lizzzyyy100

There are 100,000 trade and professional organizations in the U.S. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is one of them. Within AIA there are 264 regional and local "components" (chapters) with a total of 85,000 members. AIA is governed by a Board of Directors but there is also a Strategic Council, there are 21 Knowledge Communities, several Advocacy Leadership Teams and various ad-hoc groups on the national level and in most local components as well.  Not surprisingly, in such a complicated organizational structure it is hard to detect a clear mission. Non-architects typically have no clue what AIA stands for or what architects actually do, popular films with architects in leading roles notwithstanding. Only 2% of Americans ever sign a contract with an architect. That reality of fragmentation and low impact can be juxtaposed with the reality that architects design a lot of stuff. About 41% of all energy in the US goes into buildings. Annually about 170,000 US Energy I...

It isn't too often that mayors of North American cities travel to South America to admire urban planning models. There is one notable exception, and that is Curitiba, Brazil, where forty years ago a new vision for urban mobility was created, revamping the private bus chaos that dominates many South American big cities. I like the Curitiba example especially, for it was invented by an architect who, once he was elected mayor, immediately began to think outside the box. He watched the clogged major arteries leading in and out of his rapidly growing mega city, the foul air and the many carless urban poor that couldn't get anywhere, and decided that something needed to be done that was fast, relatively cheap and system-wide. Unlike the one shiny subway line that Chile's Santiago boasts, he gave his Curitiba a whole system of fast buses that operate like trains all across town. More or less overnight. Nobody had seen such drastic repossession of streets before. Even the buses wh...

Maybe it was the gigantic tunnel boring machine that over-ate itself with fine granulate until it's boring head had to be rescued in a big open dig in the middle of Seattle. May be it was the infamous Big Dig in Boston with its perennial delays and cost overruns. Or is it that almost any topic elicits antagonistic views split along party lines. Whatever the cause, many Americans seem to buy the argument that tunnels are boondoggles. Being against transit tunnels is sold as prudent reasoning even where hardly any alternative exists, like the case of the rail tunnel under the Hudson River. In Baltimore, a proposed light rail tunnel was declared the flaw that sank the cities first and only major transit project in nearly a quarter century. Meanwhile the Swiss   successfully  completed  a  34-mile long rail tunnel under the Alps in which trains will begin to run next year and the Japanese build the world's first long distance Maglev high speed rail, much of it in tunnel...

As the then deputy secretary of DOT told me early in Obama's presidency, the President checked personally that the departmental silos open up to collaboration in the  Sustainable Communities Partnership  he had initiated between the departments of housing (HUD), transportation (DOT) and environment (EPA). (White House blog ). The strange bedfellows were forced together based on the insight of the former community organizer that sustainable communities cannot be achieved by individual departments without looking at a bigger interconnected picture. The grant was described in these words: The Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program will support metropolitan and multijurisdictional planning efforts that integrate housing, land use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure investments in a manner that empowers jurisdictions to consider the interdependent challenges of: (1) economic competitiveness and revitalization; (2) social equity, ...

Baltimore, synonym for how conservatives fight cities The name of my hometown by choice, Baltimore, Maryland, has lately become a synonym for America's urban condition. Baltimore: it stands for police violence and the war on drugs, urban poverty, and the country's historic and unresolved problems with race. Baltimore stands for the growing chasm between haves and have nots. But it also stands for the sought after characteristics or resurgent and thriving cities – it’s hip, authentic, home to first rate anchor institutions, possesses an innovative, creative vibe, and with some very successful examples of economic recovery, can serve as a model for other legacy cities. Baltimore unrest 2015 After last week, Baltimore also stands as the latest example of the gruesome damage that can be wrought by a conservative governor willing to undermine a more predominantly liberal urban center for political gain. Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, battling his own mortality having recently...