100th Anniversary of the National Park Service

A city that costs too much?

A new report asks whether Berlin is costing more than it contributes. And, whether that is a problem. 

Jane Jacobs

Times changes how we see things. Common Edge has posted a reflection on 10 lessons learned from re-reading Jane Jacobs.

Great opportunity for students

Looking for a Few Good Men/Women to Serve as Ambassadors for NJ's Environment!

The Department of Environmental Protection has several openings remaining for the 2016-2017 class of AmeriCorps New Jersey Watershed Ambassadors.  Good candidates are needed to serve at the County of Passaic Planning Department (Totowa); the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (Newark); the Hackensack Riverkeeper (Hackensack); the Great Swamp Outdoor Education Center (Chatham); and Cape May County. 

Based out of 20 host agencies throughout NJ, Ambassadors work with all sectors of the public to improve the quality of NJ's waterways through education and by empowering residents to make responsible and informed decisions about their watersheds.  Ambassadors raise awareness about litter and nonpoint source pollution through their many community projects, field work and presentations. They also take a leadership role in collaborating with local partners to plan and complete projects that protect and restore local waterways, thus promoting environmental stewardship.

Ambassadors are required to complete 1,700 hours of service from September through mid- July. Compensation includes a pretax annual stipend of $12,530; eligibility for health insurance benefits while serving as an Ambassador; subsidized childcare, if qualified; deferment of qualified student loans during service; and extensive training throughout the program year. In addition, members are eligible to receive an education award of $5,730 upon successful completion of the program.

Applicants must be U.S. citizens, have a bachelor's degree, a valid driver's license, and must have reliable transportation to get to and from field sites.

The DEP began hosting the federal AmeriCorps program in 2000. AmeriCorps is a national service initiative that began in 1993. Since its inception, more than 980,000 men and women have taken the AmeriCorps pledge, serving more than 1.3 billion hours and improving the lives of countless Americans.

Those interested may apply online through the AmeriCorps website at:  https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do;jsessionid=letQFF_oq2gn5hWlqxsQfuGQOlULzKWqi1Jxjx4fc9xVSAEQltFU!399265864?id=68288&fromSearch=true.  Deadline for applications is August 31, 2016.

For more information, visit: http://www.nj.gov/dep/wms/bears/americorps.htm or call Kathy Giordano, Program Manager or Patricia Ingelido, Supervisor at (609) 633-1441. Written queries can be sent to:  NJWAP@dep.nj.gov. 

Farmers Market Week

Make sure you get out and celebrate Farmers Market Week. Who knows, maybe there'll be a Pokemon gym there.

Wish I could attend

For those interested in the intersection of health and place, this sounds like an outstanding conference. With the Baby Boomers reaching retirement age in the US and the UK, this is about to become a massive issue for designers to grapple with.

International conference on Habitats for Happy and Healthy Ageing |
Edinburgh | 11-14 October 2016 | Registration now OPEN

Mobility Mood and Place:
Habitats for Happy and Healthy Ageing Conference 
is delighted to announce that registration is
now open for the fourth Open Space: People Space Conference, ‘Mobility,
Mood and Place: Habitats for Happy and Healthy Ageing’.

The conference will take place in Edinburgh on 11th – 14th October 2016.

For further information and registration:
www.mobilitymoodplace.ac.uk/conference

Featuring keynote speakers including Professor Billie Giles-Corti
(Australia), Professor Gloria Gutman (Canada) and Professor Sarah
Wigglesworth (UK), the conference will showcase the best global research
on realising environments for healthy, happy and active ageing for all.

As well as plenary, parallel and poster sessions, delegates will hear
from the Mobility, Mood and Place (MMP) project team who will share
emerging findings from three years of research engaging over 750 older
participants in innovative studies, including co-design, mobile neural
imaging and lifecourse work.


The final day will include site-based activities and workshops and an
exhibition on MMP will run for the duration.


Follow us on twitter: #OSPS4

100 years of zoning

Today is the 100th anniversary of New York City's comprehensive zoning ordinance. Generally viewed as the first city-wide comprehensive zoning ordinance in the US, this was a real watershed moment for urban growth and land use controls. Appropriately, the NY Times provides some context and reflection in a Building Blocks column by David Dunlap.

It is probably true that the nation's embrace of zoning was inevitable, so if NYC hadn't jumped in first, someone else would have. But the symbolism of NYC's early adoption and continued rapid growth undercut many ridiculous arguments about how government control would set cities back or make them less competitive. As Dunlap reminds us, NYC also created a phenomenal zoning document that helped show other cities how to structure zoning as a defensible and logical system.

Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go is embracing the geospatial realm and encouraging more walking. But could Pokemon Go cost you your job? I assume that the next few issues of planning and GIS trade mags will be sprinkled with interesting celebrations and complaints about this new trend, but will be sorely lacking in cheat codes.

History maps

Mapping history has been around for a while. But I thought this series of maps from the Washington Post were very interesting. They asked where there were towns in the US named after towns in England. The maps, while simple, tell a story a bit different than I had expected.

Good news for Barcelona

The City of Barcelona is banning Segways from the central portions of the city. They are considered part of the class of transportation that could be called "novelty urban transit". Like duck rides in Boston or beerbikes in Amsterdam, they ensure that tourists have a visible impact on the city they visit. In a cultural setting they are the equivalent of poor ecotourism.

Writing on The Atlantic CityLab Feargus O'Sullivan says, " It would surely be going too far to damn Segways as Satan’s chariots, but they still need to go. Barcelona’s waterfront should be an open-air living room for the city, not a place where the experience of the city is simulated for motorized, walkway-clogging tourist groups."

Geohealth Lab website

We finally made some long overdue changes to the Geohealth Lab web site. Lots is happening this summer, so watch for more updates.

Environmental costs

In a small state like New Jersey, $1 billion of environmental damages sounds like a lot.

Friday Photos: Manhattan

FitCity 2016

Exciting to see more designers getting onto the bandwagon of making our communities healthy places. This week there is a great meeting at BAM in Brooklyn called FitCity 2016 that is exploring how design can improve health. Since it is sponsored by the AIA, it will probably be a little heavy on architecture, but the ideas should be edgy. And, if you can't attend in person, you can follow along at #FitCity2016

Social GPS versus local residents

That great cut through that helped shave several minutes off your commute is no longer a secret due to Waze. The residents of the cut through neighborhood may be more upset than you. And, as the Washington Post writes, some of them have started fighting back by posting false information.

Maker Park at Bushwick Inlet

It seems that each potential post-industrial park has to be debated again as if it were the first. Hence, the NYTimes coverage of the proposed Maker Park at Bushwick Inlet.

(Naturally, I don't mean that all of these parks should be slam dunks either. Each new park is its own park. It just seems like the coverage never recognizes that these are advancing a collective idea over time.)

For booklovers

Do you remember Andre Chiote's posters of Brazilian World Cup stadia? Now Chiote has developed some elegant posters of great libraries around the world. Awesome illustrations.

Geohealth Lab @ CRSSA

If you haven't seen what we are doing at the Geohealth Lab, this is a great time to check out our website. It has been updated and is getting more traffic.

Work at the intersection of health and GIS is growing quickly. UCSB hosted a meeting on the topic in December.  URISA has a GIS and Health meeting that starts in a week. And Esri hired a Chief Medical Officer last year. It is an exciting time to see what is happening in the field.Esri has also created a Zika story map worth exploring.

Sea level rise and property values

While the news story is several months old, I was struck when I read this story from Key Largo. It details how the streets of Key Largo are flooding with increasing frequency. The article includes a picture of a flooded street on what appears to be an otherwise nice day - just a high tide with a super moon will do it. But the interesting twist was this quote:

"So far we have not been seeing buyers being concerned with sea level rise, which I'm a little surprised given all the media attention it has garnered lately," said Lisa Ferringo, president of the Marathon/Lower Keys Board of Realtors.

When will shore towns see that change? How much flooding is a meaningful inconvenience? Is this a bubble about to burst or a new standard of social resilience. Seems like there should be some sociologists building predictive models on this.

Did you hear it?

NPR's Science Friday visited Duke Farms.

GIS and Health

URISA's 2016 GIS and Health Symposium

Mapping the Way to Healthy CommunitiesJune 1-3, 2016 - Washington, DC

 

Detroit's new ecology

Here is yet another interesting use for vacant sites in Detroit: Joan Nassauer is turning old basements into bioretention gardens. One report on the project suggested that it is about more than just stormwater:

"I do think these projects have the ability to inspire hope," Mobley said. "And they reinforce a message to residents: We haven't forgotten about you. You're important. You matter."

Geohealth 2016

With Summer underway, this is a great time to step back and look at larger topics. In particular, if you are interested in applications of GIS for health applications, you might start with the recently updated website for out Geohealth Lab Group at CRSSA.

Commencement Season 2016

 

 

Old photos of the LA River

Curbed LA has some amazing old photos of the LA River before it was a concrete canyon.

