urbanter

From this day forward...

fieldofplay — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:05:07 -0700

We could babble about improved social media integration and tools for collaboration, but we’ll cut straight to the point: URBANTER HAS MIGRATED TO POSTEROUS.

We apologize to all of our Tumblr followers, but hope you’ll continue to follow us over at Posterous or on our Facebook or Twitter.

Sustainable Transportation Seminar: An Interdisciplinary Wonder

signsofsunshine — Sun, 15 May 2011 13:52:00 -0700

Last Friday Gerad blogged about the challenges inherent to interdisciplinary programs. The Urban Studies program deals with an issue rather than a discipline, and it is often difficult to fit professors trained and classes developed within a narrow discipline to encompass the major’s range of interests. This Friday, however, I would like to provide an example of an interdisciplinary forum that reinforces the need for the collaborative format. The forum, “The Sustainable Transportation Seminar on Systems and Policies” is not an official subset of the Urban Studies major, but is extremely relevant to theissue we study. The seminar is hosted by MS&E (a fellow interdisciplinary program) and is open to the public every Friday from 2:30 to 4 in Y2E2 RM101.

During the first meeting, we all introduced our area of work or study. The breadth was astounding from professors in civil engineering, to members of the Stanford Energy Club, to director of Stanford’s P&TS, to graduates at the law school. Every meeting features a different presenter, who is usually the world’s leading expert in his or her niche of sustainable transportation, followed by at least an hour of informal question and answer. I say niche, because while these people are experts about their topic it would virtually impossible to know all there is to know about the interdisciplinary issueof sustainable transportation. Without fail, the question and answer period has supplied the group and, more importantly, the presenter with a fresh perspective on the day’s topic. Someone from another discipline predictably offers up a comment to which the presenter responds, “I hadn’t thought of that. I’m excited to run through my tests again with that adjustment in mind.” You may think that world experts (and they truly are) should have thought of everything. This puzzled me after the first couple seminars, until I realize that a majority of the academic world operates in disciplinary spheres, which rarely overlap. This seminar is special…Urban Studies and the other IDS on campus are rare. I wasn’t aware that urban studies was something I could take for granted, but after witnessing the excitement in the seminar interactions, I see my mistake.

Today’s seminar (5/13) was a bit more action packed than normal and solidified my appreciation for the interdisciplinary aspect. The group of us met at the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (the CARS lab) for a presentation on GM’s new Chevy Volt. We were greeted by opening remarks from former Secretary of State and Secretary of Treasury, George Shultz. What does he have to do with the Chevy Volt? Well, nothing directly although he was on the Board of Directors at GM during the 70’s (man, this guy’s got a packed résumé). He was really there for the same reasons that everyone else came to the presentation—sustainable transportation is just as much an engineering issue as it is a political issue, as it is a social issue, as it is a economic issue and so on. I’m beginning to see that some issues require great minds that don’tthink alike.

~Taylor McAdam

Sustainable streetscape model breaks ground in Bayview

elizabethtitus — Thu, 12 May 2011 12:54:07 -0700

Via SF Streetsblog:

“You see a vision right in front of your door,” Mayor Lee told an audience of residents and agency officials who collaborated on the project. “A vision that’s going to bring about slowing the traffic, trees, permeable landscaping - all kinds of things that you see other neighborhoods get.”

Read the full story here.

- Elizabeth Titus

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Image: Newcomb Avenue conceptual plan diagram, via SF Streetsblog (PDF)

America's Cup Parking Innovations

aponting — Tue, 10 May 2011 10:00:05 -0700

It turns out that we here in the Bay Area will witness an incredible transformation in land use and transportation over the next two years. The 34^th America’s Cup, the prestigious international yacht race, and associated regattas are to be held in San Francisco between July and September of 2013. Confirmed in December 2010, the city has just released its People Plan, which describes the transportation strategies they plan on implementing to accommodate for the 20,000 daily visitors they expect at the event. They plan to augment service along key bus, cable car, and rail lines as well as create secure bike parking. This will be a key event to showcase the effectiveness of the Bay Area Regional Bicycle Sharing Pilot Program, a project that a group of students in Urban Studies 164 (Sustainable Cities) is actively working on for the Redwood City component, and is set to launch in spring of 2012.

