SCAG forces overdevelopment

It comes as no surprise that the areas in California that have lost the most real estate value are those areas that were targeted for high-buildout, cheaper homes in areas remote from city centers and infrastructure. The "policies" that instigated this buildout were the opportunities for developers that SCAG targeted for assigned growth areas in a classic sprawl pattern (see the sidebar on this page, "SCAG forces overdevelopment"). This leads to the interconnected demand for water that has no existence except on paper, as well as pressure to design and fund the billion-dollar high-speed rail project from Sacramento to Los Angeles, thus creating demand for real estate around the proposed rail stops. There's also a blog on rail projects here.

Statistics from Zillow.com show how this strategy has imploded.


An article here from Yahoo Finance discusses this issue and continues to follow the real estate implosion. The human side of the story, how suburban sprawl is driven by the banking and real estate industries, is here in The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome, Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream.

Precautionary Principle: San Francisco Ordinance

An AIA National Convention presentation by Debbie Raphael, San Francisco Department of the Environment highlights its ordinance passed in 2003 that offers a model for decision making in the face of uncertainty. Known as the Precautionary Principle, it allows for the use of scientific research as a basis for decision making about the risks of certain courses of action, without demanding specific causality. In this way, the model follows Principle 15 of the Rio Earth Summit 1992:

In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

It offers a decision making process that is explicit about the values of:
Preventing harm
Right to know / Full Disclosure
Public Participation
Expands the pool of people asking the question: Is it necessary?
Strengthens the foundation of existing precautionary measures.

This is an example of benchmarking the public policy process around the urban environment that includes all facets of a problem. The presentation can be downloaded here.

San Francisco has also developed an Urban EcoMap. It will be made available to the general public at the Connected Urban Development conference in Seoul, 21st May 2009.

Mauldin Posts on the Carbon Cycle.

In his financial blog, John Mauldin re-posts Peter Huber's article about the factors that circumscribe the carbon debate - fuel, emissions, carbon sinks, and the bottom line. The article concludes with the following:

If we do need to do something serious about carbon, the sequestration of carbon after it's burned is the one approach that accepts the growth of carbon emissions as an inescapable fact of the twenty-first century. And it's the one approach that the rest of the world can embrace, too, here and now, because it begins with improving land use, which can lead directly and quickly to greater prosperity. If, on the other hand, we persist in building green bridges to nowhere, we will make things worse, not better. Good intentions aren't enough. Turned into ineffectual action, they can cost the earth and accelerate its ruin at the same time.

Zumthor Wins 2009 Pritzker

Peter Zumthor wins the Pritzker Prize. All the more amazing because he disowns the whole "starchitecture" system.

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/090412pritzker.asp

How does one explain the fascination with Peter Zumthor? It is not because of an architectural style. As the architect himself once said, “It is better not to talk of style but of a particular approach, a specific conscientiousness, in finding the solution to a task.” His projects are few in number, small in size, and located mostly within his own neighborhood, the Swiss Canton of Graubünden, or in Germany, Austria, and Italy. His range is similarly restricted to noncommercial, individual residences or housing groups, and community, religious, or cultural institutions.



Note in the photo above the incorporation of the old remnants with the new work. Like Scarpa, he uses "raw" and indigenous materials rather than manufactured skins and frames. All the way back to the FLLW tradition of local materials, which is a key ingredient of sustainability in architectural design now (avoid embodiment of transported materials and oil-based mfr of building systems like steel and window wall - high energy to produce as well as import). Hopefully someday he will inspire a song, as well.

Slideshow: recent works

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/090412pritzker/2000s/1.asp

Italy's Silent Spring

In his novel "Gomorrah", Roberto Saviano writes about Naples and southern Italy:

The most concrete emblem of every economic cycle is the dump. Accumulating everything that ever was, dumps are the true aftermath of consumption, something more than the mark every product leaves on the surface of the earth. The south of Italy is the end of the line for the dregs of production, useless leftovers, and toxic waste. If all the trash that, according to the Italian environmental group Legambiente, escapes official inspection were collected in one place, it would form a mountain weighing 14 million tons and rising 47,900 feet from a base of three hectares. Mont Blanc rises 15,780 feet, Everest 29,015. So this heap of unregulated and unreported waste would be the highest mountain on earth. This is how I came to imagine the DNA of the economy, its commercial transactions and profit dividends, the additions and subtractions of accountants. It is as if this mountain had exploded and scattered over the south of Italy, in particular in Campania, Sicily, Clabria and Puglia, the regions with the greatest number of environmental crimes. These same regions head the list for the largest criminal associations, the highest unemployment rate, and the greatest number of volunteers for the military and police forces. Always the same list, eternal and immutable. In the last thirty years, the area around Caserta, between the Garigliano River and Lake Patria - the land of the Mozzoni clan - has absorbed tons of ordinary and toxic waste.

Treasure Island

The AIA National Convention last week presented some terrific opportunities to examine a new approach to human settlement. Here's an example based upon San Francisco's plan for Treasure Island: The creators and designers of this idealistic platform see this city being less the threat to the planet, rather, an opportunity. Instead of devouring the natural resources and spitting the waste out in the form of sewage and garbage in what is typically called the linear flow. This island environment intends to produce its own energy and recycle its waste transforming the traditional city environment from a factory, in a sense, into an ecosystem. By integrating smart eco-friendly systems a city like this one will be able to support a larger number of citizens with far less resources.

This project is participating in the Climate Positive Development Program. USGBC is working with the Clinton Climate Initiative, a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation, to provide technical guidance in support of CCI’s business and financial expertise. USGBC will help develop and establish the standards and metrics by which the participating sites can measure their climate-positive outcomes. In January of this year, it received an AIA Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design. Designed by SOM, it has far-reaching strategies in planning and sustainability. See the design and the firm's image gallery here.

There's also an article from the Urban Land Institute about its development from a former naval base.

The Story of Sprawl: A resource

A clever new polemic submitted to the Congress for the New Urbanism has earned first place in that organization's 2009 video contest, video above.

In planning circles, it is fashionable to debate the merits or drawbacks of the spread of suburban living that happened in the 20th century. What isn’t up for debate is that it happened- that from the early '40s until the beginning of the 21st century, the American pattern of development changed radically.

This 2-disc set is an unprecedented visual document of how sprawl happened, told through a series of historic films ranging from 1939's The City, created by famed planner Lewis Mumford, to No Time For Ugliness from 1965, produced by the American Institute of Architects.

From Planetizen: The story on DVD