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Monday, May 30th

Our Top City Pages For May
I thought our readers might like to get an idea of where our readers are. We can't tell you that exactly, but we can give you a list of our top city pages. Visit your favorite city often and help it make the top ten list for June!

Top Ten Most Visited City Pages For May, 2005

1. Philadelphia
2. Pittsburgh
3. Trenton
4. Los Angeles
5. Cleveland
6. Chicago
7. Baltimore
8. San Jose
9. Washington
10. Columbus

Don't see your city? Contact us about helping to creat a New Colonist city page for your city.

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.30.05 @ 20:37PST

Time Is Running Out!
If you're one of the many ordering our "Ghawar Is Dying" products, you'll be pleased to know you can now browse a section of only Ghawar Is Dying products. We've also created pages for our popular "Be Urban" and "Recycle The City" products. Check them out!

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.30.05 @ 20:25PST

Drive-Thru Nature
This Memorial Day Weekend I found myself on my first bicycle ride of the year. The setting for my excursion was North Park. One of several parks owned by Allegheny County, North Park is home to some of the best nature has to offer including calm lakes and tree-filled hills.

It was certainly visionary to create these large tracts of wilderness at the dawn of suburbia--a feat that would be impossible now because of the cost.

My observation riding along the bike path was that these parks were certainly built in the age of the automobile, with "drive-thru" nature in mind. Drive-thru banks, eateries, movies... why not parks. They built them and indeed they came and so did the cars.

Most people, walk, jog or bike around the lake, along a road shared by cars. Compared to a city park like Schenley Park, it seems ridiculous that the "retreat" factor is all but dissipated. The sound of bird chirps is constantly interrupted by the sound of a passing automobile.

Unlike the 1950s, today we are as likely to see driving as an irritation rather than an enjoyable activity. I suspect we are passed the day when we think of driving as a leisure activity. I know my grandparents would go for a drive for the sake of the drive. I don't know many folks who do that today.

Perhaps it's time to rethink these parks.

Certainly the existence of such parks is an asset--the land would undoubtedly otherwise be occupied by tract homes and shopping malls. Becoming new "centers," the parks can also contribute to more sensitive and sustainable building in the future. It would seem ideal to extend transit lines to locations near this park (and South Park), and then build "transit villages," providing ideal residential locations within walking distance of these gems.

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.30.05 @ 10:39PST

Sunday, May 29th

A Hybrid That Makes Sense!
Regular readers here will know that I don't think hybrid cars, or even the much-vaunted but as-yet illusory Zero-Emissions Vehicles, solve the major problems automobile use imposes on us all, and on the planet. (If you don't know, see my editorial, Methadone for Road Hogs.)

But today I chanced upon a truly interesting hybrid vehicle, one that I've mused about in these pages once or twice, and one that makes real sense in combatting sprawl, pollution, and land waste as well as enhancing both the economy and the pleasure of civil life--and that is a hybrid light-rail vehicle!

it runs under wires most of the time, like most modern trams, but if there's a stretch of track where it would be too expensive to electrify track for now, but where there's an incipient market for rail service, or simply, as Siemens's website suggests, where wires might be aesthetically annoying, it can run on a high-efficiency diesel generator for quite a distance.

To make it yet more versatile, Siemens includes crash-resistance features that allow it to operate on commercial rail lines in company with heavy freights. Furthermore, all versions are low-floors that incapacitated persons can board easily from a variety of platforms, or even from the street.

In operation presently in Paris (as the "Avanto") and San Diego and Houston (as the "S70"), they represent the real future of hybrid vehicles!

Richard Risemberg (rrisemberg@newcolonist.com), on 05.29.05 @ 15:49PST

Wednesday, May 25th

Live Boldly Where Others Won't
I heard him talking on a radio talk show, did a yahoo search and then met with Mark Smith to talk about something we've both been interested in and actually doing--investing in edge markets. I didn't think of it in that respect when I started, I was looking for an inexpensive home I could own and fix up. I also wanted to live in a creative place that was walkable. I'm still not sure I have all that, but I am convinced that this "edge" market is now on the edge of not being an "edge market" anymore.

Anyway, Mark wrote a book for people like us who want to find cheap housing--and make a difference in lives and neighborhoods. It's called "Live Boldly where Others Won't, An Introduction to Urban Pioneering."

