Planning Commissioners Journal

Pavement into Parks

While the Project for Public Spaces (which I've been reporting on in recent posts) works with communities across the globe, it hasn't forgotten its roots in New York City. In fact, the Big Apple is brewing with pedestrian and bicycle-oriented projects and organizations. This really kicked into high gear in 2006, when the New York City Streets Renaissance (NYCSR) was formed. As described on the StreetFilms blog, the NYCSR was initiated as "a collective effort of non-profit advocacy organizations Transporation Alternatives, the Project for Public Spaces, and The Open Planning Project, the primary goal was to encourage a citywide enlightenment in planning our streets for people and places, not cars and traffic."

One early offshoot was StreetsBlog, followed soon after by StreetFilms. These are two web sites every planner, local official, and community activist should be familiar with. Streetsblog now operates in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and as Streetsblog New York editor Ben Fried told us at the PPS workshop, the number of blogs covering similar issues has dramatically expanded in the past few years. This has been fostered by the creation of the StreetsBlog network, a collection of nearly 400 independent web blogs that cover pedestrian and bike issues in communities big and small. 

Taking a look at the StreetsBlog network home page right now as I'm writing this, I see that reports are posted from Newton, Massachusetts (We Can Prevent Bicyclists From Being Run Over); Virginia Beach, Virginia (Virginia Beach to Lower Shore Drive Speed Limit), along with other cities. 

In fact, you may have noticed on our own web blog that we include the StreetsBlog network widget, where you can view recent stories posted by organizations that have joined the network. See what's happening right now -- just scroll towards the bottom of the right hand column on this page and you'll spot the widget.

But I don't want to forget that today is Friday, the day we've been posting short video clips we think you'll enjoy. StreetFilms offers over 300 great videos to choose from -- a collection that's constantly growing. For this post, I want to highlight a new video they've posted that ties in (at least to me) to what I wrote about Petrosino Square earlier this week. The video shows the creative way new public space (often called "parklets") is being created in San Francisco out of portions of streets. Turning pavement into parks -- perhaps something to think about for your community.

For more details about the Pavement to Parks program.

Water Matters

First came across the Water Matters blog a few weeks ago after hearing about it from Sacramento Bee reporter Matt Weiser who regularly covers water-related issues. The first post I read -- about our "Water Footprint" -- was fascinating. In it Jennifer Vetttel, an engineering student at Columiba, takes a closer look at just how much water she uses during a typical day -- it made me realize that I simply didn't realize how much water I also used during the day. Here's Vettel's description of how she starts her day:

"I wake up in the morning, and like most Americans, I eat breakfast. That cup of coffee I drink takes 140 liters of water to produce, and the cup of milk and cup of cereal take approximately 250 liters and 450 liters of water respectively. I then take my shower. I consider myself fairly good about showering, but my 5 minute shower (in my college dorm shower, which seems to have a fairly old shower head) uses about 75 liters of water. Take brushing my teeth and washing my face into account and that’s about another 15 liters of water. Already I’ve used 930 liters of water!"

... and obviously that's just the start of her day. As she sums up:

"My water footprint for the day is 2,786 liters of water per day, not counting water that could be included in my electricity use, transportation use, or water used to produce my clothing. That is 2,786 kg of water, or about 48 times my body weight." 

You'll find many other posts on issues involving water -- both in North America and worldwide. Watter Matters is prepared by The Columbia Water Center, located at New York's Columbia University. Blog postings are written by both students and professionals. As noted on the blog, it's aim is to be "an informative and conversational forum for everyone -- academics, students, and interested amateurs -- to discuss the current water-related issues around the world."

One last note, Columbia also offers a related blog on climate issues, called (not surprisingly) Climate Matters. It's also easily accessible from the Watter Matters blog.

Ohio is ... a Piano

As I was sorting through some old email, I came across a link to The music of geography: Ohio is a piano, a blog post I looked at -- or I should say listened to -- last Summer. See the screenshot on the right I took while playing one of the songs you can "test drive" the map with. 

It's a creative and entertaining diversion, but it also raises some interesting possibilities about what it might be like if we incorporated sound into mapping. We've come a long way with visualization techniques; maybe we need to also give some thought to how sound might enhance our understanding of place.

Here's how cartographer Andy Woodfruff describes his post:

"Last month, as I was driving through Ohio to collect my final three counties in the state, it dawned on me: There are 88 counties in this state. There are 88 keys on a piano. I don’t know anything about music, but holy crap, I have to make a map based on this coincidence.

And so I did, bit by bit, gradually descending into madness in the process. It has no purpose, really, apart from being an experiment in some sort of weird artistic musical cartography. Ohio is a piano. ...

 Sonification of data is reasonably commonplace: think metal detectors and Geiger counters. Representing spatial data using sound is a subject about which I know little, but it is an active research topic in cartography. Obviously what I have made here is necessarily an example of mapping with sound, although I don’t believe it to be especially useful for understanding data. It is, rather, artistic in intent, allowing one to hear the 'music' of the data and geography (whatever that means) rather than actually explore the data values."

p.s., Woodruff has some other fascinating posts on his Cartogrammar blog.

On the Fast Lane

I have to say that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has surprised me. But it's in a way I didn't expect: he knows how to communicate. He (or his staff) is just about everywhere -- heading out around the country, and also online. 

