In fact? In reality? Actually done or at least significantly being done?
The politics are enormously difficult. It's simply not that easy to "Just put a big grassy median to narrow the street, slowing down traffic..." on a through-arterial under State jurisdiction. Where has it been done?
The problem of the arterial is the holy grail of urban planning.
180 degree reversal: auto strip arterial to walkable main street. Has it been done?
I was giving a talk in Florida. The Town Manager helped me focus by asking a question about her town: "How do we reverse an existing auto-oriented strip into walkable urbanism — as we already have here?" It's a profound question. The difficulties are severe. How to do it? (I take for granted tha...
I have no judgment on Arlington as I honestly don't know enough; I know that it is a huge problem, like every other arterial, and saw it once some ten years ago. And the comments I received yesterday -- including Victor, if I am not mistaken -- gave me the sense that while Arlington/Columbia Pike had a good start, it was just a start.
But I want to bring up something else which is sometimes lost: the need for support by a constituency who will back "urban action," for want of a better term. Efforts like Dover Kohl's work needs an ongoing core of citizen supporters (including business people) in order to raise the enormous oil tanker of strip arterial development and push it over the farthest edge of the ocean. Judging from Seattle, I am not convinced that the supporters are clear enough and conflate walkable urbanism with a whole host of issues — a very fleet of oil tankers — like peak oil, sustainability, global climate change and so forth. Such complexity does not, I believe, help political support. It is just too complex.
180 degree reversal: auto strip arterial to walkable main street. Has it been done?
I was giving a talk in Florida. The Town Manager helped me focus by asking a question about her town: "How do we reverse an existing auto-oriented strip into walkable urbanism — as we already have here?" It's a profound question. The difficulties are severe. How to do it? (I take for granted tha...
test.
message to J Massengale?
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A new comment from “John Massengale” was received on the post “Architects Say The Darndest Things!” of the blog “City Comforts, the blog”.
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"Don't they see their own absurdity?"
Evidemment pas
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Architects Say The Darndest Things!
Tschumi: Maybe that’s what a city is: confrontation and complication. via massengale.typepad.com Pretty wretched. Reminds me of Marie Antoinette: "I thought they were trying to lose weight." Have these people no common sense? Don't they see their own absurdity? The phony intellectualism?
Mr. Burgess.
You claim State will pay all overruns.
Could you please document that?
Another Step for Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement
The City Council voted 8-1 this afternoon to affirm the City's role as a co-lead with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) on environmental review of the viaduct replacement project. Today's action should not be a surprise to any...
Hal,
Baker was excusing Japan, positioning Japan because it "couldn't extricate..."
In the context I read it reminded me of the boy who killed his parents and then begged mercy on the court because he was an orphan.
Baker was explicitly stating that the USA was a contributing factor to Jan's sense that it needed to invade the USA.
At least that's what I understand.
So aren't we saying the same thing?
Nicholson Baker and WW2
I started listening to a discussion with Nicholson Baker in the (often excellent) podcasts from the New York Public Library, I don't know much about Baker but my impression is that he has some odd ideas — ones which are at variance with accepted history. Such as...one of the causes of British bo...
I hope you'll show us a sketch -- a typical plan view illustrating your points.
Thx.
on pedestrian malls: look to australia
Why are pedestrian streets in commercial areas so common and successful in Europe, but not in North America? A while back, a reader emailed me to ask this. He observed that even in Vancouver, it's hard to get a pedestrian mall going: And why does a downtown core as densely populated as Vancouv...
Btw, as to the definition of "mosque," and whether there is one in the Pentagon, it seems that there isn't one per se.
Moslems have no space exclusively for their practice and use an inter-denominational chapel.
So is it a "mosque?" No idea. You wouldn't call it a synagogue or church but -- as people call it now -- a chapel, even though it has clear Christian origins.
M-m-m-my Sharia
by Eric Martin Edward E. Curtis IV has a useful summary of facts/myths surrounding mosques in the United States (via). In one portion, he comments on Sharia law (a topic of some concern on this site in recent weeks): In Islam, sharia ("the Way" to God) theoretically governs every human act. Bu...
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