Salve for the Urban Brain, rethinking how to integrate nature into urban life

NHPR \’The Aching Brains of Urban Dwellers\’

The City is a loud and stimulating place, the cars, sirens, smells, neon and the ambient noise of being surrounded by thousands of people at any given time. In this episode of ‘Word of Mouth’ on New Hampshire Public Radio Jonah Lehrer the author of ‘Proust Was a Neuroscientist’ discusses how the urban landscape affects our brains.

The show also has input from Andrew Blum an editor for Wired and Metropolis magazines and discusses how landscape architecture is shifting from creating green refuges to actually learning how to integrate nature into Urban life.

The Demotorisation of Japan

Lately we have been hearing a lot about how important it is for our cities and for the planet that a lot of us get out of our cars and start using public and active transportation. The urban form will be improved, quality of life will get better and so on.

Today I was involved in a discussion about how at the turn of the century mobility was largely restricted by physical transportation and that the shape of cities responded to those networks based on what was available. Walking, horses, wagons, these all kept the spheres of the average citizen’s life relatively compact, and contained.  As technology increased tramways, street cars and urban railways extended these spheres, with each technological innovation mobility increases with the automobile and private vehicle ownership  bringing us to the form we have now. However an interesting aspect that I hadn’t considered before was that things like telephones, fax machines, the Internet, and e-mail are all related to personal mobility and inter-connectivity, which to some extent is the whole point, technology allows us to ‘meet’ with someone  across great distances by  removing the need for us to use transportation to be there to relay our messages ourselves.

It adds an extra dimension the article posted in thestar.com about how for the first time in decades, car ownership is in decline in Japan.  It’s not just that cars are expensive, the economy is in recession, and all the other reasons that spring to mind in current climate, it’s also because of a shift in the way that Japanese young  people think about cars.

To get around the city, Yutaka Makino hops on his skateboard or rides commuter trains. Does he dream of the day when he has his own car? Not a chance.

Like many Japanese of his generation, the 28-year-old musician and part-time maintenance worker says owning a car is more trouble than it’s worth, especially in a congested city where monthly parking runs as much as 30,000 yen, or US$330, and gas costs $3.50 a gallon – or 92 cents US a litre.S

It’s basically a bicycle activist’s dream come true, Japanese young people have stopped seeing cars as a status symbol and view them as just another tool.  The youth are shifting more towards cell phones and personal computers that allow the electronic mobility without the hassles of trying to navigate in a country where the roads are very congested, but the trains are efficient and frequent. The younger generation has seen through the sports car idealizing culture of the older generation.

“Young people’s interest is shifting from cars to communication tools like personal computers, mobile phones and services,” said Yoichiro Ichimaru, who oversees domestic sales at Toyota. “The changes in individuals’ values on cars came cumulatively over time,” said Nissan chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga. “The change in young people’s attitude toward cars didn’t happen overnight. So we have to keep convincing them cars are great.”

The phenomenon is interesting because of needing shape of things to come, while Japan is much better equipped with public transportation it’s an example of how it’s not quite so inconceivable for people to get out of their cars can make use of other forms of transportation, be they public or electronic.

However the article also illustrates another interesting aspect that is often ignored when we discuss transportation, but is an important reality of de-motorization. The manufacturing industry makes up a fifth of the Japanese economy, and the automobile industry is no small part of that.  A slowdown in manufacturing sector we have some very significant effects, very few of which are positive, on the Japanese economy.  If our recent economic troubles here in North America have shown us anything it’s that the automobile industry also makes up a significant portion of our economy too, and reductions in the automobile manufacturing sector have serious implications for the North American economy.  The challenge for countries in dealing with de-motorization, a trend that is both a little inevitable and a lot desirable, is how to replace the economic capacity of the automobile industry with another economic engine. It is important to get everyone out of their cars, but it would be nice if we could avoid ruining the economy while we do it.

Click Here to read The Star article.