Whether it's on Twitter, Facebook, or the Web, our Secretary of Transportation is doing a terrific job of informing us of what's going on at the Department of Transportation. I'd especially recommend you take a look at his web blog, if you haven't seen it. 

Sure, there's a certain amount of promotion involved. But more importantly, there's lots of good information, conveyed in a very readable style. I've been especially impressed by the focus LaHood has been giving to distracted driving, a very important public health and safety issue. 

LaHood's Fast Lane blog will give you a better feel for the big picture (as well as some of the details) of federal transportation policy and programs. But given the attention high-speed rail has been getting, I almost expect the blog to be renamed from "Fast Lane" to "Fast Track"!

If you Tweet, be sure to follow Ray LaHood on Twitter:

 

Blogging from Cuba

Follow planner Beth Humstone's blog postings as she tours Cuba this week and next with other planners, architects, developers, and historic preservationists. Note: Humstone will be joining the Planning Commissioners Journal this Spring as one of our regular contributing writers. 

The Beer Belly of America

 We love maps. In fact, you may have noticed on our PlannersWeb site that we have links to Doug Greenfield's fascinating Map of the Week site (near the bottom of our right sidebar). But Greenfield's not the only map enthusiast. In fact, the Web seems to be proliferating with fans of geography and cartography. We can, at least in part, thank Google for this, by enabling mapping of all sorts of data.

So, maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that you can map the geographic distribution of bars. And that's just what the professional geographers at FloatingSheep.org have done. Take a look at their recent post, The Beer Belly of America. Here's some of what they have to say about what the data shows:

"We were quite surprised when we did a simple comparison between grocery stores and bars to discover a remarkable geographically phenomenon. We had expected that grocery stores would outnumber bars and for most parts of North America that is the case. But we could also clearly see the "beer belly of America" peeking out through the "t-shirt of data". Starting in Illinois, the beer belly expands up into Wisconsin and first spreads westward through Iowa/Minnesota and then engulfs Nebraska, and the Dakotas before petering out (like a pair of love handles) in Wyoming and Montana.

The clustering was so apparent that we wanted to check how it compared to the "official" data on this activity. So we gathered 2007 Census County Business Pattern on the number of establishments listed in NACIS code 722410 (Drinking places -alcoholic beverages-) and divided by Census estimates for state population totals for 2009 and found remarkable correspondence with our data.

On average there are 1.52 bars for every 10,000 people in the U.S. but the states that make up the beer belly of America are highly skewed from this average."

From a table they include, it looks like the winners are North Dakotans, with 6.54 bars per 10,000 very cold people -- at least in February! (Well, maybe we found the explanation).

Take a look at some of the other equally offbeat maps on FloatingSheep.

Lessons from Houston's Streets

 Its' always enjoyable to spot an informative web blog dealing with ways to improve a community. In the case of NewUrbanStreets, the community is downtown Houston, Texas, and the blog tells of "lessons learned" and "issues faced." Here's how Tom Davis, the creator of the blog describes it:

"The purpose of this blog is to share things learned by Tom Davis (me) in the public infrastructure and community improvement industry. At this time this blog will address primarily the past 10 years of my 39-year career where I have had the privilege of being part of the revitalization of downtown Houston, Texas. The posts here are articles about features of downtown’s urban streetscape and contain descriptions of the improvements. The hope is these descriptions help others add such amenities to their public space."

From the postings we've read, there are certainly some good, practical lessons that can be learned from downtown Houston. Just take a look at two recent posts, one on paver inserts in concrete sidewalks (Jan. 9), another on the use of trench fountains (Jan. 7).

Looking forward to learning more from Tom Davis.

Back to the Land

 While this may not qualify as "news" (as is being posted a week into December) you won't want to miss New York Times blogger Maira Kalman's November posting: Back to the Land. It's a wonderfully informative cross-country story about local food. Kalman is an illustrator, author, and designer -- and she combines all three skills in her Times postings.

Here's a screenshot from the start of her blog, which combines text and photos. Definitely worth a look.

 

Backyard Burials

Can you be buried in your backyard? What does your local zoning ordinance say? My guess is that most planning commissioners have never given it a thought. But as noted land use lawyer Dwight Merriam observes in a recent posting on the International Municipal Lawyers Association blog, " 'Natural burial' is emerging – sustainability, if you will, when life is no longer sustainable." It's a short blog posting worth reading -- and be sure you read the great quote from town attorney John S. Bennet at the end (who says attorneys don't have a sense of humor).

Also, fyi, I co-authored an article a few years ago in the Planning Commissioners Journal, "Planning for Cemeteries" (read excerpts; article can be ordered & downloaded). 

Backyard Burials (use link to read full blog posting) 

I am prompted to report on this issue by a news item last week. A Baptist minister in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, buried his 18-year-old son, who died three days after a car crash on July 12, in the backyard of the pastor’s church.  While state law doesn’t prohibit this, some county and local ordinances do, and this county, Fayette County, only allows burials on large parcels zoned for agricultural use.  The church has only five acres and is in a residential zone. ...

The question really is what is an appropriate standard for small, informal burial grounds?  When was the last time you looked at your burial regulations and had a discussion about them?  Do they prohibit scattering of cremated remains and memorial gardens for such remains?  If so, why?