Mobile Garden in Chicago

A MFA student in Chicago (UIC) is planning this mobile garden project - that takes a flatcar (normally used by the transit agency to move around large equipment via rail) and installs a garden of native plants on it. The garden will then run with the regular transit service for hopefully three weeks in April/May (still in the proposal process)in Chicago.

GOOD Cities

GOOD Magazine launches GOOD.is/Cities a place to engage, discuss, and digest the ideas and actions that are pushing our cities toward their potential.

MORE Urban Planning Halloween Costumes!

Hmm...how can I look like marginal consumer surplus?

Metro Westide Subway Station Information Meeting

This Monday, October 26, 2009, Metro will be holding a Informational Meeting discussing the following stations:
*Wilshire and Crenshaw
*Wilshire and La Brea
* Wilshire and Fairfax

They will be discussing "station locations, entrances, easy connections to and from the stations and other issues."
*Translations in Korean and Spanish will be provided.

Meeting Time:
Monday, October 26, 2009
6:00-8:00pm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) - Terrace Room, 5th Floor
5905 Wilshire Blvd. (at Fairfax)
LA, CA 90036

LEED Lofts at Cherokee Studios

Some of us were lucky enough to get a tour of the Lofts at Cherokee Studios today. They're still under construction but will be opening soon. Here's some text from their website:

Cherokee Lofts is the most advanced and distinctive building of its kind in Los Angeles. It will be the "greenest" LEED Platinum* Certified mixed-use development in the state of California. The building honors the significant musical and Hollywood history of Cherokee Studios, and MGM and Republic Studios before it, and all the artists who recorded music on the site from Frank Sinatra to David Bowie to Dave Mathews. Cherokee Studios represents the premiere in green design, form, and function in the epicenter of the entertainment capital of the world.

http://www.loftsatcherokeestudios.com/

Some quick facts:

-construction vehicles used biodiesel

-all paints voc free

-building materials made from recycled products

-tank less water heaters

recycled aluminum screening on the balconies can open and close like windows

the orientation allows sunlight to travel all the way through the units

great views of the hills from this unit

Without a Car in the World

For the fourth and final installment of Almost Utopia, the gallery at 18th Street Arts Center will be dedicated to an unprecedented investigation of 100 Car-Less Angelinos and it will tell their stories of living in Los Angeles.

Public Discussions are as follows (please stay posted to our website for any changes in scheduling and/or change with public speakers:

November 6, 9:30PM
Ride-ARC Ride on Santa Monica Car and Pedestrian Culture with Alex Amerri

November 11, 7:OOPM
“Walking in LA” Panel/Discussion with:
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Professor, UCLA Department of Urban Planning; author of Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation Over Public Space
Herbert Medina, Professor, Loyola Marymount University Department of Mathematics
Nigel Raab, Assistant Professor, Loyola Marymount University Department of History
DJ Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, Real City:Downtown Los Angeles Inside/Out and Where We are Now: Notes from Los Angeles, Public Information Officer for the City of Lakewood
Damon Willick, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Loyola Marymount University

November 14, 2pm
“Transportation and the Future of Los Angeles”
Jessica Meaney, Transportation Planner, Southern California Association of Governments
Browne Molyneux, Journalist and Blogger, Shame Train LA
Claude Willey, Artist, Urbanist and Educator, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, California State University, Northridge
Others to be confirmed

November 14 3:30pm
“How to Live in Los Angeles Without a Car”
Chris Balish, Journalist and Author, How to Live Well Without Owning a Car
Paula Hess, Magazine Editor and Single Mom
Siel, Writer and Blogger, LA Green Girl

December 2 7:30pm
Kristina Wong Comedy Slideshow about Riding the Bus

Taking back Renter's Rights!

In case you didn't see this in the NYTimes this morning:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/nyregion/23stuytown.html?hp

A ruling for a huge court case in NY recently came in that could affect over 80,000 apartment units in NY City that have illegally been raised to market rent. The final outcome of securing rights, paying back the city and tenants, and restricting these same actions is still to come so keep an eye out.

Halloween Costumes for Urban Planners

Still on the hunt for a Halloween Costume???
Big Box

This one is incredibly straightforward. Just find yourself a big cardboard box, cut some arm holes and bam! You’re a 150,000 square-foot mega-retailer ready to crush local business and drain the traditional downtown! And look! There’s a sale on candy corn on aisle 29!

