lizzzyyy100

Almost everyone has heard about the list of the most congested places in America and how many hours are wasted by "sitting in traffic" and how bad this is for our national economy. Personal experience behind the wheel would certainly support the notion that congestion is unpleasant and a waste of time. Congestion around Baltimore and construction to "fix" it According to the 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard, travel delays due to traffic congestion caused drivers to waste more than 3 billion gallons of fuel and kept travelers stuck in their cars for nearly 7 billion extra hours – 42 hours per rush-hour commuter. The total nationwide price tag: $160 billion, or $960 per commuter. Washington, D.C. tops the list of gridlock-plagued cities, with 82 hours of delay per commuter, followed by Los Angeles (80 hours), San Francisco (78 hours), New York (74 hours), and San Jose (67 hours). (Texas A&M Transportation Institute, 2015, press release ) Yet, many people have come ar...

North Carolina's week of bathroom talk escalated into a civil rights issue of sorts prompting input from divergent authorities such as Bruce Springsteen, the Deutsche Bank, Paypal, Pepsi and many others.. It brought to light just how sensitive Puritan America is about the space that is elsewhere simply called the toilet.   Bathroom fears All the talk about who uses which "water closet" or WC (a European term) and when, and whose privacy needs to be protected and how, elicited clarifications from high up that only made  matters worse but also served as a stark reminder of how complicated bathroom matters are and how torn folks are between talk and taboo. In an increasingly sex-positive culture, it seems like bathroom issues are the last thing most people are reluctant to talk about.(Julie Beck, Atlantic 4-16-2014) It is no surprise, then, that this most private of spaces not only plays an important role in politics but also in architecture. In fact, without fanfare, the ba...

 "For 240 years it’s been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start.”  (Warren Buffett) Maybe it takes a couple of Dutch guys to teach Americans about optimism and tell us that not all is lost for American Industry.  With all the talk about America in crisis we hear from at least three of the top presidential contenders, a good dose of optimism is in order. Antoine van Agtmael and the title of his book at Brookings (photo: ArchPlan) Antoine van Agtmael (An entrepreneur of Dutch origin but living in the US since 1968) and Fred Bakker (A Dutch journalist) came to Washington's Brooking Institution with the good news that "rust-belts are the emerging hotspots of global innovation", the by-line of their new book " the Smartest Places on Earth ".  Agtmael brings a good bit of credibility with him. He was the guy who coined the term of "emerging economies" back in 1981 when he was associated with the World Bank. And boy, was ...

By now it is widely understood that urban freeways did little to solve urban transportation and mobility issues; it has become clear that cities cannot build themselves out of congestion with bigger roadways, but they can damage themselves considerably in the process of trying.   Kansas City freeway bisecting downtown (photo: ArchPlan) Most also recognize that mostly poor communities were impacted by the massive clearances for the construction of urban freeways and by the noise and pollution brought by increased automobile traffic,  and that in America those injustices were inflicted most often on predominantly African American communities. What  dawns on most only very slowly is that the destruction of entire neighborhoods and communities was not only unintended "collateral damage" caused by a failed transportation policy, but that this damage was frequently an intentional part of a larger strategy of segregation, exclusion, control and plain old racism. When President O...