Arbor Day was Friday and this is Monday. I'm late.  Although many places don't necessary celebrate Arbor Day on the last Friday of April... Street Trees of Seattle is an interesting book.  During the pandemic Ms. Ebrahimi went for long walks, began re-connecting and re-looking at the natural world, and began documenting street trees at the neighborhood scale.   She chose to do this by drawing, and for the purposes of the book, she organized the content by neighborhood, focused on the primary type of tree "dominating" that particular neighborhood, although each section doe ..read more

Anacostia in better days. The Washington Post reports on a press conference in Anacostia, the most economically lagging area in DC, where the Mayor discussed improvements in the area, in association with a new building for the Department of Housing and Community Development, which was already there, in a not so old building ("After decades of disinvestment, D.C.’s Anacostia welcomes new developments"). Did Fenty's dissolution of a focused Anacostia community development corporation, the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative ("Bill targets Anacostia Corp.," Roll Call) lead t ..read more

 I am always intrigued by the very rare occurrence of gasoline station roadmaps that show "transit."   I have Esso maps with a map of the London Underground, at least two New York City maps (Esso, Texaco) showing the Manhattan part of the NYC Subway, this map, an Exxon Map showing public transportation of the United States, along with highways, and and British American Oil map of Toronto with a small drawing of a TTC subway entrance.  There is an Esso map for Alberta that I haven't acquired yet showing a cable car for skiing related transportation, as part of the set of dra ..read more

 Gaps in park master planning frameworks -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part One | Levels of Service" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Two | Utilizing Academic Research as Guidance" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Three | Planning for Climate Change/Environment" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Four | Planning for Seasonality and Activation" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Five | Planning for Public Art as an element of park facilities" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning, Part Six | Art(s) in the Park(s) as a comprehensive program " -- "Gaps ..read more

I started college in the late 1970s.  Since "the 1960s" were really from about 1964-1974, there was still a lot of recognition of that period in Ann Arbor.   As is my want, when I was in college I became interested in how colleges work and I read a lot of the literature of the time about "college student development" especially William Perry's Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years: A Scheme (book, a webpage).  Others writing along these lines included Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan. Plus I read works like Kirkpatrick Sale's ..read more

 Gaps in park master planning frameworks -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part One | Levels of Service" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Two | Utilizing Academic Research as Guidance" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Three | Planning for Climate Change/Environment" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Four | Planning for Seasonality and Activation" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Five | Planning for Public Art as an element of park facilities" -- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning, Part Six | Art(s) in the Park(s) as a comprehensive program " -- "Gaps ..read more

According to the Washington Informer article, "DC's new plan to slash its trash," DC is adding ten years, one decade more, to its waste diversion goal, from 2030 to 2040  That's 16 years!!!!!!!!!! From the article: The Sustainable DC Plan, which came out in 2013, said the District should begin diverting 80% of its waste away from landfills and incinerators by 2032. Two decades later, the city has made some progress, particularly when it comes to composting and recycling—but it’s not likely to achieve the original goal.  A long-awaited Zero Waste DC Plan, which t ..read more

A couple weeks ago I wrote "Good quote on arenas and stadiums as "performing arts centers" attractions for cities," quoting Ron Kirk then Dallas mayor, on the decision to go forward in building a basketball arena in the late 1990s for the Dallas Mavericks.   He was very clear about the point of the arena being developing the area around the arena, which has resulted in over $3 billion in new development over about 25 years.  That's pretty amazing. This relates to my lesson about such facilities.  That if you want spillover benefits, you have to plan for them, what I call "t ..read more

Salt Lake.  A few months ago, Salt Lake City banned more drive ins on 2100 South in the Sugar House business district ("City council looks to transform single-family zoning across the city; bans Sugar House business district drive-thrus," Building Salt Lake., "One SLC neighborhood backs drive-thru ban as it transforms into ‘model walkable, transit-connected community’," Salt Lake Tribune).  That's pretty close to us, and Sugar House is where Sugar House Park is, where I'm on the board. Needless to say, the local business advocacy group didn't agree.  But they did make a good poi ..read more

 Came across this via Reddit, "Dutch city transforms over 300 bus stops into 'bee stops'," Lonely Planet ..read more