THE FUTURE OF URBAN DESIGN

Urban design is rooted somewhat in panic, expediency, and a twisting of prior precedents to fit the facts and situations of geography, nature and man’s will to build places collectively.

Urban design is only employed as a last resort by the leadership of cities. Urban design is not a discipline clearly understood by and large but has offered good solutions to many future city visions. Urban design teams have struggled mightily with the involvement of many “visioneers,” policymakers and bureaucrats each with different beliefs and desires for creating a balanced environment.

It has been said that about 40 percent of public lands is "owned" by everyone. Mostly this land area is given to roadways, freeways, airport runways and railway corridors. Farmland, parks, forests, rangeland and wildlife refuges although they reflect heart-deep feelings, are among our land uses that most citizens have more virtual experiences gained from TV Channels and travel videos rather than from reality.

Yet for some reason cities still desire to compete with one another for local, regional and foreign visitors. Citizens know instinctively that good places attract interest because they exhibit honest and unique cultural traits. These traits reflect indigenous qualities usually found where the people are proud of their daily life activities.

In a strange sense these desires are found in American’s hearts. Wanton of being realized immediately these desires are sometimes reflected by comparisons being made in our hometowns of transient discoveries experienced while visiting foreign cathedrals, downtowns and distinctive rural villages. These memories and acknowledgements involve both love of nature and what the historical man-made buildings have given to different cultures -- a chance to exhibit in their daily patterns in local places over hundreds of years.

Returning from these traveled experiences Americans reflect a great need and in reflection ask why their cities can’t be better than the beauty found in cities of other countries. Maybe it is the strong American independent streak that resists government regulation. Or is it the false claims coming from urban planning. In particularly it probably arises when we are reminded of taxpayer-supported federal, state and local land policies and then feel the inequities shared in “public facilities.”

Independent of the cultural responses, the integration of urban design with the indigenous aspects of the local environment is hidden within our failure of inadequate design orientation to climate and natural annual calamities, such as flooding. The most damaging aspects unrevealed by our citizens may be the hidden insecurity of the majority not living much outside the twofold known boundaries of city and suburb.

On the one hand farming, mining, grazing, and logging on public lands illustrate the conflict between environmental protection and resource extraction – both of which Americans want, the one to follow their ideals and the other to support their lifestyle. On the other hand the rabid “tracting” of suburbs over agricultural lands contradicts any balance or sensitivity of linked rural integration with the sameness of suburban “campos” against the tentative “infill” of cities. This socio/economic apartheid does little if anything to but satisfy the commuter vehicle lifestyle.

With the growth of our population and expansion of our economy, pressures have increased correspondingly on our undeveloped land, water resources, and wildlife. Preservation made by sensitively joining nature with man made things with a radical policy of "multiple use" on public and private lands have been part of America's city building frontier. It continues today with small incremental advances in some urban designs.

The concept of urban design should place collaboration ahead of polarization. It should put forward visions and charrettes only as instruments for future planning. Urban design must make financial plans with implementable project goals. Unfortunately markets and financing are valued before mandates. Although urban design transcends political boundaries, new urban design should be about meeting our nation's and local needs for a vibrant economy and energy security – while at the same time protecting the environment and offering prudent cultural solutions to man made artifacts. We have yet to achieve a balance

"Enlibra,"is a hybrid Latin word meaning "to move toward balance." Politicians are currently presenting this word. Imagine taking the principles of separateness found in most land use and transportation issues and suggesting a trend that will change future urban attitudes and policies. To include greater public participation, more collaboration between agencies and private organizations, as well as, economic incentives, a greater focus on evaluative outcomes rather than just government programs and regulations requires a far greater willingness of examination for greater understanding. How one can bring “mixed use” into an integrated future without urban design waits to be seen.

Good urban design is a fine goal but is not consciously sought. Why not you might ask? Urban design has yet to be seriously considered an essential part of the American equation for both new and alternative urban and transportation futures. City/environment balance suggests that every urban design action has both good and bad results. The yields from either of these two opposites should be evaluated not only for the costs and benefits but also for beauty, commodity and delight.

A sad conclusion – urban design is yet to earn a position in the evolution of making cities.

BY Graham Kaye-Eddie – Master Urban Designer.

Makabusi Inc. – Bakersfield – California

Email – makabusi@pacbell.net

Are Gadgets Already Too Small?

In general, few people are less interested in predicting the future of technology than I am. The high-tech business is inherently unpredictable -- almost random. Just as nobody in 1980 could have seen Microsoft or the Internet coming, so nobody can imagine whatever huge development is being hatched in a garage somewhere at this very moment. Whatever any pundit tells you about technology even five years from now should be taken with a grain of salt the size of Canada. In fact, the whole exercise should be considered slightly less scientific than the horoscope column at the back of a teen fashion magazine.