Urban Pioneering is less a challenge these days in some cities, and in some regions it's a ring or two of suburbs that now need pioneered. In other cities like Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Cleveland, there are still opportunities to get into the market. Urban Pioneers may be a dying breed, not for lack of want, but for lack of opportunity. If you want to experience urban pioneering before the opportunities are gone, get this book and get started. More to come as my reading progresses.

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.25.05 @ 18:39PST

Streets of Two Cities
I'm still feeling the afterglow of my recent week in San Francisco, and the difference in the experience of the street between that city and my home here in LA continues to grow in my mind. This week especially, as I'm foregoing mass transit in favor of the bicycle, by and large, in an effort to pare away the pounds I laid on in North Beach restaurants!

In SF, streetscapees are interesting: in the boulevards, the shops are for the most part small and diverse, right up on the sidewalk, and full of clever and varied designs; even the major chain stores have intricate and amusing display windows designed to hold back strollers and entice them from the sidewalk and into the store. LA storefronts cannot afford to expend too much effort on detail; the sign's the thing, big and bold enough to distract a harried, hurried driver from his search for a half-second advantage in the traffic flow; and department store window displays need to be spread out, with little detail and lots of empty space, so they can be read at speed...a sort of aesthetic sprawl that echoes the literal one of wide streets and long blocks.

Houses in residential blocks in SF, like stores in commercial blocks, stand right up to the sidewalks, so you are treated to an evolution of styles and colors, flowerpots and window trinkets, little glimpses of a chair, a desk a life; in LA you see lawns, and far back from the street a stucco wall with shuttered windows, a front door that no one uses, an air of desuetude. You walk between asphalt and cropped grass, and both are boring.

In San Francisco (at least north of Market Street), you don't see long dreary blocks of concrete walls by the sidewalk, the endless prison wall of bottom-line gray characteristic of LaLa Land's corporate architecture. (Note to architecture critics: you've been bamboozled; it's not an "expression of the material's innate plasticity," it's just cheap.) Even bank buildings aren't too bad!

In short, San Francisco treats you like a human being; LA, by and large, doesn't know--or care--that you exist.

This has been changing, slowly, in LA; some real neighborhoods now exist, and the concept is spreading--Third St. Village, Vermont Ave. in Los Feliz, quite a few other areas all over town--but they are still enclaves, "special" places. In SF, a lively street's just normal life.

I like it that way.

Richard Risemberg (rrisemberg@newcolonist.com), on 05.25.05 @ 10:02PST

Friday, May 20th

Streets of San Francisco
Just spent a wonderful week in San Francisco, walking lively streets and riding subways, trams, and electric busses all over town...a couple of things I noticed on this trip, which I will expand upon later:

1) A mile walked in SF seems shorter than a mile walked in LA. The obvious reasons seem to be that in SF, you have people around you almost everywhere, while in LA you are almost always alone; and that in SF your surroundings--be they houses and apartments, office buildings, stores, or squares--are always interesting and usually delightful in aspect, whereas in LA you trudge among generally undistinctive houses set far back from the street, or grey banks of stucco, cinderblock, or untreated concrete, decorated only by the desperate voices of graffiti.

2) We went up by Amtrak, but returned, because of a combination of circumstances, by air to LAX, whence home by taxi, and once again I was reminded of how excruciatingly boring air and auto travel are. Yes, the train took fourteen hours, the plane and taxi trip only about three and a half (once you count flight delays, waiting in security lines, and all that). But the train wound gently through some of the most beautiful country on earth, including rolling oak woodlands nearly untouched by civilization; there was room to stretch out, and I had numerous amusing conversations with people. Though the laptop was along, and I felt a nagging compulsion to open it and a get a few things done, I couldn't bring myself to leave the view and the company to do so.

The plane trip, however (once I'd left the convivial confines of BART) was miserable, cramped, and dull, and a week of entirely carfree existence followed by the taxi ride through the numbing blandscape of LA streets reminded me how every minute I spend in a plane or car feels like a minute ripped from my life and thrown in the dirt for dogs to eat....

Amtrak is no monument to efficiency (the same trip in Japan by shinkansen would have taken a little over a couple of hours), but at least I could feel like a human being on the train!

I plan a return trip to San Francisco to research a story on bicycle culture there (yes, it's cold, rainy, windy, and full of hills, yet bicycling thrives!). But really it's an excuse to go back and just feel good walking around.

I'll tell you all about it later.