Bike Lane

Here's an easy one. Just get some black clothes and some white tape. Make two strong lines from each foot to each shoulder and tape out a simple bike on your torso in between. Fashionable and bikeable.

Sprawl

This costume is more of a role-playing challenge. Try to take up as much room as possible. Drink a lot of water. Bring two cars. And wherever you go, make sure it's at least 20 miles away.

New Urbanism

Go all-pastel. Invite someone to sit on your lap –er, front porch.

Urban Growth Boundary

This is a good one for making friends. Get yourself a hula hoop and see how many people can fit inside. How many people can your region support?

Public Transit

You'll need a good back for this one. Just slap a bus number on your chest and offer piggy-back rides. You can call yourself a carpool if you want, but public transit is much more inclusive.

Historic Preservation

Requirement: you have to be old for this one. All you have to do is find some old clothes in your closet (preferably from at least 20 years ago), and wear them. You're probably wearing them already, so you're good to go. Thanks for keeping the past alive!

Blight

This costume pretty much requires you to make other people's costumes worse. You can choose your own method, but you might find it easiest to spill drinks on people, dishevel some wigs, or just break some noses.

Green Roof

Just get a hat, find some leaves, add glue and you're done. Be sure to tell people how much energy you’re saving by cooling yourself from the top down.

Transit Oriented Development

This is the ideal costume if you're going out with a group. One person dresses up like a bus and everyone else goes as buildings. Just remember to stay close to each other. But if you do get separated, you can still be transit adjacent development.

Take home points from the ULI-LA's Future Build LA

The first half of the conference is over and it's been good! Here are some of the most talked about issues:

1. Occupancy Ratings!! This is a key issue in real estate development financing. And guess what the numbers say, there is a direct correlation between LEED certified buildings an occupancy. Tenants, both commercial and residential, stay for longer periods of time with less turn over. This translates into less risk for financing, which means banks are more willing to lend money for these projects. And in this economy, banks need stability.

2. The ranking from least lending risk to highest is: 1. Public, institutional, and educational buildings. 2. Owner occupied, single family housing. and 3. Multi-tenant. Because of this ranking, the most common LEED buildings are in the first category.

3. LA has the highest absolute number of LEED office buildings in the country. Although, they still represent less than 1% of the buildings in LA.

4. Life cycle and upfront investment. Developers and owners realize that the greater upfront costs related to designing a LEED or carbon neutral project will pay for themselves over the long haul. This concept has been discussed for a long time, but the numbers are now starting to come through that prove this.

Combine these points with the insecure economic climate and LEED buildings keep gaining more and more attention.

Finally, two website for your reference: www.josre.org and www.dsireusa.org

The Society for Moving Images in the Built Environment

The Society for Moving Images
in the Built Environment (SMIBE)
Invites You

to their 2009 Film Competition Screening, Story about a Place
and a Showing of the Feature Documentary, The Cool School

Thursday, October 22, at 6:00 PM

MAK Center for Art and Architecture
at the Schindler House
835 N. Kings Rd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

SMIBE is pleased to announce a film screening of last year's "Story about a Place" competition winning film shorts and a screening of the film "The Cool School" directed by Morgan Neville.

At the event they will launch the 2010 film competition "Places that Matter." The 2010 competition is made possible by a grant from the Graham Foundation.

The 2009 film competition called for moving image stories (under 6 minutes) that investigate, explore, and entertain our communities about social, environmental, political, technological, and economic issues that designers of the built world should be discussing. In their inaugural competition they received over 90 entries from 13 countries. There were 4 submissions selected as finalists from the general category and 4 from the student category. Selections from these 8 shorts will be screened at the MAK Center.

The Cool School is an abject lesson in how to build an art scene from scratch and what to avoid in the process. The film focuses on the seminal Ferus Gallery, which groomed the LA art scene from a loose band of idealistic beatniks into a coterie of competitive, often brilliant artists, including Ed Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, Craig Kauffman, Wallace Berman, Ed Moses and Robert Irwin. Ferus also served as launching point for New York imports, Andy Warhol (hosting his first Soup Can show), Jasper Johns, and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as leading to the first Pop Art show and Marcel Duchamp's first retrospective. What was lost and gained is tied up in a complex web of egos, passions, money, and art. This is how LA came of age.

