I love reading good news before I drink my coffee

Checking over some otherwise bland news this morning I found this piece on Michigan's new 'Food Policy Council.' This rocks my world - and maybe they'll actually accomplish something worthwhile. Two areas they're investigating seriously interest me: getting local and fresh food into public school cafeterias and selling more Michigan grown crops to Michiganders. After all, as the article mentions - we're second only to California in terms of crop diversity.

Granted, any improvement to the current situation is a long ways off (ironically I read this while eating an apple grown in New Zeeland). But this is the critical first step that might give enough people inspiration to continue working on this.

Open, resilient, adaptive cities.

Our sages give a fascinating answer. The spies saw the walls around the cities and concluded that if the cities are strong, the people are strong. It's a natural assumption but the truth is the opposite. If cities are surrounded by high walls against invaders, that's a sign that the people are weak and afraid. It's when you see a city without walls, that you know the people who live there are strong.

And so it's proved to be. Historically it's been the countries most open to refugees that were the strongest: the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, Britain and America in the 18th and 19th. Why? Because refugees almost always give back more than they received. Helping others, we are helped.

From Rodcorp.

Africa

I've been fascinated with UNESCO world heritage sites lately. There aren't many, and often times they are difficult preservation tasks for already burdened nations and lower units of government - but they are inheritely unique and irreplaceable.

Two new sites were added in Africa that really caught my attention. Here's a clip from the BBC article:

The world's largest and oldest meteorite crater, the Vredefort Dome, in South Africa was added for its scenic and scientific interest.
Egypt's Wadi al-Hitan, known as Whale Valley, was listed for its amazing fossil remains of now-extinct whales.

Illegal television Show Killed

"Welcome to the Neighborhood" was supposed to illustrate how three white-bread, Christian, Austin families can eventually settle for the stripe of diversity of their choice as a neighbor. In order to do that the show forced a rainbow coalition of minorities and marginalized groups to humiliate themselves.

Some commentators on this anomaly of reality television saw "Neighborhood" as a worthy social experiment where people were forced to handle their stereotypes and preconceived prejudices. Granted, documenting any kind of community outreach of this kind would be interesting - if not very useful in real-world applications in community development.

However, the producers of "Neighborhood" forgot about the Fair Housing Act that in very plain language prohibits this kind of discrimination. And don't for a second think it's not discrimination just because a non-white or marginalized resident is going to occupy the house. The neighborhood is acting as the real estate agent in this reality show: through this process they are expressly choosing the least-offensive family for the home.

The question that bugs me still is this: if the show were to air (and by some chance be a smash hit) would hit have any capacity for changing the way people think about cultural and racial segregation in their neighborhoods? Or would it have further deepened these divisions? There's no way to know now. The corporate leadership at Disney/ABC apparently would rather burn heaps of money than face any kind of public humiliation about discrimination.

Read the National Fair Housing Alliance's Call to Action on this subject and a synopsis of the story from Newsday.

Divergent Transportation Trends

You though that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and Newman get the homeless to pull rickshaws down the streets of New York was a joke? Nope. Well, not any more - and they're not called rickshaws - they're pedicabs.

An SUV horn blasted several feet from my left ear, and I nearly shot through the plastic shield. Visions of Singapore circa 1935 evaporated as I white-knuckled the sides of the carriage in sudden terror -- I was in a tin can on spoked wheels smack in the middle of Manhattan traffic beside drivers with the black hearts of those chaps in "Ben-Hur" who sported sharp, competitor-destroying blades on their chariot wheels. I was going to be crushed like an ant.

On the other side of transportation is an interesting article from Maine relating the build-up of the Cold War to that of our Interstate Highway System during the Eisenhower years. Sure, it's all theoretical and this doesn't propose any kind of solution to the sustainability issues presented by an auto-dominant system, but it's still fascinating.

Comerica Park

Only rarely do the architecture/planning blogs (that I read) actually talk about Detroit in specifics. Detroit is too often synonymous with complete municipal failure or racial bifurcation or sprawl. Well, Veritas et Venustas has a good, short analysis of the home turf of the Detroit Tigers, Comerica Park. Seeing as I have no personal MLB ballpark experience outside this stadium, it's an interesting take from an outsider who clearly has seen a few.

Rebuilding Kigali

OZ Architecture from Boulder Colorado just got the commission [bugmenot for password] to draw up a new master plan for the capital of Rwanda. Like many people, I hadn't realized that the 1994 genocide was taking place largely in a city. It's been more 10 years now since that tragedy, and they're ready to start seriously reshaping Kigali.

This looks like a very interesting and significant project. So far they are preparing plans for a new hospital, educational facility, and airport. Eventually they will begin work on a new central business district that is close to the airport and the old city center.

Wikipedia on Kigali.

Urban Photo

Really great photography site. Don't miss the 'Urban China' and 'Chicago in 38 Frames' features. The Chicago pics are really excellent - even the more postcard-ish pictures feel inspired and original (I've seen enough postcards of Chicago to know the good ones...)

Has the time come?

Everybody who has had the endurance to keep up with all the junk I've thrown up on the internet in my lifetime knows there is one terribly consistent theme: change.

Toponymy needs a new direction - some kind of purpose, focus. Let's face it, this website is a real mess.

So, if you have any suggestions about what I should put up here on Toponymy - let me know. I'll try to coalesce your ideas into something coherent and legible. In the meantime I might start another side project. Don't hold your breath.

RETURN

Yeah, it's been a while since you last heard from me. And, I can't promise my return will be anything but fleeting. In any case, here are a few little nibbles from the past weeks.

This guy's globes are amazing. And he was born in Dortmund, who would've guessed. The name is Igno Günther.

Perhaps the Duck Billed Platypus is some kind of repository of obsolete evolutionary improvements that other mammals have shed. I was unaware it had the keenest electroperception sense of any mammal. (Yes, that means it uses electricity to locate prey.)

Currently, Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay is practically vacant. It's purpose as a military base has expired and there have been few serious proposals to develop it. Until now. A group has laid out a plan for 20,000 residents to live there in a car-free district that is powered by renewable energy sources. SF seems like the perfect political environment for an idea like this to get support. Let's hope it happens.

All I've got to say about this is yikes. Urban Renewal Zimbabwe style.