So when I was recently asked to deliver a talk on this very topic, I made it clear that my talk would have to be stamped, "For entertainment purposes only."

I figured that maybe I could at least make the talk entertaining -- by extrapolating current tech trends 10 or 20 years into the future. You know: In 1985, the standard allotment of RAM in a computer was 128 kilobytes; by 2000, it was 128 megabytes; at that rate, by 2015, it ought to be 128 gigabytes.

But a funny thing happened when I tried to apply the same logic to hardware: I realized that in several respects, no further extrapolation is possible. Because of the limitations of the human body, designers are already up against the wall.

Palmtops, for example, can't get much smaller without having smaller screens. These screens have been getting smaller with each generation (remember the Newton?), but further extrapolation is just silly. How big would screens be by 2010 -- one inch diagonal? Forget it. If you can't actually read anything, the whole device is worthless.

I think we've reached a similar limit in keyboard shrinkage. Those minuscule thumb-operated keyboards on Blackberry pagers, Handspring Treos and similar gadgets are already too slow to tap out more than a few words in the back of a cab. If they got any smaller, you wouldn't be able to type an S without also typing an A and a D.

So you see, we've already reached the lower limit of screen and keyboard sizes. If you want to fantasize about organizers we wear on our wrists or implant into our elbows, you'd better first fantasize about new ways of getting information into and out of them.

Laptops are another example. In the coming years, they'll certainly get thinner -- about an inch thick is the current limit for laptops that include a CD/DVD drive. But will they actually get narrower and shallower? At this point, the limiting factor is once again the screen. Already you can buy little half-screen jobbers from Toshiba or Sony, micro- laptops the size of a romance novel. But most people opt instead for bigger machines with decent-sized screens. Portability is one thing, but if you feel like you're peeking at your documents through a keyhole, you'll have a hard time getting any work done.

When it comes to desktop computers, there's no particular urgency to making them small: after all, they already fit on a desk. Indeed, the PC industry currently seems to feel no urgency whatsoever to making changes of any kind, or maybe it simply doesn't know what to work on. All right, Apple thinks it knows what aspects of computers could stand improvement (eliminate fan noise, eliminate cord clutter, eliminate ugliness). Otherwise, though, it's impossible to extrapolate current PC design trends because there are none.

Clearly, the design breakthroughs of the future will rely on technologies still in their infancy -- or still in utero. Maybe we'll get around the keyboard problem by perfecting speech recognition. Maybe we'll solve the screen limitation by perfecting virtual-reality glasses.

Who knows? Does it matter? Predicting the evolution of high technology can't hold a candle to the fun of actually experiencing it.

Visit David Pogue on the Web at: http://www.davidpogue.com

Traffic calming can speed up drivers' ire

As the traffic-calming movement gains steam, the spread of bumps and stop signs gets mixed reviews. By Neal Learner

Keeping 'Em Down on the Farm

An EU plan would cut farm subsidies - and help poor countries.

Kuwait conjures blooms out of oily blight

Kuwait conjures blooms out of oily blight With the help of oil-eating microbes, Kuwait is reclaiming land left polluted by the Iraqi invasion. By Anne Marie Ruff

Father of the American house

The homes of early architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe are getting attention. By Ross Atkin

Saving the past for the future

Parents are writing diaries for their children, an artform that combines elements of letter writing, biography, and autobiography. By Marilyn Gardner

European Union to Tackle Overhaul of Farm Subsidies

The European Commission on Wednesday approved proposals to overhaul a 40-year-old system of farm subsidies.

Study Finds Steady Overruns in Public Projects

Cost overruns for large public works projects have stayed largely constant for most of the last century.

New Cities Raise Taxes, Pay Alimony To Get Past ‘Revenue Neutrality’ Mandate

A decade after the passage of the "revenue neutrality" law, the incorporation of new cities appears to be back as a major planning issue in California. Jul 10 -- California Planning and Development Report

Amtrak Faces Second Year Of Losing at Least $1 Billion

Amtrak, which needed a federal bailout to avert a threatened shutdown this month, is headed for its second straight annual loss of at least $1 billion, the railroad's president told Congress yesterday...Amtrak received a $100 million loan from the government Friday to avert a threatened shutdown this month and keep the trains running into August.

Strip Center Investing: A Bear Market for Dummies

The shopping center sector is entering its third phase of consolidation, with investors gunning for strip centers and B-C malls. Jul 10 -- REIS

An Economic Engine Nobody Had Imagined

In the 1980's Mooresville, N.C. was about to go broke. Today, through shrewd planning, it's known as Race City, USA, and become a popular destination. Jul 08 -- Los Angeles Times