One interesting component will be the larger-scale launch of their SFpark program (which is currently in its pilot phase). This smartphone application and web interface will show real-time updates for the 25,000 parking spaces in 20 City-owned parking garages. SFpark also has the capability to set demand-based pricing to encourage drivers to go to underused lots. They are looking into the possibility of incorporating other real-time data, like the number of spectators at the event, so that visitors can make informed travel decisions based on congestion.

This is an impressive effort on the city’s part to incorporate technology in the digital age. SFpark plans to provide its data to application developers, companies like Google and vehicle navigation systems so that it can be easily distributed. It will give drivers the ability to make real cost-benefit analyses when choosing to drive, walk, or take transit, and will endure far beyond the America’s Cup. Even implementing the best and most efficient transportation infrastructure will not allow the Bay Area to meet its 2035 greenhouse gas emissions target as defined by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Demand pricing is a key component to behavior change, which will contribute to further reductions. Transportation change facilitated by technology will appeal to an ever-wider public—because of its cool factor and convenience—and serve as a model for other cities overhauling their transportation systems.

Brick City

fieldofplay — Sun, 08 May 2011 23:22:00 -0700

VIDEO

Finding myself with some free time this past weekend, I ended up on Netflix browsing recommendations for my instant viewing pleasure. The very first result was “Brick City,” billed as a 2009 documentary series about Newark, NJ, with a Netflix synopsis that reads “a sort of nonfiction companion to HBO’s crime drama The Wire.” Considering I had heard of Newark mayor (and Stanford alum) Corey Booker from his dealings with Mark Zuckerberg last year, I clicked play. The video above is the first 10 minutes of said episode.

While the show is undoubtedly dramatized - with shots of old, white policemen laced with hip-hop beats - it does a great job of documenting the intricacies of municipal governance in a city with real problems. For those of us interested in equitable community development, there is no better in-progress case study than that of Newark. A show like this makes clear the delicate nature of progress: in the first episode, a shooting threatens to derail months of progress in the crime-ridden city. It also underscores the reality that the things we care about, the areas in which of us feels our cities can improve - whether it be affordable housing, crime, education, etc. - are intricately linked. Working towards a more equitable world requires the coordination of holistic action by the key players in municipal governance - local governments, nonprofits and individual community leaders.

These were my ruminations from watching the first episode of the series. I am sure I will find a way to plug through the rest of the series - all of which is on Netflix streaming, by the way - this week. I’ll keep you posted.

The enigmatic life of an interdisciplinary program

contemplace — Fri, 06 May 2011 10:00:06 -0700

This week, I want to take a look at the program like Keith did in his post about intelligent cities.

One of the challenges the Program on Urban Studies faces, as an interdisciplinary program, is the lack of a dedicated faculty. On the one hand, this means that students are allowed to take courses that relate to urban issues in any program. On the other, this means that the program has little influence on what courses are actually taught at the university, and, more importantly, the direction in which the program trends.

Unfortunately, this problem is endemic to the way universities are structured. Rather than organizing around “problems” (which, by nature have interdisciplinary solutions), universities organize around disciplines, like sociology, anthropology, economics, political science (all of which urban studies utilizes), which develop paradigmatic thinking that limit perspective. Problematically, these have been entrenched into the way each scholar new to the discipline approaches his or her interests—after all, endearing oneself to a mentor is perhaps the best way into a doctorate program.

At our annual retreat on Wednesday, Professor Rosenfeld stressed the difficulties involved with recruiting an established professor to teach courses for the program, not to mention the difficulties involved in shaping that professor’s syllabus! Instead, he argued, it has been, is, and will probably continue to be easier to attract a post-doc who needs to build his or her résumé, and will then, of course, pursue an assistant, associate, or full professorship in a discipline that has the resources to make the addition.

