“When, Not If”

ULI's CEO, Patrick Phillips, writes that we are in a new era for waterfront development and we need to recognize that with a change in our approaches to planning and design of the waterfronts. Included in that was this recommendation:

"Jurisdictions should identify local land use typologies to realistically and accurately assess a region’s capacity for resiliency."

Sound familiar?

Lecture: The State of History in the National Parks

Scholarship and Partnerships: The State of History in the National Parks: November 6, Camden
The Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities, Rutgers–Camden, and the National Park Service (Northeast Region) cosponsor a conference on November 6 from 1:30 to 5 p.m. in the Camden Campus Center, Rutgers–Camden. This conference explores how the presentation of history is changing in national parks. This event is free and open to the public. Learn more and register here.

GIS Day at Burlington County College in Mount Laurel, NJ

Join us for

GIS Day at Burlington County College in Mount Laurel, NJ

Wednesday, November 13^th 9-4:30

The event is FREE (including Breakfast and Lunch)

Registration is requested but walk-ins will be accepted.

Register at http://www.co.burlington.nj.us/gisdayatbcc

This event should have something for everyone; from analysis, transit mapping, planning, and crowdsourcing, to balloon mapping plus interactive GPS and GIS workshops as well a MAGTUG seminar focusing on Superstorm Sandy: 

9-11:40 Speakers

11:40-12:30 Lunch

12:30-1:00 Balloon Mapping Demo

1-2:15 GPS Activity

1:30-4:30 MAGTUG presentations (open to the public)

2:30-4:30 GIS Lab

Please see the attached preliminary Agenda for currently scheduled speakers.  (A more detailed agenda will be sent once speakers are finalized.)

 Be a part of GIS Day!  --

*** Display your map in the map gallery! ***

In addition to the speakers and workshops, a map gallery will be on display all day.  All entries will be accepted from beginner to advanced.

It's easy to enter - Just send your map to Merrilee Torres either as hardcopy (to the mailing address below) or as a PDF or JPEG (to the email address below).

Please include your name, organization and a brief abstract about your map (optional). 

This is a chance to showcase your work - Maps that show how GIS or GPS was used to answer a question, make a decision or make someone's work easier are especially of interest!  

Please send your map by the morning of Tuesday, November 12^th or bring it with you on the 13^th.

All maps submitted for GIS Day will also be included in the Burlington County Map Gallery and Contest the following week (see attachments for details).

Thank you and we hope to see you there!

Brought to you by; the County of Burlington NJ, Burlington County College and MAGTUG

Wetlands matter

The Star-Ledger has a feature today, as part of the Sandy one year anniversary, on the value of wetlands. The Department of Interior just announced an extra $15 million for protection of wetlands along the Jersey Shore, especially in areas like Forsythe. Still, the state says that it shouldn't be a priority even though the wetlands provide an important buffer against storm damage:

"We are aware of the need to care for those [wetland] areas along the shore to provide resiliency for the future," said Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. "You also have to live in the real world, and one of the things the Governor is trying to do is rebuild a state that has developed in some coastal areas. People live there. His goal is to get them back in business and back to their lives."

 The wetlands don't just help during hurricanes, but even in small coastal storms, so a little urgency could pay off sooner rather than later.

Preserve and protect

Charles Birnbaum gives an update on landscape preservation. In the interview with PlaNetizen he talks about the challenge of preserving designs that are still relatively recent. But he also discusses the "ascendency of landscape architecture" which is suddenly a hot topic in magazines and papers. But Birnbaum reminds is that there is work left to be done"

"So the way you have to teach people to see modern art, you have to teach them to see modern architecture and landscape architecture. It's like any other discipline; you have to build the appreciation."

Map art

A Maine artist is turning maps into art. Take a peek.

Live Blog: Ilonka Angalet on Airport Landscapes

Airport Landscapes
Ilonka Angalet (RULA '73) - RU LA Outstanding Alumni
2013 NY/NJ Port Authority

6 Airports:
JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia
Stewart, Atlantic City, Teterboro
   total acreage of 15,176 Acres

Lots of lawn, scrub, and pavement

Started with a 1960's court case that found the airport liable for bird strikes caused by water pools near the JFK Airport Chapel
By 1979 legislation required airports to develop plans to address the danger to public safety

Bird strikes has a surprisingly lengthy entry in Wikipedia

(Bonus link: Bird Strike Myths. Don't read this if you are about to fly.)

Different plants are more (or less) attractive to birds than others - FAA advisory circular tells them that they must not use plants that attract birds
If a neighbor (within 5 miles) attracts birds that are the cause of the flight, they are liable.

"Lawns should consist of select Tall Fescue seed cultivars that thrive on low nutrient, low water availability and that are a 90% endophyte enhanced variety."

Lawn areas should include trees like the English Oak and Hornbeam that produce fruit that do attract problem birds. Fruit seasonality is also an issue, since non-migratory roosting birds are often attracted to winter fruits.

Alternative practices include placing nursery containers around site.

The areas around airports have great potential for sustainable biomass production for a biomass power generation station on NYNJPA property.

