Billy Mays, an Allegheny County native who got his break at the Pittsburgh Home Show, has died. I'm just floating the idea of making a lasting tribute to this television infomercial magnate by naming something in McKees Rocks or Allegheny County after him. The Billy Mays Home Show? The Billy Mays (McKees Rocks) Bridge? If you agree, contact us via email, Facebook or Twitter. Links at the top right.

 

Eric Miller on 06.29.09 @ 08:09 AM PST [link]  

In a study on the productivity benefits of working at home, Cisco estimated employees saved $10 million per-year on fuel costs in addition to in-house savings. There's not anything negative about telecommuting in the report-productivity improved, employees were happier and retention greater-but it brings to my mind questions about whether telecommuting is good for our communities as a whole.

On one hand, how much street life can there be if everyone is locked away in their suburban houses? It's only at lunch time that many suburban-dwellers experience vibrant street life at all (unless they work in an office park, then they never experience it on a daily basis).

To counter this, working at home, it's more likely you'll want some personal interaction and a city will undoubtedly be a better place to live for telecommuters (should we say pccommuters--who the hell uses telephones anymore anyway?). Pondering pre-industrial America, most people worked at home anyway. Cities were filled with artisans and craftsmen (and women, even then) who often worked in their home. Perhaps pccommuting can usher in a new era of the pre-industrial city, except our corporate lords will be off somewhere in a quiet office park.

Cisco Promotes Telecommuting

Eric Miller on 06.29.09 @ 02:59 AM PST [link]  

With the recent Washington DC Metro wreck, we thought it would be a good time to talk about just how dangerous commuter rail is. We compare it to walking, riding a bike, flying and more. Some knee-jerk responses to the crash also brought to mind killing geese in New York after a couple ran into a U.S. Airways flight. If you're a goose, I'd venture you have more chances of dying from the reactionary exterminators than from hitting an airplane. Listen from our Podcasts Page

Eric Miller on 06.25.09 @ 04:19 PM PST [link]  

My former co-worker Andrew posted this on Facebook today. I searched for the City of Toronto Parks Summer Fun Guide and sure enough it's for real. Here's the link to the cover and I've posted it side-by-side with the stock photo on The New Colonists' Facebook page. I think they may need a special visa program for graphic designers.

Eric Miller on 06.24.09 @ 03:19 PM PST [link]  

Looks like the the US Department of Defense has determined that the Constitution is an inflammatory terrorist screed, judging from their instructional materials. To quote the ACLU:

Anti-terrorism training materials currently being used by the Department of Defense (DoD) teach its personnel that free expression in the form of public protests should be regarded as "low level terrorism." ACLU attorneys are calling the approach "an egregious insult to constitutional values" and have sent a letter to the Department of Defense demanding that the offending materials be changed and that the DoD send corrective information to all DoD employees who received the erroneous training.

The implications of this are ominous for a free society such as the Untied states strives to be. And the danger is more than just political, as the many accused of being "eco-terrorists" for publicly stating a verbal challenge, or even just an opinion, to the despoilers of our country can attest.

Read more at the ACLU website or (!) Fox News.

Richard Risemberg on 06.22.09 @ 11:39 AM PST [link]  

The tourism promotion folks in Philadelphia have spent a lot of energy trying to find ways to get visitors to sleep over. I'm going to assume you don't and suggest a number of ways to spent time seeing a lot. We're not focusing on the major attractions here, like the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the big museums. More, each attraction can only be a minor time suck, so you'll still get to see a lot without springing for a hotel.

From New York there are a number of convenient ways to get into Philadelphia. New Jersey Transit connects from Penn Station with a change at Trenton for Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. MegaBus and Bolt Bus provide low-priced options from Mid-Town or Chinatown starting at $8 each way. 2000 New Century lines operated out of Chinatown provides a $20 round-trip option with buses running every thirty minutes. Your arrival point, Philadelphia's Chinatown, is located right by Reading Terminal Market, and it's a short walk to most attractions, so there's no need to bring a car.