I don’t think the inclusion of intelligent cities curriculum in the major is necessarily a choice that the Stanford University Program on Urban Studies can currently make. It is rather, President Hennessy’s choice to expand the resources available to interdisciplinary programs that are already contributing to the solutions of the world’s problems. Then the Program on Urban Studies can make its choice.

-Gerad Hanono

City digital

elizabethtitus — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:50:00 -0700

More on the mobile front: “Gigwalk pays iPhone users to snap photos, verify addresses and other odd jobs.” Says the co-founder:

People from other companies would always complain about how hard and expensive and time consuming it is to collect localized data … it just seemed like it made so much sense that people are out there and have smartphones and they can get the local data for you. It seemed like a real big opportunity here.

The “real big opportunity” is, of course, to monetize: businesses pay Gigwalk for data about the urban landscape, which Gigwalk in turn pays users - people with iPhones in their pockets - to collect. The company reportedly has raised about $1.7 million and is operating in seven U.S. metro areas.

That “local intelligence” has value is not new. In the Bay Area, I have watched with interest The Bold Italic, which celebrates such intelligence gathering to a distinctly artistic tune. News startup The Bay Citizen dubs some of its coverage “local intelligence” (one of the latest: “Be Love Farm, Vacaville”).

But this app is about data - specialized data, cold, hard and specific, with a price tag. To me, it represents the larger changes underfoot in the way we experience cities in a digital age. The makers expect that these data are valuable - an expectation that, I think, drives concerns elsewhere about mobile privacy. Also nagging is the question of whether experiencing the city while “resist[ing] the urge to hang out with your cellphone” - through “unfettered eyes,” in Taylor McAdam’s words - will ever be as rich again.

- Elizabeth Titus

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Photo: Screenshot via gigwalk.com

"The blog is hot."

signsofsunshine — Wed, 04 May 2011 20:03:00 -0700

“The blog is hot.”

- Michael Rosenfeld

Event: Ecumenical Maps and Sectarian Mosques in Islamabad

elizabethtitus — Wed, 04 May 2011 19:44:22 -0700

Via Stanford Anthropology:

What: “Ecumenical Maps and Sectarian Mosques in Islamabad” with Matthew Hull of the University of Michigan

When: Monday, May 9, 3:15-5 p.m.

Where: Building 50, Room 51A

Description:

The Islamization program of the Pakistan state in the late 1970s generated new demands for mosques and conflict over their sectarian allocation in Islamabad. City planning map shave played a central role in this process, shaping sectarian claims against the government for mosques and facilitating the takeover of land. The use of maps to thwart government planning and administrative policies on the provision of mosques shows the political ambiguities of governance technologies like maps that are treated purely as instruments of state control. The role of maps in this context also highlights the importance of maps as material artifacts.

- Elizabeth Titus

The Renaissance of Hunters Point

aponting — Wed, 04 May 2011 10:00:05 -0700

On Saturday I attended the 2011 Stanford Black Law Student Association’s Conference called The Evolving City. The morning session consisted of a presentation on the revitalization of the Hunters Point Shipyard which struck me as a vision for economic development that stands in contrast to the situation Gerad described earlier this week. While he mentioned that Chile’s increasing prosperity has replaced historical buildings with world-class skyscrapers and shopping malls, the Hunters Point plan promises to pay homage to its cultural roots. Kofi Bonner, Regional Vice President of Lennar Urban, the developer of the community’s master plan, highlighted their commitment to current residents by rebuilding of Alice Griffith Public Housing with no displacement of current residents, making 32 percent of its housing below-market rate, and incorporating an international-themed African Marketplace.

But how much of the final plan will actually benefit the residents? Lennar is negotiating with the 49ers, who are considering a stadium site in the master plan. Current designs also include over 3 million square feet of R&D space targeting green-tech and clean-tech businesses. The $1 billion for transportation and public infrastructure will certainly Hunters Point residents much needed access to other parts of the city, but it will also make it more feasible of a location for the city’s ever-expanding white-collar population. But in the end, might gentrification be a good thing for the neighborhood, to some extent? This is the problem that seems to plague planners, community organizers, developers, and politicians alike. This project stands a better chance than most in protecting current residents, as far as I can tell, because of the incredible involvement from the Citizens Advisory Committee spearheaded by Veronica Hunnicutt, one of the panelists. In all, the project seems to be well-implemented and planned.