Richard Risemberg (rrisemberg@newcolonist.com), on 05.20.05 @ 22:19PST

Sunday, May 15th

Impressions of Atlanta
My first experiences with Atlanta have come and gone. Currently I am sitting in a downtown coffee shop (Peet's if you want a brand name). It's a rainy Sunday afternoon. Were I in Pittsburgh, I'm not certain I could find a downtown coffee shop open. A few weeks ago on a Sunday and even the Starbuck's in the William Penn was closed.

Atlanta is not as I envisioned it. I guess I thought of it as a smaller LA type of place with lots of Southern accents. It's sprawling alright, but the downtown and Midtown areas are quite pedestrian, though block by block there seem to be sidewalks that are either overflowing or empty.

Downtown Atlanta seems to have as much in common with New York as LA. The downtown seems to be far more important to Atlanta than it is to Los Angeles, and with two distinct clusters of skyscrapers, Atlanta more resembles Manhattan.

It's a pretty new city that's dripping with post-modern architecture. The lack of old buildings could be a reason why the buildings contain so many classic elements. If I look quickly, I might mistake these structures from afar as Chicago landmarks like the Tribune Building or perhaps the New York Life Building. From the ground, there's a Roman Arch theme going on.

Things are different here. I hadn't noticed the high-heels and sundress attire in places like Dunkin Donuts in many other cities.

The transit system includes a rapid, heavy-rail system that seems efficient enough, though the entry points are few and not very well marked.

There are countless lofts being constructed in the city. Saturday there was even a street festival that attracted folks to a loft tour. I have seen downtown condo's advertised as low as the '90s. A mixed-use development is rising on the site of an old steel mill. This includes an Ikea store surrounded by condo's and row homes. I even noticed an advertisement for a furniture store that caters to loft-owners. There's a lot about living downtown in downtown. I have not noticed a downtown grocery store, a problem that plagues most downtowns outside Manhattan.

The food has been great, and as was foretold by my friend Joe who I met on the street just before leaving Pittsburgh for Atlanta, the number of streets named "Peachtree" can cause confusion. I asked one restaurant employee if there were any actual Peachtrees. "I don't know of any," He said "Perhaps in the Botanical Garden."

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.15.05 @ 14:05PST

Thursday, May 12th

Immigration Reform
I was very happy today to hear that the Catholic Bishops were pushing hard for immigration reform. First, this is of course good for immigrants and for cities (not to mention ethical and moral). Second, it's great they are not afraid to take on a position unfavorable to those loud-mouthed, far right-wing sorts who seem to be running things in Washington these days. There for a while it seemed the Catholic Church was becoming a mere spoke in the wheel of the Christian Coalition.

What brought this to my attention was the Michael Reagan talk show. A caller was concerned the church was ignoring the lawlessness of immigrants. It's funny, I bet the likes of her never thought of East Germans jumping that fence as "lawless criminals." An embarrassment to the former president who shares his last name, Michael Reagan actually explained to a caller that the Catholic Church wanted immigration reform because they needed the immigrants to fill the collection plates and pay for all the lawsuits. Yea, um, ok. Let the poor Mexicans in so they can make the church rich. I'm not one to call names, but "what an idiot." (and back at me for listening for even those ten minutes.)

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.12.05 @ 20:20PST
Monday, May 9th

Transit Availability Increasingly Seen As Essential
While the debate around affordable, accessible public transportation appears on the surface to be local or state matter, the rights of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) riders and the duties of public officials who pass legislation and govern the MARTA system have a basis in law and practice that go well beyond the state of Georgia. Over the last two decades a growing consensus has emerged that sees affordable and accessible public transportation as essential for the realization of a full range of universally recognized fundamental human rights. In particular the rights to work, housing, healthcare and participation in civic life are all connected to adequate and accessible public transportation.

According to Terence Courtney, organizer for Atlanta Jobs with Justice, one of the leading organizations on the MARTA crisis, "decisions that would result in cuts in services and a fare increase will make it even harder, if not impossible, for people dependent on MARTA to get to the jobs, healthcare, and childcare that they need and will continue to transfer the financial burden to the people who can least afford it - the poor, workers, immigrants, the elderly and disable."

The formal recognition of an independent right to affordable and adequate transportation has already occurred in some contexts, such as with regards to person with disabilities. In a statement before the UN General assembly in 2003, the United States acknowledged that transportation is an essential part of protecting the human rights of the disabled. However, as represented in the discussions around the MARTA issue this right is not adequately operationalized and needs to be extended to all regardless of physical or economic ability.