Demographic Shifts

The Wall Street Journal reports on shifting demographics;

“Immigrants and minorities have moved away from cities in growing numbers since 2000, spreading the national trend toward diversity.

New data to be released Tuesday by the Census Bureau show immigrants and minorities are moving to smaller areas. While both groups are still a large share of the population in urban areas, a growing number have followed jobs to smaller communities.

The data focus on communities with as few as 20,000 people. The population figures are estimates for the years between 2005 and 2007. The change reflects growing diversity nationwide. The share of white population is declining in about half of U.S. counties, the result of immigration — primarily Hispanic — as well as generally higher birth rates among minorities.”S

The interesting thing about this article is what it says about the future, one of my favorite book series is Dune. The reason being that the whole epic story spans thousands of years, and you  get to see how societies shift over time. This shift in demographics bodes well.

NVS: Ensuring the Future of Food

A Japanese video that takes on the issue of the global food supply and a vision of what Japan needs to do to insure the safety of its own food supply.

A Transport Development Analysis of the Toronto Transit Commission

The Toronto Transit Commission currently operates the largest public transit system in Canada.  For the time being it is the most comprehensive rapid transit system in the country. The Toronto system saw the majority of its growth in the late seventies through the early nineties(Transit Toronto 2008). The Subway is run by the Toronto Transit Commission and is one of Canada’s oldest rapid transit systems. The first train left the platform in 1954 when the Young Line opened along a former streetcar route that ran south down Younge Street from Eglinton Avenue to Front Street before making a turn into a station that was then called Bay Street but later renamed Union due to its proximity to the city’s main railway terminus Union Station.

Floating nuclear power plants: Power where you need it, When you need it

Concept Drawing of the Academician Lomonosov

There is an article over in engineering news online about new russian technology which could help South Africa meet its medium-term energy needs.

You may or may not be aware that Eskom, South Africa’s state owned power utility is operating near i’ts maximum. The utility’s reserve generating margins are pretty much at zero and this is unlikely to change in the next five years until new base load power stations start coming online from about 2013 and onwards. South Africa is already feeling the effects of the lack of capacity and is afflicted by rolling black-outs. The official term for them is “load-shedding,” anyone who has lived in an area beset by rolling black outs is aware of what a disruption they can be both to life and too the local economy.

The country is in a bind in that there is no way for it to see any additional capacity to the system before 2012. That date isn’t even the new baseline plants but the potential start up date for a number of short term co-generation projects, these plants are joint ventures between Eskom and the private sector to build small gas-fuelled power stations to help cover peak periods.

However Russia is currently building the worlds first FNPP or Floating Nuclear Power Plant. The main devision of Russia’s State Nuclear Shipbuilding Centre, Sevmash began construction in 2006 and will see the first boat completed in 2010. It is possible that South Africa might be able to convince Sevmash to lease them an FNPP. Though currently the first is earmarked to stay at Sevmash and power the companies facilities, along with ‘the local social infrastructure,’ oh and it also will generate heat to be used in the community and desalinate water. The company has a second boat in the works but it is also earmarked for use in the East Siberian Sea. However the Russia government has made suggestions that it would be willing to lease one of them to South Africa for a couple of years.

The idea of a number of these floating nuke stations being used to provide power in areas that need it is an intriguing one. The possibilities for their use in area’s that have maxed out their capacity or after a natural disaster gives flexibility to the worlds power grid that has until this point never existed.

Of course the idea of a floating nuke station is likely an environmentalists nightmare, not to mention the potential security concerns that come with having a nuclear plant that isn’t sitting on solid ground and therefore could be approached from underneath. The KLT-40S is however reported to be a well-proven design and is already employed in a number of nuclear icebreakers. The gross power production of a KLT-40S is 35 MWe. To give you a comparison the Western GeoPower Unit at The Geysers Geothermal Field in California will be 35 MWe. Each FNPP with be comprised of two KLT-40S nuclear reactors built on top of a 20,000 ton non-self propelled barge with a length of 140m and a beam of 30m. It should be noted that when the FNPPs are towed the reactors will be off line and emptied of nuclear fuel. I mean you would have to be a true idiot to risk getting a working nuclear power plant caught in a storm at sea.