What also impressed me was the level of cooperation between groups that seem to have inherent tension: community, military, and development. With one representative from each sector, the panelists walked through Hunters Point’s story as a military base, industrial shipping area, and opportunity site for the current project. Lennar has provided for an astounding number of community benefits including workforce development, scholarship funds, and homeownership assistance.

Continue here to view the urban design plans for the Candlestick Park (stadium) alternative and learn more about the project.

I’m going to start with the assumption that you’re...

fieldofplay — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:25:46 -0700

I’m going to start with the assumption that you’re familiar with the concept of “intelligent cities.” (If this sounds like babble, ICs rely on data and technology to improve and streamline a more social, data-driven decision-making process. For more: look here, there and everywhere.) In my opinion, the intelligent cities movement offers an excellent opportunity for our beloved Program on Urban Studies to leverage its connections to this tech-crazed campus and region to help shape the ICs of the future and build its own reputation.

Today, no true IC exists. Data is being gathered and utilized in innovative ways in cities around the globe, from participatory budgeting in Icapui, Brazil to collecting ideas from New York City’s front-line employees, but efforts are neither holistic nor nuanced. The IC movement is in its infancy. If the Program on Urban Studies is to corner the market on intelligent cities within the Stanford campus, now is the time to act.

You may be asking yourself why I feel the incorporation of intelligent cities into the Program will be a good thing. I have two primary justifications for this. First off, it will complement the sociological focus of the major in a quantitative, tech-oriented way that will make graduates more valuable to employers - especially cities. The second reason, which follows from the first but requires some time: building city leadership with technical talent. IBM is currently awarding $50 million to cities through its Smarter Cities Challenge to encourage civic leaders to engage with the world of tech, and a focus on IC in the Program would be an even stronger stimulus for bringing these two worlds together. For itself, its students and the cities of the world, the Program ought to seize the IC opportunity.

If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you’re at least open to entertaining the idea of incorporating IC in the curriculum. But what could this incorporation look like? At its most minor, it could imply adding a couple statistics and computer science courses to the required set of skills classes and searching for more linkages with relevant departments here at Stanford. At the extreme end, it could grow into its own concentration within the Program.

Discussions need to be had on this topic, and soon. The IC movement is rapidly expanding, and the Program is situated in an indisputably ideal manner to explore the potential of this avenue of education. Professors and students, advisers and friends, this Program is ours and we can make it so much more.

Layers of Reality

signsofsunshine — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:51:00 -0700

I walked out of my dorm Saturday afternoon feeling rather hungry. I wasn’t really in the mood for greasy food from the COHO so I tried something new—I let my phone tell me where to go. I opened the recently downloaded Layer application on my phone and wandering around weighing how I felt about all the little Yelp icons that popped up on the screen.

Layer, the 2009 Dutch Software start-up, is one of the first to offer a mobile augmented-reality (AR) application. Neither the information in the app nor the AR concept is new. What is new is the accessible format that Layer provides for mobile phone users. Simply open the app and then select from one of thousands of layers to find anything from Wikipedia entries on the world around you, to tonight’s raves in San Francisco, to a virtual maze challenge that can be layered onto the real world. Layer is an app that “shows you the things you can’t see.” I am still relatively new to the app, but my favorite discovery so far is a layer that displays 3-D models of historic building and then future plans for a specific site. Other layers can show you where to find graffiti in the city, and others pinpoint the location of the closest Starbucks. The app does this with a smartphone’s GPS data, compass, and gyroscope, and knows exactly where you are and in which direction you are facing.