READ MORE

Eric Miller on 06.21.09 @ 01:09 PM PST [link]  

We have posted a new review of an older book, Edward T. Hall's The Hidden Dimension, which contains valuable insights on the way humans use space across time and cultures. Follows an excerpt from the review:

Fortunately this book is available new or used online, as it is a valuable exploration of the way human beings in different times and cultures have interpreted and used space, and of the effects of both appropriate and inappropriate spatial configurations in urban cultures. In fact, it was author Edward T. Hall's specific intention that the findings examined in this book be applied to urban design.

Mr. Hall (who coined the term "proxemics" to describe this field of study) begins with an overview of "distance regulation in animals," to quote one chapter heading, and the effects of crowding and spatial arrangements on social and non-social, territorial and non-territorial animals. After collating the findings of numerous studies, including several he managed himself, to do so, he examines the physiological bases of perception in both animals and humans before moving on to what he calls the "anthropology of space," that is, the different ways humans have devised to arrange, demarcate, and exploit space throughout our history.

As he approaches the modern era in his narrative, he deploys specific examples of spatial conventions, mostly derived from his own studies. These focus on US, Northern European, Southern European, Arabic, and Japanese cultures, as well as describing various adaptations and misadaptions of space devised by or imposed upon different subgroupings of US residents, including not only immigrants but internal immigrants, such as southern blacks who moved north.

Read More....

Richard Risemberg on 06.18.09 @ 07:57 AM PST [link]  

Newcolonist.com Editor Eric Miller recently spoke with Susan DeMark, the Mindful Walker, about New York and Pittsburgh, the peaceful co-existence of creative destruction and preservation, the ongoing and pending changes in Coney Island, the lasting impact of the financial crisis on New York and more. Listen to the conversation, then check out Susan's weblog at Mindfulwalker.com

Eric Miller on 06.17.09 @ 12:11 PM PST [link]  

The world without Twitter must have been a terrible place. No, I don't remember it as so terrible, but like telephones and computers, it's one of those things you didn't know you needed until you had it. I think the last two days have proven that Twitter is good for more than sharing recipes and the status of a flight. Twitter is good for Democracy, perhaps to an extent on par with newspapers. In fact, Twitter is free-press on steriods because there's no way to stop this army of citizen journalists.

In just the few moments it took to write that first paragraph, 226 more entries have shown up baring the hashtag of #Iranelection on Twitter. Now it's up to 257. Iran may have been able to block CNN, Fox News and text messages, but they've been unable to keep the tweets from getting through. In the time it takes cable news networks to update their status, hundreds, even thousands of tweets are sent from inside and outside Iran.

Of course efforts are being made to block Twitter too, but users continually send ip addresses to go around the blockade. Moreover users inside Iran are changing their Twitter locations to U.S. cities like Houston, confounding Iranian authorities. Outside twitterers are changing their profiles to show Tehran locals.

At this point the number of new tweets with that hashtag is 519. Among them alauria says "CNN is televising Iranian Twitter IDs. They are risking lives for ratings." Chandlerhora says "All press passes have been revoked in Iran, foreign media banned and not allowed to leave offices to cover events." Running says "CONFIRMED!!! Army moving into Tehran against protesters! PLEASE RT! URGENT!"

Think Twitter is not important? Last night one Tweet told the story best. Rosana said "One Person = One Broadcaster" It's the Twitter users who are telling the story, leaving the networks out of the loop on the ground in Iran, reporting only the story of the Twitter revolution.

Eric Miller on 06.16.09 @ 10:41 AM PST [link]  

One of my few in-car experiences happened over the weekend and took me to two small Pennsylvania towns I hadn't previously visited. The first was Somerset, Pa, just east of Pittsburgh. Somerset is of course the site of the Flight 93 Memorial and the Coal Miner's Memorial, neither of which I visited. This isn't for lack of interest in memorials, but for a desire to walk the streets of a quintessential American small town.