Whether or not you agree with it the FNPP is coming. The Russian News and Information Agency, Novositi, reports that Russia considers the FNPP to be a ‘Vital element’ in the national energy programme.

FNPP

Big Brother Environmentalism

Are you living up to your environmental potential? Residents in a number of British eco towns could see government monitoring to make sure that they are keeping their carbon footprint to the right size. One of the most interesting things about this push is that it isn’t coming from the British Government directly, I suppose it would be a bit of a political hot potato. The  Bioregional firm, which initiated the low energy BedZed housing estate in south London is asking the government to ensure that the carbon footprint of residents in the proposed  eco towns (ten of which are in the works) are no larger then allowed under the principals of “one planet” living.

Some of the ways that it wants residents monitored are tracking of the number of trips residents take by car, Thermographic cameras to check which homes are losing too much heat, and measurement of the types of waste produced, and how much they produce by both residences and businesses.

“If eco towns are to have a fundamental purpose, it must be to show us how we can all achieve one-planet living,” said Richard Simmons, chief executive of Cabe. “Eco towns should show us, in a real and measured way, what our sustainable future will look like.”

Some critics of the towns themselves are against the regulations saying that the government has no business taking this sort of a heavy handed oversight on residents. Suggesting that the eco towns will be giant ‘gulags.’

Of course a simple way to avoid the monitoring would be to not buy a home in an eco town, but it does beg the question of just how much of an active role should the government take in enforcing the low carbon footprint ideal behind these plans?

What do you think?

via Eco town dwellers may be monitored for green habits | Environment | The Guardian

Video Tour of the BedZed Development

Edit,

We received a comment from Tom Chance of Bioregional who had some great things to say about the monitoring. Since he is speaking directly from the company we are going to include them up here with the post.

“It’s worth noting that the reporting in The Guardian was a bit mischeivous. We haven’t been calling for monitoring of individuals as a means of enforcing particular lifestyles. Rather, our report (if you read it) lays out a number of ways in which eco-towns developers should monitor the success of their plans so that we can better learn from then. Any monitoring would have to be completely voluntary.

We have taken this approach at BedZED, where 75% of residents voluntarily had their meter readings recorded, waste weighed and answered questionnaires. All the results are anonymised, and used to help us learn how to better design sustainable communities.

The alternative – not monitoring at all – would be a complete nonsense, it would mean we’d have no evidence to improve the way we design communities!”

Mayne warns Dubai set for ‘ecological disaster’ – Building Design

Oh my it looks like I am breaking my Dubai rule yet again, of course once again I am doing it to be a negative Nancy. Maybe we should just call this the Dubai Reality Check week! Over at Building Design there is an article on Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne, who announced in his address to the World Architecture Congress’s Cityscape Dubai conference that Dubai is building itself up for an ‘ecological disaster’ if it continues on the path it is currently taking.

The architect stated that the dominance of the private sector in the gulf state has led to a serious lack of overall planning and that this combined with the sheer speed of development will lead to a major crisis in the future.

Its true really, do we have any idea what kind of traffic patterns we are going to see from the residents of a building like the Burg Dubai? While the building has a number of built in amenities it isn’t likely that they are all going to just stay inside. Since most of the city is being built all at once, just what is it going to look like at the ground and on the human level once its done.

Mayne goes on to say;

“There is no connected tissue,” he said. “It might work today, but the prognosis is not good for the future.

“It’s not going to work on many levels, from social to infrastructure and ecological. It’s going to be a disaster in ecological terms.

“The political class is no longer in charge of cities… which means there is no planning. Los Angeles is a prototype for that. The private sector rules. It takes hours to get downtown in LA as there is no public transport.”s

Of course this is true and not true. The political class owns the private sector here. Nakheel properties, is owned by the Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. So one could argue that the political class still exerts a pretty hefty hand in affairs. The article is worth checking out.