Most Endangered in NJ

The most endangered historic sites in New Jersey has been announced for 2016. I was particularly disappointed to hear that the Whyman House in Elizabeth made the list. It must have been a very handsome house in its time, but now it is a somewhat expensive opportunity in a city where history seems often forgotten.

Get out there!

Looking for something to do between all of the different commencement ceremonies this weekend? On Saturday you could get out and help clean up Middlesex County to make it a little better for the birds.

Roberto Burle Marx

This is going to be a great exhibit.

Carto-coloring

Finals are almost done and you are worried about how to fill your summer? Consider spending countless hours on the new cartographic coloring book, City Maps: A Coloring Book for Adults. It makes a great gift for cartographic instructors as well.

Slope Map

When was the last time you really looked at a slope map?

Happy Birthday Jane Jacobs

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Jane Jacobs.

Libby Nelson has a great piece on Vox celebrating Jacob's upbeat attitude about cities:

"Her theory of how cities worked was based on how she saw people behave, rather than how architects hoped they would behave. (She didn't mince words, either: In 1958, she called these experts "egocentric children, playing with pretty blocks and shouting "See what I made!")"

And Saskia Sassen at The Guardian summed up her work saying that:

"She understood it is the weaving of multiple strands that makes the city so much more than the sum of its residents, or its grand buildings, or its corporate economy."

 And as you can guess from the image above, Google is celebrating her with today's cartoon/image.

Noguchi viewing

If you are in the area, stop by the U-Haul facility on South Kingsbridge in St Louis on the evening of May 19th for an open viewing of the Noguchi.

Star Wars

May the 4th be with you.
To celebrate Star Wars Day, check out this great map which repurposed the London Underground cartogram as a chart map of the Star Wars universe.

10 ______ that changed America

As a Reading Day turns into a cramming night, EnvPlan students could spend a little time watching an episode or two of the 10 that Changed America

• 10 Towns that Changed America including Seaside and the Pearl District
• 10 Homes that Changed America
• 10 Buildings that Changed America
• 10 Parks that Changed America
which should be mandatory viewing for all students in landscape architecture

Save one or two for after Finals as a celebration.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

I had the privilege last summer of taking a dozen landscape architecture students to see The Garden of Earthly Delights. It was a wonderful experience and I am sad that I don't have time to do it again for another 8 years.

However! You don't need to go. An interactive documentary has been created by Pieter van Huijstee to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Hieronymus Bosch's death later this year. Even if you have visited El Prado, you should take a few minutes to bask in the glory of this wonderful painting. It still amazes me to think how old it is. Parts of it seem more like a mid-20th Century painting.

More than freebies

Is Princeton University a good neighbor?

Garden Bridge

Thomas Heatherwick's proposal for a Garden Bridge across the Thames has reached another milestone with the signing of a construction contract for the project. If you haven't been following the project, Heatherwick has proposed a new green bridge in central London. The amount of trees and soil proposed on this bridge are quite substantial and will require a feat of engineering to support the weight. To explain the scale of what they are trying to do, they have generated an infographic.

There are a lot of different aspects to the project. Other news outlets (like CNN) are making a big deal about the project's inspiration derived from the movie Titanic. But there is also a concern about how much green space will be lost to make this artificial green space.

Stay tuned.

Houston's planning and flooding problems

The Houston Chronicle published a column from John Jacob about how the city's laissez-faire approach to planning has backfired and created a city with substantial environmental planning problems. Particularly, the column says Houston has developed their wetlands and floodplains without mitigation and has placed thousands in danger. Meanwhile the city is letting developers build homes that no one will want in a few decades.

So what alternative is there? Jacob proposes...Transfer of Development Rights.

Panel on Post-industrial Public Landscapes

Rutgers University - Landscape Architecture Common Lecture
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Loree Building - Auditorium 022, Cook Campus (click for Rutgers Map)

As part of common lecture series, the folks from the Forest Service, NYC Parks and CUNY who have been part of the Freshkills Park and the folks from Rutgers and Montclair State University, who have worked on Liberty State Park will be available to talk from 2-4 before the presentation in Room 148, Blake Hall.

Parking for visitors will be in Lot 87 at Blake Hall. It’s just a short walk to the Loree Building – right along Red Oak Lane.

An Earth Day treat

New York City is celebrating Earth Day with car-free zones. Follow #CarFreeNYC as it happens.

BTW, Sunday is Ciclovia in New Brunswick, which is pretty similar.

What are you doing for Earth Day?

MyCentralJersey.com has a list of options to help you find the right way to celebrate.