Thousands of drivers see the Somerset Courthouse from the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but far fewer ever venture in to see it. I found it with a shiny motorcycle parked out front and numerous flags waving under a bright blue sky. I thought for a moment this might be a John Mellencamp video. One of the most curious buildings I came upon, however was not in the downtown at all, but a shopping mall beside Georgian Place right near the Turnpike entrance. The mall was built with parking to the back and outdoor walkways connecting the storefronts. It's almost like a shopping mall without a roof. In some ways it is a good attempt at a different type of development, but the result is a sizeable difficulty in knowing what's inside. Had housing been incorporated or the development connected to an existing walkable area, it might bring a more favorable result.

The second stop was in Bethlehem, Pa on the eastern side of the state. Drivers entering Bethlehem soon come upon a large swath of steel mills with a new casino built into them. There are also attractions in Bethlehem concerning the steel industry, but instead I headed to the downtown historic area that far predates industrial magnate Charles M. Schwab's presence in the town.

Many of the buildings in downtown Bethlehem date to the mid 18th Century. The scenic Moravian College in Bethlehem claims to be America's sixth oldest college and traces its founding to 1742 by followers of John Amos Comenius, the 17th century Moravian bishop whose humanistic ideals helped to shape modern education. Those ideals are that learning should be available to all, that teaching should be in accord with human nature, and that education should be applied to practical uses, are much in evidence at Moravian. (That descriptive part was from the college web site if you couldn't tell).

The business district is lively and many of the shops and restaurants are open on Sunday. It was recommended to me, so I stopped into the Hotel Bethlehem for some appetizers and a brew. The Hotel Bethlehem is one of the National Trust's Historic Hotels of America. It was great to find elevator buttons from 1922 and for the green advocates, rolled cloth hand-towels in the bathroom instead of paper or blow dryers.

Here are some photos of Bethlehem.

Eric Miller on 06.15.09 @ 07:15 AM PST [link]  

In a stunning display of administrative effectiveness, the city of Los Angeles has managed to come up with a Zero Waste plan to be realized by 2025, while involving all the multifarious and inevitably contentious stakeholders in this huge city, from the pinstripes to the poor, from the boulevards to the back alleys. Your editor was one attendant at such a meeting, and reported on it in this blog in April of last year.

Now the city has released a report on the current state of affairs for "SWIRP" (the Solid Waste Integrated Resource Plan), which aims not only to divert waste from landfills but to recapture its value and make garbage into gold. The report:

The City of Los Angeles' Zero Waste Plan

The California Integrated Waste Management Board's vision for Zero Waste is "based on the concept that wasting resources is inefficient and that efficient use of our natural resources is what we should work to achieve. It requires that we maximize our existing recycling and reuse efforts, while ensuring that products are designed for the environment and have the potential to be repaired, reused, or recycled."

The Recovering Energy, Natural Resources, and Economic Benefit from Waste for Los Angeles (RENEW LA) Plan, adopted in February 2006, provided a blueprint, and identified twelve goals, to set the City on the path to Zero Waste. The goal of zero waste as defined in the RENEW LA Plan is to reduce, reuse, recycle, or convert the resources now going to disposal so as to achieve an overall diversion level of 90% or more by 2025, and to dispose of only inert residual.

Various Mayoral goals such as achieving 70% diversion by 2013, having an operational alternative technology facility in the City, and implementing a stakeholder-driven Solid Waste Integrated Resources Plan (SWIRP--the Zero Waste Plan), also identified the City's commitment to achieving zero waste.

As a result, the Bureau of Sanitation began an intense stakeholder-driven process in April 2007 to develop the 20-year Zero Waste Plan (SWIRP). During the first phase, which was completed in June 2008, a total of 256 public outreach meetings were conducted (109 key constituent meetings, 27 house meetings, 75 business interviews, 42 SWIRP Regional Workshops in the six wastesheds throughout the City, 3 Citywide Conferences). The Bureau reached out to residents, business owners, institutional groups, neighborhood councils, environmental groups, environmental justice groups, trash haulers, unions, and others. To date, there are over 2,500 SWIRP stakeholders that have engaged in providing feedback and input into the Zero Waste Plan.