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.09.05 @ 17:22PST

Traffic Keeps Getting Worse
Despite slow growth in jobs and travel, traffic congestion continues to worsen, researchers say, costing Americans $63.1 billion a year. The 2005 Urban Mobility Report measures traffic congestion trends from 1982 to 2003, reflecting the most recent data available. If today’s higher fuel prices are factored in, the cost jumps another $1.7 billion.

The release of the annual study by the Texas Transportation Institute comes at a time when the U.S. Congress is considering legislation to re-authorize funding for transportation programs and projects across the nation. The House-passed version of the six-year bill includes a Congestion Relief Program to address urban congestion problems. "The bill includes important sections dedicated to developing a strategy to improve mobility by attacking congestion in a systematic way using an array of traffic congestion relief activities," says study author Tim Lomax, a research engineer at TTI. Those include building more road and public transportation capacity, operating that capacity for the most efficient service, and innovative pricing and truck-only lane projects.

The TTI study ranks areas according to several measurements, including:

Annual delay per peak period (rush hour) traveler, which has grown from 16 hours to 47 hours since 1982, number of urban areas with more than 20 hours of annual delay per peak traveler, which has grown from only 5 in 1982 to 51 in 2003, total amount of delay, reaching 3.7 billion hours in 2003, and wasted fuel, totaling 2.3 billion gallons lost to engines idling in traffic jams.

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.09.05 @ 15:43PST

Sunday, May 8th

Cool Cities: Old Buildings, New Attitudes
Baltimore, Maryland will host the National Trust Main Street Center’s® 2005 National Main Streets Conference, Cool Cities: Old Buildings, New Attitudes. The Conference will be held at the Baltimore Waterfront Marriott Hotel from Sunday, May 8 to Wednesday, May 11, and will be co-hosted by local and state revitalization and preservation groups Baltimore Main Streets, Main Street Maryland, Preservation Maryland, The Society for Preservation of Federal Hill and Fell’s Point, and The Baltimore Commission for Historic and Architectural Preservation.

The 2005 National Main Streets Conference is the premier educational gathering for preservation-based commercial district revitalization in the country. Main Street practitioners and advocates from across America will gather to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Main Street movement with retrospectives, the Great American Main Street Awards and Main Street Leadership Awards.

With nearly 1,500 participants each year, the Conference provides more than 80 educational sessions, workshops, and field sessions that focus on successful strategies for revitalizing downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts. This conference attracts a diverse audience including directors of revitalization organizations, planners, architects, historic preservationists, business development specialists, economic development professionals, city management staff, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff and more.

The theme of the National Main Streets Conference, Cool Cities: Old Buildings, New Attitudes, will focus on the successful strategies communities are using to bring new vitality and a diverse mix of people and uses to their traditional commercial districts. Conference seminars are offering participants best practices, tools, and great ideas for ways to create dynamic, livable places. Throughout the Conference, dynamic examples of revitalization in Baltimore and the state of Maryland will be featured during sessions and tours.

Community revitalizationists have had significant influence on Charm City by translating the strategies and successes of small town retail and applying them to urban commercial district revitalization. By building on the inherent physical assets, festivals, charming shops, local traditions and unique architecture, Main Street practitioners have successfully turned public opinion of these authentic neighborhoods, and are successfully bringing people back to these historic districts that are once again considered ideal in which to live, work and play.

This year, in conjunction with Preservation Maryland, the statewide Maryland Preservation & Revitalization Conference will be co-housed at the National Main Streets Conference. These educational sessions and tours will focus on preservation and will be open to all attendees of the National Main Streets Conference at no additional cost, which provides participants with a wider variety of sessions.

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.08.05 @ 15:06PST

LA Imbecilic
The other morning I was on the 16 bus on 3rd St., enjoying the halo the morning light made round my fellow passengers' faces, when we passed by the 3rd St. School. It was at that moment surrounded by several dozen rather menacing armored vehicles...by which I mean the cars that we use to armor ourselves from any fundamental sensation of life such as morning light, the breeze, the movement of our legs, the voices of neighbors and strangers.

The school occupies an entire residential block, and I could see three sides of that block; there was a row of mommy-class war wagons nose to tail that surrounded all of the school's perimeter that I could see as the bus rolled past. The morning drop-off rush hour: one car, one mom, one kid.

This is a small neighborhood school! Few if any of the children who go there live more than a mile from the place; it's right in the center of one of the wealthiest, quietest, and safest neighborhoods in the city, and for kids who must cross 3rd. St. there's a well-timed signal light a block away on Highland (which, because of the large Orthodox Jewish population in the neighborhood, sees a great deal of pedestrian traffic on Fridays and Saturdays).