Elizabeth posted about a week ago on another smartphone app that can map your long-term movement. I understand the danger in announcing your geographic location, but I also am a really big fan of the benefits of this technology. Specifically, I like that my phone can show me cool historical facts about the world around me that I could only guess at before and I like that my phone can present me with Ike’s Sandwich Shop as a delicious option for lunch.

What I don’t like so much is that staring at your phone all the time makes it likely you’ll miss all the things you can see. There certainly is something to be said for the “augmented-reality” also known as your imagination. If we can simply look up the information with the click of a button, what will happen to our sense of wonder or adventure? Well, for one, we won’t wonder or adventure for more than a few seconds at a time. In the end, I am torn. I think there are times for the extra information even if it is usually superfluous and just for fun, and then I think there are times when one should just wander and work with the city as it is presented through unfettered eyes.

~Taylor McAdam

San Diego scraps planning department

elizabethtitus — Sun, 01 May 2011 15:28:13 -0700

From Voice of San Diego:

To save $1 million a year, the mayor will fold the Planning Department into the Development Services Department, which, as its name suggests, helps developers get approvals for building permits. The new group will still be called the Development Services Department. Kelly Broughton, the department’s director, will remain its leader and assume the effective role of planning director.

The idea, first raised in the wake of the Sunroad scandal, has raised concerns among current and former planning officials that, as the city’s budget increasingly focuses on simply preserving core services, planning for the city’s future is being left behind — with Mission Valley as Exhibit A. At least there, Anderson said, the city’s budget problems have jeopardized its ability to plan for growth.

Read the full story here.

- Elizabeth Titus

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Photo: Keo 101/Creative Commons

A Lamentation on Development

contemplace — Sun, 01 May 2011 14:11:00 -0700

Santiago seems to reflect Chile’s difficult past. The city’s architecture is a fascinating conglomeration of styles, correlating with the various periods of economic booming that exploded across the city. Certain areas reflect the period that during which they developed, while others are simply a chaotic mix of colonial (in the Spanish sense), modern (in the brutish, repressive sense), and structural expressionist (in the glassed, giant sense). Every building seems to tell a story of Santiaguino dynamics at the time of its construction. The oldest buildings recount Santiago’s swindling of the capital seat from Concepción, while those built under Pinochet serve as reminders of his reign when the value of the economy soared but the value of human rights tumbled. The newest illustrate the wealth accrued by Chile’s place as the chief exporter of a motherboard’s blood—copper.

Among these new buildings is the Torre Titanium La Portada, which any resident will boast about it being the tallest building in all of South America, and construction is in progress on another that will surpass it—La Gran Costanera. They are, admittedly, marvelous structures of glass and steel that gleam in the sunlight and cast their shadows on squatter neighbors. The best thing about the Costanera complex, my host cousin bragged to me, was the four-story shopping mall that was going to be at the bottom! Problem: During all this development, historical buildings have been replaced, or left to wither in the less affluent comunas.

These two buildings, and the many ascetic skyscrapers (and shopping malls seemingly ripped straight out of Southern California) in the booming area called Nuevo Las Condes, depicted above, are representations of a city and nation trying so hard to be global, affluent, world-class. Perhaps it has something to do with that troubled past, but Chileans seem to stand at attention facing only the future, armed with newfound riches from economic development. At least one Chilean, though, our Academic and Student Services Coordinator for BOSP Santiago, Iván Tapia, lamented the dereliction and loss of the Santiago’s historic buildings—the ones that used to reflect a city’s heritage, rather than the sun.

-Gerad Hanono

In background noise, a score for the 'sidewalk ballet'

elizabethtitus — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:50:00 -0700

This post was going to be about Hypercities, to which @westcenter alerted me today - but boy, is there a lot to dig into: hundreds of years’ worth of maps and media about some of the world’s beloved cities, presented by scholars in a beautiful and novel way.

I’m just getting started, so I’m turning - and taking you along - to “You are listening to Los Angeles,” an audio complement to the views like this one from Hypercities, of Los Angeles in 2010:

The “You are listening to…” site combines three elements to create an urban soundtrack in, well, a beautiful and novel way: a sweeping photo of the cityscape, a track of ambient music and a stream of scanner traffic - the live radio chatter of Los Angeles police. Sibling sites exist for New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Montreal.