In May 2008, the SWIRP stakeholders identified the road to zero waste by developing 12 stakeholder Guiding Principles which included:

• Protecting public health and the environment
  
• Providing City leadership as a model for zero waste policies
  
• Requiring manufacturer responsibility
  
• Providing incentives
  
• Providing City leadership to increase recycling
  
• Providing convenience to encourage recycling
  
• Providing economic efficiency
  
• Providing education and outreach to decrease wasteful consumption
  
• Providing new, safe technology
  
• Providing equity
  
• Providing education and outreach to increase recycling
  
• Requiring consumer responsibility

Phase II of SWIRP commenced in July 2008, to develop the detailed Policy, Program and Facility Plan (Facility Plan) for the City to meet the goal of zero waste by 2025. The Facility Plan will be finalized in the Summer of 2009, and will be based on the following:

• Generation, Disposal and Diversion Projections for the 20-year planning period:
  Population projections are based on Southern California Associated Governments (SCAG) data, and per capita or per employee disposal rates through 2025.
  
• Policy and Program Options:
  Over 80 potential policy and program options were identified by the SWIRP stakeholders as a path to zero waste during Phase I. These options will be considered for potential implementation under the Facility Plan.
  
• Infrastructure Options:
  Over 20 large scale and community scale facility options were identified based on increased diversion needs, and disposal needs.
  
• Disposal Capacity and Needs Assessment:
  Existing disposal and diversion capacity will be identified, and a solid waste facility needs assessment will be determined based on facility gaps.
  
• The Facility Plan Model:
  The model will identify the tons generated in each sector of the City (single-family residential, multi-family residential, commercial, and construction and demolition sites), and how these tons are reduced or redirected by various new policies and programs over the next 20 years, to various existing or new facilities (i.e. Material Recovery Facilities, composting facilities, C&D processing, alternative technology, etc.), and will identify where these tons are diverted to (e.g. various markets, energy recovery, disposal). The model will address five Policy and Program scenario options:
  Scenario 1--No additional programs are added
  Scenario 2--Add various SWIRP policy and programs during the 20-year period
  Scenario 3--Implement mandatory requirements on policy and programs
  Scenario 4--Add upstream policies to Scenario 2
  Scenario 5--Add upstream policies to Scenario 3

The overall goal of the Facility Plan is to incorporate the SWIRP stakeholder Guiding Principles, and the goals of the RENEW LA Plan and the Mayor.

2009 Zero Waste Citywide Conference

The SWIRP team unveiled the draft Policy, Program and Facility Plan at the 4th SWIRP Citywide Conference held on May 30, 2009. City Councilmembers Ed Reyes and Jan Perry, President of the Board of Public Works Cynthia M. Ruiz, and Director of the Bureau of Sanitation Enrique C. Zaldivar welcomed conference attendees. Reina Pereria, the SWIRP Project Manager from the Bureau of Sanitation as well as Ruth Abbe, Vice President of HDR, who is the SWIRP environmental consultant, made a presentation of the Draft Policy, Program and Facility Plan. They presented details of the additional composting, recycling and waste processing facilities that would be needed under each of the 5 Program and Policy Scenario Options mentioned above. They also presented the associated costs, environmental and economic benefits of each scenario. If the policies and programs are implemented, the City of Los Angeles could increase its current diversion rate of 65 percent to 81 percent by 2025. If the City also processed post-recycling residual waste, they could achieve as much as 93 percent diversion from landfills by 2025. In addition, greenhouse gas emissions would reduce by 4.4 million metric tons which is the equivalent of removing 811,000 passenger vehicles from the roads and it would create up to 5,000 green jobs.

