• Helping local communities adapt to global issues (i.e. climate change, water management, food security, high-density urban living, equity, biodiversity)
• Focus on intersection land use, economy and ecology
• Creative and challenging, experimentation and adventure
• Researching complex systems, finding simplicity and elegance in solutions
• Not at the same desk everyday
• Variety of tasks: design, analysis, graphics, words, communication, introverted focus, research, interpretation, proposing new ideas/vision along with discussion and refinement, experiments
• Working within an effective organization with inspiring, motivated colleagues.
• Independence in approach and process, dependence in terms of outcomes
• Active

urban lab growing water

I like Chicago’s city motto: urbs in horto.

Urban rainwater, in order to be harvested, reused or re-introduced into our rivers and lakes, must be filtered. The proposal of eco-boulevards focuses on biofiltration of rainwater as integrated, distributed urban infrastructure. How can we begin to make this happen? Does the Bay Area need an urban eco-lab?

The concrete pool is the creek, a prime example of integrated urban and natural resource. Could this be a repeatable practice for removing sediment and providing recreation? Or is it a management intensive imposition on the creek?

I just read Bill McKibben’s call for using a numerical target as a universal alarm bell signaling our need to lower our carbon emissions. The number 350 represents the upper limit for a “safe” amount of carbon dioxide (in parts per million) to stop the unpredictable unraveling of our global ecosystem from human induced climate change. Today we’re at 385 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

He’s launched a global campaign to create change, to motivate people and politicians to make personal and policy changes needed to reduce our carbon emissions. It’s at 350.org.

I need to find out details of this creek restoration and design, especially how all the urban hardscaping holds up during floods. Do they remove the steel fish sculpture during high flows? Do the bridges back up with debris? The channel does not look very wide, although it is deep. I think that the city unearthed a culvert to daylight this creek. This area near the historic Mission and plaza seems like the center of human activity.

http://www.baylocalize.org/webgallery/thumbnails.php?album=11

NyTimes Article: Prague’s emergency floodwalls held up during Summer 2002 floods. From the article:

“I thank God and the wall,” said Rabbi Sidon as he looked up at his temporary sanctuary, the 19th-century Jerusalem Synagogue. The wall, which rescue workers named the Wall of Hope, is a fence of interlocking aluminum slats that was hurriedly put into place on the bank of the Vltava as floodwaters began to rise on Monday.

By today, the local tabloid Blesk had crowned its builder, a Moravian businessman named Ladislav Srubek, as “the man who saved Prague.” Foundations for the $2,000,000 wall, designed by a German firm after floods hit the city of Cologne a decade ago, were put in place several years ago. “It’s not a miracle, it’s just a smart piece of engineering,” Mr. Srubek said in a telephone interview. He said plans and permits had been in place to extend the wall to other parts of the city, but it had not been a
priority for the local government.

The substantial costs of flood walls can be justified by the value of commercial property thus protected from damage caused by flooding. Flood walls are almost solely used in cities, notably:

• Cologne, Germany
• Nijmegen, the Netherlands
• Deventer, the Netherlands
• Kampen, the Netherlands
• Huntington, West Virginia
• Portsmouth, Ohio
• St. Louis, Missouri
• Louisville, Kentucky
• Cincinnati, Ohio
• Morgan City, Louisiana
• New Orleans, Louisiana and
• Richmond, Virginia.
• Williamson, West Virginia
• South Williamson, Kentucky

Owning a home in walkable neighborhoods saves residents $300 to $400 a month, up to 4,800 a year, on gas expenses alone, according to research by the Congress for the New Urbanism.

A recent Forbes article focuses on access to mass transit as a major factor in America’s Most Fuel-Efficient Neighborhoods. You can rate the walkability of any neighborhood via walkscore.com, just enter an address. While public transit is tremendously important, walkability seems critical to reducing our carbon footprint.

Blogs to keep an eye on:
http://www.livablestreets.com/
http://neighborhoods.org/