The effect of the radio chatter, in particular, must be different for everybody. When I was growing up, the scanner was almost always on at home or at the office of the weekly newspaper my mom edits. She used it to track the news, but lots of families we knew kept scanners at home for other reasons - keeping tabs on a father or son in the fire department, staying on top of gossip.

For us, the scanner narrated city life, such as it was. Slow days and false alarms gave way to emergencies small - cat-in-tree stuff - and large, like the time the barn behind Nilsen’s burned down on Main Street on Christmas night. Mostly, the scanner crackled on low volume in the background as we worked or cooked dinner. At my first newspaper internship away from home, the editor kept three scanners on at all times: one at home, one in the car and one in the office. It was a soothing reminder a home and a way to learn the new city. When the “sidewalk ballet” turned dramatic - a chase, a collision, a fight - the crescendo of the scanner cued us, the city’s characters, to take our places.

The scanner has its own language, the language of some of urban life’s most enduring characters, reviled or celebrated as they were in cities’ histories - police officers, highway patrolmen, firefighters - and reporters pride themselves on fluency. “Brace yourself,” a colleague once told me on my way to cover an accident. “It’s an 1144.” Someone had been killed.

Of course, you won’t necessarily hear tragedy on “You are listening to…”. The creator of the site demonstrates the point by streaming both the music and the scanner traffic continuously: city life goes on and on, mundane mixing with extreme. And perhaps for you, the music, the image or another thought is entirely more evocative than the scanner. I imagine reactions vary widely among people, backgrounds and cities, raising questions such as: what happens when urban noise comes to the foreground, as it does at this site? Which sounds provoke emotion? Which narrate the city experience? For whom and why?

For further reading, I suggest “Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience” by Michael Bull (h/t Urban Studies 114). I’ll get back to Hypercities and the sounds of LA. If you’re tuning in at home: happy listening.

- Elizabeth Titus

Landscape Architecture Month

journeystostay — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:47:00 -0700

At the beginning of April I posted an opportunity to get a free copy of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ magazine. And I promised to write a bit about what landscape architecture is. I’m going to try to make good.

I have to confess that my first exposure come only last year from the wonderful Kim Wang ‘98, one Stanford’s landscape architects. I met Kim because of a creative writing class. I wanted to talk to her about the surrealism I feel in Stanford’s landscaping. I described it variously as ‘manufactured’, full of ‘hidden work’, a place where ‘the desert of Northern California looks like some English Jane Austen fantasy garden.’ Kim graciously offered to meet with me and walk around the quad talking about this place. She offered a much more nuanced view of the University’s grounds but I still feel like I’m the emerald city everytime I see the Oval.

During this walk Kim described landscape architecture: ‘It’s everything outside the building. But often times, it’s also what creeps. The in-between spaces, between inside and outside and how they connect. It’s an interconnected network of systems’. This is a lot like the American Society of Landscape Architects definition of the field as ‘comprehensive by definition—no less than the art and science of analysis, planning design, management, preservation and rehabilitation of the land’.

If you think this sounds inspiring and as interdisciplinary as our dear Program, I think you’re spot on. Landscape architects are doing and have done some great things. Anne Spirn is exploring the idea of landscape literacy and using it as a tool for social justice. Others landscape architects have (and continue to ) plan the beautiful green spaces that make our cities feel like home. Just look at Olmstead and his mark on Stanford and my home-city of New York.

So while we still have a little time left in this official Landscape Architecture month—appreciate those in-between spaces. That park you love. Those tree-lined streets and plazas. Chances are, you have landscape architecture to thank.