So why the armored escort? Can they really not afford to take ten extra minutes to walk the kid to school, to learn where you actually live in the world, to walk with a neighbor and talk over what's happening on the block? The time you spend driving, in sterile isolation, is time taken out of your life, and the time you think you "save" you spend, with interest, waiting in a line of cars, staring at the bumper of the car in front while your kid fidgets in his straps.

Doesn't make much sense, even by car-culture standards. It's just a mindless habit: to be is to drive, the philosophical baseline of American thought.

Richard Risemberg (rrisemberg@newcolonist.com), on 05.08.05 @ 10:00PST

Thursday, May 5th

Pittburgh's Mayor's Race: A Sign Of Intelligent Life
You're probably not following Pittsburgh's mayor's race if you don't live here. In fact, there's a pretty good chance you're not following it if you do live here. Yea, voter apathy can be blamed, but this race, and most of what happens politically in Pittsburgh is a bore. Even that boring word, "boring" can mean a little on the exciting side by Pittsburgh standards.

The outgoing Mayor, Tom Murphy, has been in office for what seems like a very long time (that's because it has been a very long time). The city is controlled by a Democratic machine that's almost as annoying as the Republic machine which currently runs Washington.

Democrats are also in power at the state level, though that would be hard to call a "machine."

The Democratic Party has endorsed the biggest gear in the machine (if you've ever seen the mechanics of a clock, it's the big gears that move the slowest), Bob O'Connor. I don't know Bob, and he may be a good guy and an ok candidate, but the endorsement was so pathetically predictable Pittsburgh. His biggest asset may be he's Irish and in with the Governor.

Forget the idea then that a candidate from another party might make some noise. When Murphy announced he wasn't running I had grandiose thoughts that maybe someone like Paul O'Neil or Theresa Heinz might throw their hat into the ring and make something of a splash. Predictably, this ain't Oakland, CA.

Looking for other alternatives, there will be two other Democrats in the primary. The first, Bill Peduto, is youthful and good at throwing out what seems to me to be empty ideas aimed at attracting the youth vote (not that O'Connor's web site offers any concrete proposals). Peduto's agenda includes such no-brainers as "clean up our neighborhoods," "do more with fewer tax dollars," "seek input from all Pittsburghers," and "encourage development throughout the city."

Great Bill, I agree. I think Bob O'Conner and anyone else running or voting would also agree.

The third candidate is Brian Lamb. He's third in the polls, but judging from what he's provided on his web site, the candidate with the most meat. He's still a Democrat, but I'm guessing he could be represented by one of those smaller gears that spin circles around the larger ones.

Lamb seems to be heavily focused on providing 21st-century transportation, specifically mentioning new rail transit lines and the development of high-speed rail. He says he wants to streamlining the process for acquiring tax-delinquent property and eliminating unused property, plus direct the Urban Development Authority to dispose of the property it has acquired downtown (I hope that plan also goes for the Garden Square North block on the in Central Northside) so that it can be used creatively by local people, artists and businesses.

Looks like we have a sign of intelligent life.

Lamb for Mayor

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.05.05 @ 11:44PST

Monday, May 2nd

New York Wal-Mart Protest
New York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, Former Miss America Carolyn Sapp, Labor, Civic and Community Leaders Call on all Americans to Join Mother's Day Campaign Targeting Wal-Mart/ Demand Wal-Mart End Discrimination Against Women

Tomorrow, May 3, at noon, on the steps of New York City Hall, New York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, former Miss America Carolyn Sapp, and local labor, civic and community leaders will hold a press conference calling on all New Yorkers to join the "Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart" effort.

Speakers will highlight Wal-Mart's troubling record of discriminating against its women workers, many of them mothers, and will call on all Americans not to shop at Wal-Mart for their Mother's Day gifts. Supporters will also be encouraged to pledge their support for the "Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart" campaign online at wakeupwalmart.com.

As part of the press conference, speakers will join together in signing the "Mother of all Mother's Day Cards." The enormous eight foot-by-eight foot card calls on Lee Scott, CEO of Wal- Mart, to honor and respect our nation's women and mothers by ending the company's discrimination against women. The giant Mother's Day card will be mailed to Scott with the names of thousands of supporters.

Eric Miller (editor@newcolonist.com), on 05.02.05 @ 18:00PST