The airports currently get compost from off site, but as much as 80% is not up to standards. An on-site composting process could contribute to a healthier landscape and allow the PA to monitor the quality closer.

Animal tracks


 
View Larger Map

Book: The Everglades: River of Grass

In class today we heard how River of Grass impacted on researcher's life. Published in 1947,
Marjory Stoneman Douglas' The Everglades: River of Grass presented an eloquent argument for considering the Everglades as both a precious and endangered natural place. Her vivid descriptions of the amazing landscape still ring true. Proof? How about a recent NY Times travel piece that was compelled to quote Douglas' book demonstrate the extraordinary beauty of the area.

Common Lecture: Ilonka Angalet

RULA Common Lecture – 3:55 pm          October 16, 2013

Cook/Douglass Lecture Hall, Room 110, Cook Campus     

Today at the Port Authority’s six airports, there are 1.3 million flights and 109 million passengers, annually.  The six airports have a combine total acreage of 15,176 Acres.  The NY/NJ Regional Airports are located on relatively flat, low, lying areas and former wetlands along our regions coastal shores and waterways.  The Airports are all located within the Atlantic flyway.  The Atlantic flyway is a major migration route for over 300 species of birds.

Ilonka Angalet, ASLA LEED BD+C, Rutgers - CAES ’73 and Landscape Architect for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will present: Landscape Architecture and Preventing Wildlife Hazards to Aviation- Rethinking airport land-cover paradigms.  The presentation will focus on how and why the landscapes at our regional airports are attractive to birds, the consequences of bird strikes, airport wildlife management and how airport landscapes have changed over the last 35 years.

If you need more information or directions, please reply or call 848-932-9311.

Whyte Quote: Do you agree?

The fundamental lesson, to summarize, is that open space has to have a positive function. It will not remain open if it does not. People must be able to things on it or with it - at the very least, to be able to look at it.

- William Whyte

The Last Landscape

Land Use notes from EDA

Some random notes from today's EDA lecture:

• New Jersey's Multiple Municipal Madness 
• Tavistock has 5 residents and a gold course, Pine Valley has 12 residents and a gold course, Teterboro has 65 residents and an airport (Top 10 list of NJ small towns)
• "Home Rule's Exclusive, Costly Kingdoms" - NY Times 1994
• The award-winning map of the Stony Brook Watershed 
• CRSSA's landscape change program 
• How to Lie With Maps by Monmonier

Hope you enjoyed it.

Land Use in EDA

A quick note to our regular readers, I will be giving my guest lecture on Land Use and Home Rule tomorrow morning in Environmental Design Analysis. Since the class meets in the unusually large Hickman 138, there will probably be plenty of room for guests. Stop by if you can.

Regional design explained

xkcd's Time had a few frames that felt like they perfectly summarized the uncertainty of dipping our toes into regional design.

Rutgers Grad School Open House

If you are thinking about graduate studies in landscape architecture, you should mark your calendar for Saturday, November 2 when Rutgers' program will be hosting an open house. It is a great chance to see some recent work, tour the studios and meet faculty and students.

罗格斯大学研究生院景观建筑开放式的房子

Lingering problems

We've been talking about the lingering impacts of Sandy. Last month, Ocean County Planner Dave McKeon said that 26,000 residents are still displaced.

Nordenson notes

Catherine Seavitt Nordenson
Dredge and Drift: Resilient Ecologies for an Urban Estuary

Using SLOSH model to look at the harbor

Learned from Hurricane Isabel

On the Water in PLACES

John McPhee on the Atchafalaya

Yangzte River

China gets cyclones too

Shutdown II

The headline says it all:  Yosemite National Park closed for its own birthday

Visitors to Jockey Hollow are disappointed

Arizona's National Parks shutdown could cost the state millions
  "Visitors at Grand Canyon National Park alone spend $1.2 million per day, the association said."

National Parks during the shutdown

UPDATE 11am 10/1/13

As of Midnight, the government has gone into shutdown.

A government shutdown certainly makes teaching a class about National Parks more interesting. What does it mean for the parks? For starters, National Parks Traveler reports the NPS will furlough over 20,000 employees.

Yellowstone Insider blog reports that, "In the event there is a government shutdown tonight, visitors will be immediately asked to leave Yellowstone National Park, and those staying overnight will be asked to leave in the next few days."

USA Today says that Sandy Hook has already removed the goats that eat their poison ivy.

The Argus Leader reports that the governor of South Dakota has offered to use state funds and workers to keep Mount Rushmore open.

The Ku Klux Klan will need to find someplace other than the Gettysburg Battlefield for their rally this weekend.

The Blue Ridge Parkway, which usually gets 2 million leaf-peeping visitors in October, will still be open for driving but facilities like campgrounds will be closed. I am guessing that many of the bathrooms along the parkway will also be closed too.

In Utah a private river rafting company will have to shutdown because they need to use parklands to access the river, explains CNNMoney.

Public access will be closed, but oil drilling in parklands will continue.

With the NPS closing the park roads, the city of Estes Park is left with just one road in and out, according to KUSA.

Of course, our class field trip can't happen until the shutdown is reversed. Sorry.