Joanne’s Boutique The past fall quarter I wrote a senior...

fieldofplay — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:03:00 -0700

Joanne’s Boutique

The past fall quarter I wrote a senior paper on the newly commissioned public art sculptures on MacDonald Avenue in Richmond, CA. In the paper, I analyzed the archival photographs, text and themes of diversity, community, nostalgia and immigrant narratives. Currently, I am expanding on this paper, but through film. “Joanne’s Boutique” turned out to be my introductory film, the film that prepares me making my larger piece. The process of making this film brought up many questions over what is the appropriate form (documentary, fiction, experimental, collage?) of film to investigate questions surrounding race, citizenship and inclusion. How do I make a film that explicitly investigates citizenship and race through interviews of Richmond residents? At last, it was very difficult to have these discussions in front of a recording camera.

I had known of Joanne’s Boutique before my research project, but I never entered the shop to see what was inside. Yet, once I started reading articles, the boutique and owner were repeated, often declaring her as one of the survivors of 1970’s urban renewal. I knew I had to interview her. What resulted is this video. An introduction to Richmond history and larger social themes (race riots, urban redevelopment, post World War 2 society) through the account of one woman.

-Edgardo Cervano-Soto

Meet Steve. He describes himself as an urban historian. He tries...

journeystostay — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:10:00 -0700

Meet Steve. He describes himself as an urban historian. He tries to get into the parts of the city that we rarely see, walking through tunnels and scaling bridges. In the video I’ve included above he takes a videographer (Andrew Wonder) to some of his favorite underground places in New York. The first time I saw this I was enthralled. He seemed like an Indiana Jones of cities, interested and seeking a deeper understanding of what are cities are built upon. The most interesting part is that he is not alone. There are people who have lived in tunnel rooms for decades. There are other college students who adventure illegally on their weekends.

On one hand they seems brave and are seeing the history of cities that I only read about. On the other hand there’s something really uncomfortable about their discovery of this hidden world. About their exposure of it, especially of the people who don’t just visit between classes, NPR interviews and NYT articles, but live in those underground places. I love seeing the century-old bricks that show just how much history my city has. I don’t like the kind of awe he exhibits towards people who aren’t just doing this for fun. The NYT article points to some feeling of exploitation and I can’t help but agree. I think Steve respects these people and loves New York but somehow this feels less like urban history and more like urban entertainment. And that, it is very, very good at. (see more)

-Aurora

Urban homesteaders face trademark challenge

elizabethtitus — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:19:00 -0700

Via The California Report:

In cities across California and the U.S., the term “urban homesteading” is being enthusiastically adopted by people growing their own food. Now that the movement has gone mainstream, it’s run up against mainstream problems — including an intellectual property battle.

Listen to the full story here.

- Elizabeth Titus

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Photo: buckshot.jones/Creative Commons

The Incorporation of East Palo Alto

contemplace — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:49:00 -0700

Last week I started work at the City of East Palo Alto Planning Department as part of the service-learning requirement for one of my classes (History 260—California’s Minority Majority Cities, if you really must know) and was tasked with reading the city’s General Plan (constructed by all cities to outline plans for growth, service, and development for the following ten years as mandated by the State of California).

I came across something startling—East Palo Alto was incorporated as a city into San Mateo County only in 1987 having existed as an unincorporated community since its settlement in the early nineteenth century. This is important because unincorporated communities rely on their counties for policing, planning, water, government, and generally lack self-determination, which is why its residents voted in favor of incorporation in 1983. The most interesting part of this story, though, is that the area that would become the City of East Palo Alto requested annexation into both Menlo Park and Palo Alto (three times: in 1961, 1978, 1981), its bordering communities, and was rejected by both municipalities! This was after East Palo Alto struggled through the sixties and seventies losing its industrial and commercial lands (tax boons in cities because of the sales tax revenue they provide) to annexation by these very cities. Of course, Palo Alto and Menlo Park considered the residential areas to be undesirable.

Why is there a four-year gap between the vote and the city’s actual incorporation? Well, Pete McCloskey, a prominent Palo Alto attorney appealed the decision all the way to the Supreme Court (they chose not to hear the case, ending the appeals process) arguing that East Palo Alto didn’t have an adequate tax base.

But why didn’t East Palo Alto have a tax-base that could serve its residents adequately?

You can read the East Palo Alto General Plan here.

-Gerad Hanono