Eric Miller on 12.30.08 @ 03:06 AM PST [link]  

A New York Times article explains the astounding energy savings possible with a now-common German design, in which heat from appliances and residents is enough to fend off a Northern European winter without any energy input at all, except what is needed to run a heat exchanger. To quote:

Even on the coldest nights in central Germany, Mr. Kaufmann’s new "passive house" and others of this design get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be needed to run a hair dryer.

"You don't think about temperature--the house just adjusts," said Mr. Kaufmann, watching his 2-year-old daughter, dressed in a T-shirt, tuck into her sausage in the spacious living room, whose glass doors open to a patio. His new home uses about one-twentieth the heating energy of his parents’' home of roughly the same size, he said.
...

And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.

I read this article while huddled in a sweater in my apartment in Los Angeles, which is unable to retain heat even though the outside temperature is about 50°F. The German houses have windows that open and plenty of light--they just aren't sloppy.

The article will remain free to read till around New Year's Day; you may find it at:

Richard Risemberg on 12.26.08 @ 05:49 PM PST [link]  

Not exactly growing up in the suburbs, my hometown was a time and place where suburban shopping patterns were becoming a primary, if not exclusive option. Living in New York and seeing snow outside,it seemed an opportune time to look for a good pair of boots. Pondering that, boots seemed like they may be at odds with the décor in an office building. My father’s and grandfather’s galoshes came to mind as a viable alternative.

They were easy to find online. In fact, several different styles from different manufacturers are available. They range from $13 to about $30. Ordering things when you live in a building without a doorman can sometimes be a problem; it was time to shop locally.

I debated about whether to head to the Atlantic Center Mall, to Macy’s on Fulton Street or to try and locate a mom-and-pop shoe store. After some online checking, I headed to the Atlantic Center Mall because there would be several options where it would be reasonable to find galoshes: Burlington Coat Factory, Target, Marshall’s and DSW. There were no galoshes to be found in the mall. A sporting goods store across the street Must have them, I thought, but no such luck.

Outside the mall, and already exposed to the ice and cold, walking home didn’t seem like a bad idea. It was then, on Flatbush Avenue that a box labeled “Totes” sat perched in a window. There they are, but the place is all locked up. The weekday closing hours, I noted, were 7 p.m.

Today, getting off the train at 6:55, getting there before the twist of the deadbolt seemed less than a sure thing. I did arrive, picked up the box and asked the price (the same brand had been $18 online, but with $6 shipping I could spend up to $24). The price was $22.00. But oh no! They only have x-tra large?! “We sold them all last week,” the shopkeeper said. Geez, it pays to think ahead!

Walking home another shoe repair store passed in my peripheral vision. There it was, another Totes box in the window. “Do you have galoshes in size ten?” They did.

When will I learn? I headed to the mall, but it wasn't there at all. If I had only walked down Flatbush Avenue I would have had two opportunities to find something all the stores in the big mall didn’t carry.

Eric Miller on 12.22.08 @ 04:03 PM PST [link]  

Just saw a beautiful and extremely pertinent statement in an email forwarded to me by Nancy Schneider of Auto Free Vacations. The email is a collection of updates of news about Ecocity Builders, a nonprofit "dedicated to reshaping cities, towns and villages for long term health of human and natural systems. Our goals include returning healthy biodiversity to the heart of our cities, agriculture to gardens and the streets, and convenience and pleasure to walking, bicycling and transit," and in the email newsletter, Kirstin Miller writes that:

Ultimately, the economy isn't based on theories, products, indicators and investment portfolios. It is based on time and labor, dirt, minerals, water, wood, wind, decomposition, the sun.

This view exposes so much of what is wrong with the current obsession with profit-only economics, which has led to so much environmental and social degradation (not to mention the Global War on Labor), and which has battered not only the Earth generally but our cities specifically.

I recommend to all that you visit the Ecocity Builders to learn more of what Miller, Richard Register, and other participants in the Ecocities movement are thinking and hoping as the new year, and with it a new US administration, approaches.