Big City Forum

Big City Forum is a conversation project of creative types, architects, artists, curators, designers, writers, and planners getting together on a regular basis to discuss issues around a creative cities agenda and urbanism.

The next event will be on Nov. 12th at Otis Institute featuring Monica Nouwens (photographer), Marcelo Spina (PATTERNS Arch.) and Ted Kane (Polar Inertia).

Sustainable Urban Network (SUN) Meeting on Monday

(copied from SUN email)

The SUN meeting next week will be Monday (Oct. 19th) at 5pm. We will be discussing the director positions and working groups for the 2009-2010 school year. Meeting location: 3rd floor student lounge.

Here is a list of possible working group topics and activities. Let's think of this as a place to start our conversation on Monday:

1. EAP Curriculum Advisors

2. Green Building Tour

3. Green Careers Outreach

4. Food Class Participation

5. SUN Poster Session/End-of-year social around sustainable thesis/client projects

6. Critical assessment of trends in sustainability:

o Policy

o Energy

o Transportation

7. Seminar on the classical economics of oil; emphasis on the cost-advantage and why price plus oil infrastructure trump current sustainability options.

8. New policies and technologies that may shift the argument in favor of non-oil options:

o Solar feed-in-tariffs (& funding sources for FITs)

o Chinese ?Golden Sun? as model to emulate

o Where is the Green Revolution? Overlooked companies and programs with good odds for success.

9. Tour of Los Angeles Eco Village (Not a project, but fun).

10. Converting part of the UCLA Campus to native vegitation to reduce water consumption (a project).

11. If the green building class runs again in the spring, it would be nice to offer sun students first crack at getting in. It would likely be competitive among planning students.

12. bike/ped class working group

13. I'd be interested in bringing Larry Santoyo to speak - possibly even organize a workshop with him. He's a very dynamic Permaculture Design teacher. He's also brilliant - and hilarious.

14. Dialog surrounding sustainability. Potential to look at how academics and the press/general public, through contemporary articles and news pieces, are framing the concept.

15. Gated communities publicity campaign?

16. Green landscaping advocacy on campus?

Santa Monica Parking Experiment

Just published yesterday. Interesting article and a good read about parking issues in Santa Monica.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-parking-experiment15-2009oct15,0,2933172.story

As New York Adds Housing for Poor, Market Subtracts It

James T. Hadden, a barber, on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, where he lives. He pays $1,300 a month
for a one-bedroom apartment in an area where, he says, there is frequent gunfire.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/nyregion/15housing.html?_r=2&hp

UCLA Public Affairs AIDS Walk Team!

Hey All!

There are a group of us that are doing the AIDS Walk LA this weekend as the team "UCLA School of Public Affairs" It'll be this Sunday, October 18 in West Hollywood.

Please feel free to join our team and walk with us or if you can't make it out but want to help, please donate on our TEAM WEBPAGE.

Thanks and hope to see you out there!

- Shelma

Cinespia Halloween

halloween directed by john carpenter (1978, 93min.) saturday, october 31st one night only! gates at 5:30pm, film at 7:00 pm hollywood forever cemetery 6000 santa monica boulevard at gower no reservation necessary. $10 donation tickets available at gate. as a courtesy to other movie-goers: no tall chairs. This Halloween, join us for a special screening below (and above) the stars. Cinespia presents the original horror masterpiece as part of a special benefit for the debrah hill foundation. cinespia djs spin before and after the screening

Rebel without a Car?

Teens and young adults aren't so enthusiastic about auto ownership, based on their chatter on Twitter, Facebook and other websites, a study by J.D. Power says.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rebel9-2009oct09,0,6635086.story

Jacob Veverka

Master's Candidate in Urban Planning

University of California, Los Angeles

jveverka81@yahoo.com

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." -F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)

Bike vs. Helicopter Challenge in Sao Paolo, Brazil

Check out this awesome video of a bike vs. helicopter challenge in Sao Paolo. A great way to promote bike riding in cities!

