Geography 595

Techno-fixes and the uncanny October 6, 2008

Here is an op-ed from todays Tribune on GE Meat. Of course we can completely trust a government agency to implement a transparent process for genetic splicing! Of course we actually know what the long term consequences might be of splicing genetic material! Of course this is just the same as pasturization…

Links for Oct. 6 October 6, 2008

Happy Monday!  I am currently grouchy at having to deal with the effects of urban nature via what appears to be a reaction to poison ivy from weeding the backyard.  Urban nature can itch like hell.

• So-called eco-boulevards come one step closer to reality in Chicago.
• A story of state incompetence: Louisiana still hasn’t built any of the “Katrina cottages” it got FEMA money for, even after moving the project from the Housing Finance Agency to the Recovery Authority.
• The Colorado DOT is testing large-scale motion detectors originally designed for prisons to see if they can warn motorists of wildlife crossing the road.
• Organizations and firms in Washington, DC, are “overcoming” traffic congestion by purchasing more fleet vehicles so they can better serve their customers, thus making air pollution even worse.
• A city employee in Fort Myers, FL, spends his days mowing the lawns of abandoned homes so the weeds don’t bring down property values and hide vermin.
• “Ecologists say it is extremely rare to see a cougar in the wild. But the line between backyards and wilderness is becoming more blurred. The elusive cougar, native in Illinois a century ago, is heading back to the Midwest from overcrowded habitats in the Rockies and Black Hills.”

Links for Sept. 29 September 29, 2008

• Good old-fashioned reporting still exists: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent millions of dollars to assess the dangers that air pollution poses but has failed to fulfill promises to make the research more accessible to the public. So the Tribune is posting the information on its Web site, where users can easily find nearby polluters and the chemicals going into their air.”  Over the last six years of data, Cook County ranked worst in the nation four times.
• The Governator signs 10 wildfire-related bills, one requiring residents of wildfire-prone areas to maintain a 100-foot clear perimeter around their houses.  Sounds like Bakker’s criticism of the Katrina response for focusing too much on individuals.
• College students deal with new “green” features in their dorm rooms (and come off as sounding pretty lazy in the article).
• An attempt at eating local for a week in Dallas brings to mind Colten’s call for looking at local circumstances while considering broader structural issues.  “And by embracing the you-are-where-you-eat mantra of localism, I felt, perhaps for one of the few times since leaving my family’s farm, a connection to a city.”

Links for Sept. 25 September 25, 2008

Here’s some blog posts and news articles of interest:

• “Urban foraging” and “guerrilla gardening” from Worldchanging.com
• One of this year’s MacArthur Foundation Genius Grants is going to an urban farmer from Growing Power, and this short piece from Next American City talks about how rare (and welcome) it is for the MacArthur to focus on cities.
• A classic “only in New York” article about bringing landscape architecture indoors in a Manhattan penthouse.
• Galveston residents return to see their destroyed houses, including one woman who left New Orleans after losing her house to Katrina.
• Munster, IN: “First, the winds came, then the floods, an explosion and a fire. Now, the mosquitoes are setting in.”  Note the last line of the story in particular.
• “Nearby, a silent stranger lurks: a poisonous plant that has some residents concerned that its presence on the active, state-run Savin Hill beachfront presents a danger to toddlers and teenagers.”
• Eight people try to go for two weeks without generating any trash.  None of them makes it more than three days.

ETA: One more with some really interesting implications for property owners: according to the Texas Open Beaches Act, “the strip of beach between the average high-tide line and the average low-tide line is considered public property, and buildings are illegal there.”  Now that Ike has removed significant amounts of sand, there are now hundreds of houses that are illegally located on the beach, but it’ll take a year of watching the tides rise and fall to determine which houses will be seized by the state.

Links for Sept. 8 September 8, 2008

This first one may be a little bit of a stretch, but it is about the urban-nature interface…

• The hunt for the Jersey Devil goes on (remember that X-Files episode?)
• Louisiana continues to lose land due to human activities: “one-fifth of what once was the 10,000-square-mile Mississippi River delta has turned into open water”
• “Who would suffer more from the landmark clean trucks program set to begin Oct. 1: the trucking industry or residents affected by toxic diesel emissions?”  L.A. attempts to regulate truck emissions at the largest port in the country.

Links for Sept. 5 September 5, 2008

As you’ve probably noticed, not all of these links have to do with the readings of the week, but with topics we’ll hit later on in the semester.

• First, on the theme of animal geographies in the Los Angeles area, bobcats move in to an abandoned foreclosed home on the eastern fringe of the metro.
• New York City offers tax abatements to building owners to install green roofs.
• Is urban sustainability equivalent to gentrification?  Here’s another piece on the Williamsburg area of NYC and the clash between existing residents and new residents of urban redevelopment in the name of sustainability.

Links for Sept. 4 September 4, 2008

Wouldn’t you know that once the roofers finally come to my house, remove the shingles, and put up the tar paper, then it rains for the first time in over a month?  Now that’s the urban uncanny.

• From the Tribune, fake vs. real nature in suburban downtowns.
• Problems with city agencies following “drought buster” laws in Los Angeles.
• Radioactive waste and gentrification in Brooklyn.
• Connections across space matter: power lines blamed for three of last year’s San Diego County wildfires.

Update: On this date in 1830, the first platted lots along the I&M Canal route were sold.

Links for Sept. 2 September 2, 2008

Hi all,

Here are some interesting/relevant news stories I’ve come across:

• The concept of a water footprint or virtual water.  Key quote: “Only 38 percent of the UK’s total water use comes from its own rivers, lakes and groundwater reserves.”
• Urban gardening in Mexico City.  Key quote: “Under the rule of the ancient Aztecs, Mexico City was a maze of canals and floating gardens that grew corn and beans to feed the masses.”  (Can you see a story about U.S. urban agriculture talking about Native American crops?)
• Privatization of infrastructure may start happening soon in the U.S., at least for transportation.  Opening quote: “Cleaning up road kill and maintaining runways may not sound like cutting-edge investments. But banks and funds with big money seem to think so.”

Feel free to add additional links as a comment or as your own post.