Tag: Urban

Students Cleanup Their ‘Hood

Students at Spain Middle School, which is nowhere near Spain, in fact the school is in Detroit Michigan. Detroit is renowned for it’s urban areas that are falling apart, well these kids had enough. For a school project they utilized technologies used by NASA and marketing corporations, GIS – also known as Geographic Information Systems.

They went around their neighborhoods documenting all things wrong. They plotted the location of say an abandoned car and took a picture of it and went on to the next sign of urban blight. After collecting all their data they took the next logical step.

“They students have compiled their material into Power Point presentations for Detroit city council members, highlighting areas that have been neglected and need improvement. They were able to show, for example, that the number of abandoned homes in one neighborhood had increased by more than 50 percent. The Wayne County prosecutors’ office began targeting the area.”

With GIS technology becoming more accessible hopefully we can see it used for more projects like this and maybe for tracking environmental damage too.

Super Efficient House Uses 800 Watt Hours/Day

The Treehugger website is running some good news on an ultra-efficient model home.

This house has the conveniences of a modern house, but consumes only 800Whr on average per day. Compare this to a typical U.S. suburban house that uses 45 kilowatt hours (kWh) per day. How is this reduction possible? It’s through the strategic use of ultra-efficient appliances, daylighting, and green design principles for temperature control and ventilation.

The house also automatically turns off computer peripherals when not in use.

Sod Off!

sod wheelSome enterprising grad students at Dalhousie in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have taken the park on the road. The architecture students were exploring the concept of public and green space and came up with this groovy way to always walk on the grass!

“”We’re looking at the idea of green space in the city,” said grad student Kevin James. “Even in the Public Gardens, you’re not allowed to walk on the grass.”

Halifax Downtown Coun. Dawn Sloane says they’re right, except for the Public Gardens statement. In fact, playing on the grass is allowed in the children’s area, but the problem is nobody knows about it.

“I think our biggest issue right now is that not only is our green space being utilized for some of the wrong reasons, but they’re under- utilized by the communities, and we do need more,” she said.”

The concept isn’t perfect because when the sod is over your head dirt falls on you. If the concept really dries up then maybe they’ll turn it into a hot tub.

Urban Etiquette Handbook

Being proper in an urban setting is not that hard, but it’s always fun to have a guide to see if you are doing it “right.” The New York Metro has released an Urban Etiquette Handbook. What better city than New York to write a guide like this considering they are the most polite?

The basics of the list:
(1) No raking women with your eyes; glance quickly and respectfully.
(2) Offer to share a taxi rather than fight over it.
(3) Babies in strollers get right-of-way—until they abuse it.
(4) Still no ogling girls—c’mon!
(5) And skateboarding, are you kidding me?
(6) Not everybody loves your dog as much as you do.
(7) No bicycling on the sidewalk unless under the age of 6.
(8) Pedestrians can die of secondhand smoke, too”