The Zero Waste Conference ended with a fashion show by Haute Trash who presented over 25 unique designs made out of recycled materials.

Next Steps

In fall 2009, the team will begin the Environmental Impact Report along with the associated public hearings. In 2011, the team will develop its financing and funding plan along with the SWIRP implementation plan. Regional workshops with stakeholders and 2 more citywide conferences will also be held.

For more information on the Zero Waste Plan, please refer to www.zerowaste.lacity.org

It looks like a good start.

Richard Risemberg on 06.11.09 @ 06:45 PM PST [link]  

It may seem odd in 21st century New York, but there is a series of towns just off Long Island connected only by foot paths. Fire Island is a long barrier island that runs along the length of Long Island outside New York City, and it has no public roads. My first visit to the island provided a unique look at virtually car-free island life.

READ MORE

Eric Miller on 06.07.09 @ 06:19 PM PST [link]  

One must wonder sometimes whether the law-and-order attitude really results in any sort of law and order, after all.

Brendan Ott in Real Clear Politics analyzed FBI statistics to come up with various lists of safest and least-safe cities in the US, with some interesting results that definitely counter the prevailing attitudes about city life here.

Get this: the top five safest cities with more than 500,000 residents are New York, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, and El Paso.

Ott goes on to note: "And the U.S.'s least safe city? That distinction goes to Memphis, Tennessee, with a crime rate of 18% per capita, followed by Atlanta (16%), San Antonio (15.2%), Detroit (13.7%) and Milwaukee (13.4%)."

Interesting to note that four of the five least crime-ridden towns are from those terrible, permissive, liberal, elitist blue states (yeah, the same ones that support the bulk of US economic activity and subsidize their grumpier cousins in the so-called heartland).

The three most dangerous are in conservative, religious, anti-everything southern states, and the other two in the northern Midwest.

Could it be that all those feel-good liberal social programs and all that tolerance of diversity and other nasty stuff that tax-and-spend blue-staters indulge in when they can tear themselves away from their overpriced lattes really works, and the gruff bluster of the strongarm right has no real benefit in real life?

Naw, couldn't be. FBI musta turned liberal. Get me my gun, Bubba; I'm feeling nervous....

Read the entire article on Real Clear Politics

Richard Risemberg on 06.07.09 @ 05:45 AM PST [link]  

ResourcesForLife.com, home of the Small House Society, recently launched the Small Car Society. We applaud their efforts. A smaller car usually uses less fuel and the transition from a larger vehicle has a positive impact on the planet. Still, many of us here are already members of a "No Car Society." If you're in that group, join our Facebook page and celebrate a No Car Future. The New Colonist's Facebook Page | 

You can find out more about the Small car Society here

Eric Miller on 06.05.09 @ 10:55 AM PST [link]  

We're printing up some great new bike/laptop stickers to help mark our tenth anniversary. They're white with our logo and have newcolonist.com printed so you can wrap the sticker around the bar of your bike and see it on both sides. You can also stick it on your laptop and its viewable when opened (from the back) or closed (from above). To get a sticker, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to The New Colonist Sticker Offer, P.O. Box 3005, Grapevine, TX 76099

Eric Miller on 06.05.09 @ 10:08 AM PST [link]  

Alex Marshall's musings on the gas tax provide some truly pertinent food for thought:

Although gas taxes are the largest single source of transportation revenue, we have been moving away from them. Even before the recent rise in gas prices, federal and state gas taxes supplied only 35 percent of the $132 billion in federal, state and local highway funds.

...no matter how much you raise it, it won't pay the direct costs of our road system, much less other transportation needs.

To read the entire article, see The Gas Tax's Last Gasp.

Richard Risemberg on 06.02.09 @ 06:03 AM PST [link]  

I found this interesting. Twitter.Grader.Com ranks the top Twittering cities. They are London, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston and Austin. Pittsburgh is 32, ahead of San Jose at 35.

Eric Miller on 06.01.09 @ 07:02 PM PST [link]