[via brooklynbybike.com]

São Paulo has been drowning in a sea of automobiles (6 million and counting). This car-centric urban transport model is showing signs of exhaustion. The average São Paulo inhabitant spends almost three hours a day stuck in traffic jams. That’s about 15 hours a week – or almost 2 working days

Enter, São Paulo Intermodal Challenge. “The challenge: to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible – during rush hour – using the mode of transportation of your choice.” [via PSFK]

Attention baseball fans

Today in non-planning-related topics: I have one extra Dodger playoff ticket for Wednesday's NL Division Series Game 1 vs. St. Louis, and I'd like to give one lucky UCLA UPer an opportunity to join me. Game time is 6:30 pm, but be warned that I always get to the ballpark early. I'm asking $35 for the ticket, or best offer. These are pretty good seats in the Reserved Level behind home plate.

I can even try to make this somewhat relevant for a planner. There's the whole tragic story of the displacement of hundreds of families from Chavez Ravine in the 1950s to talk about, as well as the major public investments happening nearby (LA River, Cornfield State Park, Gold Line), and the general diversity and dynamism (and associated controversies) of the surrounding area.

But the focus of the night will be baseball. Just you, me and 56,000 Dodger faithful. So if you're interested, and don't have a class Wednesday afternoon/evening (sorry, water policy folks!), let me know at nhuffman28@gmail.com. Preferably sooner rather than later.

Full information for the game:

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Saint Louis Cardinals

National League Division Series Game 1

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 6:37 pm

Dodger Stadium

Reserved Level

Section 3

Row N

Seats 9 and 10

$35 or best offer

Free Events in Santa Monica

Source: Sustainable Santa Monica e-Newsletter;
http://www.smgov.net/departments/OSE/Categories/content.aspx?id=5491
__________________________________
Alt Energy and Car Expo
When: Friday and Saturday, October 2 & 3, from 10am to 5pm
Where: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
What: Expo exhibitors will be featuring cutting edge options in alternative vehicles, transportation technologies, alternative and renewable energy, bikes, urban planning, mass transportation, tax rebates and credits, and more. *Includes major bike debuts, free bike repairs and free bike valet*
__________________________________
Greening the Bottom Line
When: Thursday, October 15th, 7:00PM-8:30PM, Doors open at 6:30PM for registration
Where: First United Methodist, 1008 11th street,
Santa Monica CA 90403
Parking: Free in a parking structure across the street from the Church.
What: State Senator Fran Pavley will speak first about current environmental legislation, and special guest Ted Flanigan with Eco Motion will provide information on how to be "green" with city and state grants and rebates. Resource Fair will include: Sustainable Works, Tree People, Municipal Water District, CA Native Plant Society, Sempra Energy and more.
____________________________________________
The Significance of Urban Farming: Fixing Our Broken Food System
When: Thursday, Oct. 8, 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m
Where: Art 214, Santa Monica College Main Campus
What: Presentation by WILL ALLEN, MacArthur "genius" Award recipient ('08), Honored as a Person of the Year by the National Resources Defense Council ('09), and Founder & CEO of Growing Power.
____________________________________________
Santa Monica College Environmental & Urban Issues Lecture Series
All programs start at 6:30pm on Wednesday nights at the Bundy Campus and last at least one hour, plus a question and answer session.
---
Imagining Clean and Efficient Transportation Systems
When & Where: October 14, Bundy 217
What: Transportation and air quality expert Erik Neandross shows us the future of advanced transportation technologies, alternative fuels, AND cleaner air.
---
Introduction to Permaculture Design
When & Where: October 21, Bundy 123
What: Traci Reitz and Westside Permaculture Group show us the basics of ecologically inspired design and how to create sustainable human habitats for our communities with an emphasis on local food production.
____________________________________________
"The Curse of Oil" by Peter Maass
When: Wednesday, October 7, 7:30pm
Where: Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N. Sepulveda Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA
Free Parking on site at North Lot
Reservations are suggested and can be made at: http://zocalopublicsquare.org/upcoming.php?event_id=331.
What: A reading by Peter Maass, New York Times Magazine writer and author of Crude World. Maass visits Zócalo to explore the consequences of gas-guzzling, the paradox of plenty, and how to cure our addiction to oil. Every unhappy oil-producing nation is unhappy in its own way. But each is touched by what's known as the resource curse - the power of oil to harm rather than help the countries that possess it. Around the world oil vastly enriches small ruling classes, degrades the environment, and destabilizes political and economic institutions as prices fluctuate.

Free museum entry this weekend

(photo by balmes on Flickr)

If you didn't have enough to do this weekend, there will be free entry at many Los Angeles museums. Check out the list from laist here.