Mayne warns Dubai set for ‘ecological disaster’ – Building Design

The Manpower Behind the Monuments

Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

It takes an army to build a monument, many of the worlds greatest were envisioned by kings and the fabulously rich, but the actual construction is often done by the poor, the disenfranchised, and in some cases ‘the owned,’ just ask the ancient Egyptians. Unions and fair pay tend to make glorious monuments overpriced.

One of the things that I have been in some way trying to do is avoid posting too much about Dubai. For the most part its a topic that I feel is blogged to death and at Urban Neighbourhood we are trying as best as we can in this electronic world of bits and bites to come up with at least semi original content. We have broken this avoidance in the past with mentions in the Heliotropic Houses article and the Lilypad Article.

Today we are going to break the ‘rule’ again, but not to fawn over yet another mega mall or the worlds next tallest building, today we bring you an article from The Guardian about the people who actually build all these monuments. The thousands of migrant labourers. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad brings us an article about his journey into Mousafah, a labour camp that these workers temporarily call home, they certainly will not be welcome to stay when they are done. To tell a story about what it is like to be the hands that build the towers and islands that are making Dubai so famous.

“Once they arrive in the United Arab Emirates, migrant workers are treated little better than cattle, with no access to health care and many other basic rights. The company that sponsors them holds on to their passports – and often a month or two of their wages to make sure that they keep working. And for this some will earn just 400 dirhams (£62) a month.

A group of construction engineers told me, with no apparent shame, that if a worker becomes too ill to work he will be sent home after a few days. “They are the cheapest commodity here. Steel, concrete, everything is up, but workers are the same.”

The article is worth the read it makes the amazing speed at which Dubai is being constructed a little more understandable and a little less fantastic.

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad visits the impoverished camps for the men building the skyscrapers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi | World news | The Guardian

Revenge on the Street

While the title of this article may lead one to think that this was about some sort of violent retribution that took place on the mean streets of the city. This particular revenge took place in the municipal council chambers of North York Ontario. The council had been trying to block a townhouse development on a site that sits outside of the city’s designated North York Centre development area. However in Ontario there is a provincial body called the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) that developers can use to challenge rulings and in many cases see those rulings are over turned. In this case Hallstone Group’s challenge was supported by the OMB and the board ruled that the development should be allowed to go ahead even though it is at odds with the municipal council and the planning commission.

So the municipal council decided to thank the OMB by naming the new street an address that makes its feelings clear. ‘OMB Folly’. Councillor John Filion has been a thorn in the side of many a developer in North York was particularly incensed by the ruling;

“This one really stands out as the most ludicrous decision that I know of,” Filion said. “It takes the cake. I could cite a lot of terrible OMB decisions, but it’s the one that’s just obviously absurd and ridiculous.”

So he decided to get creative and came up with a suggestion for the new name. What he didn’t expect was the support for the new name he would get from council. It was 7-2 for the new name. One of the other councillors said that this may open the possiblity for the city to come up with some very creative names for developments that the OMB decides to allow without the support of the council or the planning department.

The OMB had no comment.

The developmer is less then impressed. He feels like council needs to ‘grow up!’ personally I love it, I mean really who needs another street named after a tree or a fantastical sounding woodland grove. Of course the new name isn’t a done deal yet.. council needs to make sure it doesn’t contravene the street-naming policy, a policy that says derogatory names should be avoided, but I hope it sticks.

You too could have a beautiful town home on OMB Folly Rd.

(Theoretical promotional material for the new development)

Check out these articles in the National Post and thestar.com

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=869005

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/513835

Author Add on, Check out the comments below one of our readers who has had a run in with the OMB has something to say and it turns out that our very own ‘themightyfin’ has experience working for the crazy cats at the OMB. Check out their stories below.