Richard Risemberg on 12.22.08 @ 02:25 PM PST [link]  

Every major city has a legendary Christmas past. Several still have present day experiences that are worth talking about year after year. Philadelphia, luckily, still retains many of the pieces that made downtown holiday seasons bright. Center City, as Philadelphians have called their downtown for decades, is not home to the same number of anchor stores as it once was, but traditions most central to local memories live on.

Read more from our archives

Eric Miller on 12.18.08 @ 02:52 PM PST [link]  

I never know whether to like or hate the holiday season. In more recent years I find it takes more and more internal force to get myself into the spirit. "Why be a Scrooge?" I ask myself.

"Should I decorate?" Nah, I'll just have to take it all down after New Year's. I finally work myself into such a mood that I decide to go buy a few decorations. After three stores, I finally find a glass tree, just something for on the table so I can have one decoration. The line! After ten minutes in line [New Yorkers say "on line" (and an hour and a half in the store)], I convince myself that while I throw away the whole experience, I do save ten dollars if I place it on the table beside me and leave, and maybe I'll find something better on the way home.

Still decorationless, a few days later I get the idea to just get a live tree or pointsetta for a pot I already have. I didn't want to keep a live tree in the house and since Prospect Park probably wouldn't take kindly to my planting it there, I go for the pointsetta. It's $20, so I'm down ten than if I had just bought that glass tree. And it would have lasted forever!

It's not halfway through December yet and it would seem the holiday is lasting forever. It turns out I've been spending time in stores when I should be out enjoying the city. Grand Central was a good place to change the mood a bit. I took a train up to Yonkers to visit the Hudson River Museum. On the way, Grand Central was filled with Santa's. I was almost late for the train, but I raised my arm and randomly snapped some photos on the way through. On the return trip, a projected light show was on the ceiling with a loudspeaker blaring Ella Fitzgerald singing Sleighride. My first year in New York and this is all new to me.

I couldn't help but noticing every other building had a tree in the lobby. Until today ours stood empty. Today I came home to a tree so small it's lost in the space, tucked away in the corner. My thoughts, "finally, a tree. I hope it's not using my electricity."

check out this short video of Brooklyn Borough Hall decked out for the Holidays

Eric Miller on 12.15.08 @ 05:30 PM PST [link]  

It was a long trip up the four or five flights of stairs for a little kid, a kid filled with the excitement of rattling off a wish list of presents to the fat bearded man strategically placed at the rear of the children's department at Gables Department Store in downtown Altoona.

Maybe it was those trips to downtown, a place where the lights were dimming by the mid-to-late 1970s, which made my attractions to the city so dear. The downtown I grew up in was a shadow of the one my grandmother knew, or the one in the photograph where my grandfather, who worked in the 11th Avenue Montgomery Wards store, posed in front of a brimming storefront window.

READ MORE FROM OUR ARCHIVES

Eric Miller on 12.14.08 @ 05:01 AM PST [link]  

No Christmas decorations visible in this cell-phone shot, but that's not what we're talking about anyway. I was noodling around Pasadena yesterday on my bicycle, whiling away the time between meetings, when I saw this scene that really cheered me up: a row of bicycles locked to the railing by the Metro Gold Line Memorial Park station--over which is built a rather nice-looking, in a Cal-Med sort of way, condo complex of the fancy-pants variety. Yep, the trains run right under the building--access couldn't be easier.

It's also all within very short walking distance of Old Pasadena, a very nice pedestrian-friendly shopping and dining zone that includes One Colorado Place, a mall built as a simulacrum of an old-fashioned pedestrian square--and a very effective one too, where Pasadena's Bike Commuter Expo has taken place the last two years. There's a feeling of lots of nooks and crannies to wander, and many of the stores are not chains but small, quirky indy shops.

Pasadena's come a long way, baby!

Richard Risemberg on 12.10.08 @ 08:46 AM PST [link]  

Those who have only lived where there is only one season, or at least no snowfall, may fail to understand the certain tug that pulls one outside upon noticing the first white flakes. This is especially alluring in the city, where the white comes down in a blanket and provides, at least the illusion of, a blank canvas.

Another Photo

Eric Miller on 12.06.08 @ 05:39 PM PST [link]