Shrinking City

Article: New York Times by David Streitfeld

"a model for a different era". From expansion with development to developing with shrinkage. Flint, Michigan talk about using land banks to covert abandoned, foreclosed properties into natural landscape, saving money, condesing the town and ultimately rethinking the American city.

“If it’s going to look abandoned, let it be clean and green,” he said. “Create the new Flint forest — something people will choose to live near, rather than something that symbolizes failure.”

land banks: (taken from this U. of Michigan site by Jessica de Wit) A land bank is a public authority created to efficiently hold, manage and develop tax-foreclosed property.(1) Land banks act as a legal and financial mechanism to transform vacant, abandoned and tax-foreclosed property back to productive use. Generally, land banks are funded by local governments' budgets or the management and disposition of tax-foreclosed property.(2) In addition, a land bank is a powerful locational incentive, which encourages redevelopment in older communities that generally have little available land and neighborhoods that have been blighted by an out-migration of residents and businesses.(3) While a land bank provides short-term fiscal benefits, it can also act as a tool for planning long-term community development. Successful land bank programs revitalize blighted neighborhoods and direct reinvestment back into these neighborhoods to support their long-term community vision.

Related:
Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective Program, University of California, Berkeley

USA Today Article

Toy... - Land

http://www.toyotawhynot.com/#/home

(Built) Environment and Landscape used as representation of values, image and business strategy.

I love how they say it all begins with you.

Sandbag housing

MMA Architects and new housing strategies using sand filled bags, stacked...
related articles:
Treehugger
Dezeen

bigger citys, bigger forests

New Jungles Prompt a Debate on Rain Forests
New York Times Article by Elisabeth Rosenthal

With over half of the world's population now living in cities, will the jungles be saved?
This interesting article discusses the issue of how farmers are leaving their deforested agricultural plots and heading to the cities, allowing the jungles to return.

Rosenthal states: "By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster."

Building Landscapes

Academy of Sciences Museum in San Francisco, CA
The rooftop mimics surrounding hills, while planted with native plants
Mounds reflect the planetarium and rain forest exhibits within.

Mapping "Real" America

image link

In this time of heightened political commentary, I never expected it to enter into a blog concerned with urban design. But as we have all come to understand, all things are political. So, it is of great interest to me hearing the Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin's comments regarding a "real America." And, daring to take it seriously, ask, what is and where is this "real America"


















here is one patch of it


In scouring the internet, I could find no "list" of Palin's speaking engagements, in seeking a literal "road map" of her "real america." The attached images are mostly cartoon satires, but, help to illustrate my inquiry.

What is this conceptual landscape of "real America?" Who or what makes up this identification? Is it based on location? urban form? density? can it be defined architecturally? Or is it census based: education, ethnicity, age, economic tier, religion...?

What images come up for us with the comment of "real America?" With red and blue states, how deep is our identification of the (new?) political landscape of the USA?

Is this "real America" an imaginary (virtual) reality?















image link

Tierra Firma

This caught my attention while walking in New York. There is something about seeing earth in the city that catches your attention (with or without the orange cones). Its almost like one assumes that while living upon the concrete surface of the urban grid, that its just one solid island of concrete. That there is no earth, except in strategic "park" spaces, where its formed, worked...manicured.

But what would the urban grid become if "earth" were to be exposed? What infrastructures of the city could be reinvigorated, reintroduced? Its properties: absorb water runoff, sound absorption, sustaining plant life...human life...