Brooklyn is growing

Brooklyn is getting its first skyscraper over 1,000 feet, and it will be directly across from Junior's. You are definitely going to need lunch reservations.

The story behind Kelo

When we talk about Supreme Court cases in planning, it often seems like they are truly an unique local conflict that was so fiercely fought that the Supreme Court's involvement seemed inevitable. Afterwards, many decisions seem accepted as inevitable and unquestionable.

But reading about Kelo v. New London, we see that the way the case bubbled up and how the decision was received are not like that at all.

Ilya Somin is a Professor of Law at George Mason who blogs for the Washington Post on this topic. He wrote a series of posts last year when his new book on the case was released. One of the posts provides insight into how such an obscure case became a foundational decision on eminent domain and property rights. He followed up with a detailed post about the public and political response to the decision.

He also has blogged responses to comments by Donald Trump on eminent domain. First, when Trump told an interviewer that eminent domain "is not taking property." And a second time when, during a primary debate, Trump said that the property owner "gets a fortune."   Finally, you can watch a short news video about the Trump case.

Global Street Politics

Tuesday April 26th there will be a fascinating book discussion at the Zimmerli.

Eminent Domain

Some quick links on eminent domain:

A new decision about the use of eminent domain at Margate.

A Stake in the Sand from the NY Times Sunday Magazine about 8-0 decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, written before the decision.

Eminent Domain in Atlantic City  (No comment)

An anti-eminent domain organization.

Going in the wrong direction

A school in Maryland has banned students from walking to school.

Camp Pendleton

Camp Pendleton continues to be in the news as a project. But readers can go back to the notable 1997 report on Steinitz's Alternative Futures project online. The report has aged well. It is fascinating to look at the section on implementation which still reads as if it were current today.

Building a healthier community

Physical activity is one of the important ingredients of a healthier community. Princeton University is copying the bike rental programs of larger cities (NYC, DC, Minneapolis) with an on-campus bike rental system. The program, started in 2014, encourages students to be active. And, in a sense, it makes the entire community a little more accessible since it expands the distance that students can easily cover.

MLUL and related links

The basis of much of local planning in New Jersey is the Municipal Land Use Law, usually lovingly referred to as the MLUL. You will notice that the ANJEC guide we mentioned in class only makes it to the second paragraph before citing the MLUL.

And NJ.com has just posted a NJ Geography quiz with lots of municipal madness questions. Did they spy on our class lecture yesterday?  Well, they have written about it plenty oin 2011 or in 2015.  (or the NYTimes in 1998 and in 2007)

It is a New Jersey story.

Resources

Since our last exam, we have talked about the following RotD's:

1. Books (including Outside Lies Magic and The Pine Barrens)
2. Newspapers
3. Master Plans
4. American Memory
5. Ordinance.com
6. eGov

Daniel Burnham

Daniel Burnham famously said, "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty."

 But do you realize how grand his plan was? The entire Plan of Chicago (1909) is available online. The images are still remarkable and his writing holds up well. The eighth chapter sets out six goals the plan seeks to accomplish and all six are achieved to some degree.

As an aside, Variety reports that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are making a film dramatization of the book, The Devil and the White City. No word who will be playing Daniel Burnham. Based on the painting below, who do you think it should be?

Sommerfrische lecture

Christian Lippman

Technische Universität Berlin

Sommerfrische

Dr. Christian Lippmann has a long standing research interest in ecotourism and the impact of touristic ideals on landscape planning. Besides his “day job” as owner and CEO of a Berlin consulting firm focusing on organizational development, he recently completed his Ph.D. at Technische Universität Berlin with the title: “Sommerfrische as a spatial symbol of bourgeois life style - the social construction of touristic rural space”.

Sommerfrische is a particular German tourism phenomenon dating back to the turn of the last century, describing (petite) bourgeois spending parts of the summer in the country. The presentation will focus on space and architectural structures which are commonly identified as "rural“ or "pastoral“ and which are considered touristic destinations. The outcome will be a deeper understanding of the cultural perception of such destinations and why they are considered beautiful and picturesque locations.

Coordinate of the Year

Places and Spaces is happy to announce that this year's winner of the Coordinate of the Year is...

(drum roll)

Latitude!

After a few years of dominance by Longitude, it is exciting to see the return to prominence by Latitude. Its emphasis on the vertical is inspiring to us all. And, of course, we wouldn't have the horse latitudes without it. Another past winner, the Cartesian coordinate X, congratulated the winner noting Latitude's important work in navigation.

Congratulations Latitude! 2016 is going to be a special one.