Affordable Housing: Going Above and Beyond with New Innovations

As I looked through different housing projects on Affordable Housing Design Advisor, what really struck me was how this innovative thought process focused on creating better more livable and sustainable affordable housing really makes diverse living styles available to people that would otherwise not exist. It is not just that these projects make these experiences available to people with lower incomes; in reality they are creating new living experiences altogether. One facet of these communities that I saw exemplified in all the projects I looked at was an intense focus on community building and participation. 

In the Murphy Ranch project there are walkways that meander through the development, separate from vehicular traffic and allowing extensive access to all parts of the community. There are also office spaces, meeting rooms, community kitchens and more. I am betting that reason a lot of these amenities were put in place were not necessarily just to help strengthen the community, like the computer lab was probably put in place for families that do not have access to their own computer or wifi, but amenities like this bring people together and may lead to occupant run classes and tutoring and business and more. 

Another thing that I really enjoyed seeing was how these developments were designed first to fill a need of affordable housing, but without that label on them, you might just think that someone was designing this housing only to meet a goal of sustainability. Every project goes above and beyond with multitudes of “green features”. The Bridgeton Revitalization project boasts sustainable design aspects as deceptively simple as large windows and deep eaves (passive heating and cooling), and some more technical aspects like sustainable appliances and fixtures, and panelized construction. The Cobb Hill project has created yet another amazing community ideal. The community was designed to incorporate the agricultural landscape that surrounds it and aid in new organic farming ventures. What I really liked seeing in the project was how it restored preexisting farms, which included barns and farmhouses. They even included grey water collection and reuse into the design!: "Cobb Hill utilizes  70% less water than   Vermont standards require."

Words that I hate and will think less of you If you Use

Cohort
Synergy
Lexicon
Praxis
Symposium (hah.. ha.. haaaaaa)

Remember people: jargon is a never truly helpful for anyone involved.
and, yes, when you talk ceaselessly about your cohort you do indeed sound like a pompous ass.

Words from George Orwell himself:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. 
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. 
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. 
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active. 
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. 
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
   

I never did like Animal Farm all that much... but this guy is starting to grow on me

Vicki Bennett, Mayor’s Symposium, and everything in between

It seems like all the women involved with sustainability and planning in our city are very empowered individuals. Women like Vicki Bennet, who works in our SLC Office of Sustainability (I believe she is the director actually),  show what it takes to become successful and effective in work concerning the future health and function of our city, especially as a woman. I think, from what I have seen, that it must take a lot of chutzpah, a good understanding of reality, kindness, and a strong piercing gaze. I really enjoyed the way that our class was able to interact with Vicki. Instead of having a planned speech, students were able to just ask questions and we ended up having a conversation and a relaxed and open experience. This is good. The only thing that I wish could have been different was the amount of pussyfooting that took place, and that always takes place in conversations like these.

It comes from no person in particular, but there is always a sense of wariness as everyone tries to figure out just how forward thinking and pragmatic one can be in each particular conversation. We all know that when talking about global warming and becoming more green minded in this city, you have to be careful because more often than not there are a lot of people ready to become very disagreeable at the first sign of this “hippy environmentalist crap.”  Unfortunately, we seem to take this wariness with us even when surrounded by likeminded people and it takes awhile for this sense of unease to wear off. Usually it is not until the end of these encounters that people start asking the hard questions and giving good, strong, tough answers.

I went the the Mayor’s Symposium on Green and Blue planning yesterday and I witnessed this phenomena take place there. It wasn’t until the end when everyone had gotten the feel of the land that we started to hear people really question each other and really talk about what is going on in the community that gathers for these type of things: That is, planning, sustainability, and generally environmentally concerned individuals, and government type people who may fall under any of the preceding categories. What It finally cam down to was the idea that we haven’t yet got a plan for how to move forward in this city, and we don’t know if this progress needs to be made with swift large spontaneous action, or slower more gentle leading and community involvement. These two things aren’t mutually exclusive and there should probably ultimately be a combination of both things taking place. Every planning and or sustainable conversation that I have been a part of has culminated with some form of this one dilemma always sneaking its way to the forefront (as well as a gaggle of others).

Our conversation with Ms. Bennet or Vicki, I am not sure what she goes by, did also meet this dilemma because honestly there are very few questions that can be asked of her that won’t have a semi ambiguous answer unless one establishes whether we are to act boldly (and a little bit illegally) with great swaths of change or take those smaller leading steps (which in my mind may not be fast enough). Oh, BUT, I did come away from this meeting having been thoroughly convinced that Vicki should be our new mayor because when it comes down to it she really didn't tiptoe around issues all that much and when asked a good solid question gave a good solid answer. Also, she did say something along the lines of—> Lets get rid of Rocky Mountain Power and pay the real price for the energy we consume HURRAH.

Where to sit?

     I consider my Green Communities class to be the most openminded and progressive of my classes. I know we can talk about just about anything in there and come away feeling at least somewhat enlightened and without any hurt feelings. This is why I was surprised and yet at the same time unsurprised at the results of physically splitting the class by gender for a portion of our time last thursday. As people sat on one side of the room or the other spending on how they identified, male or female, a kind of tension arose that many of my peers pointed out was strange and unsettling. None of us really seemed to expect one thing or another from the division, but I believe that we were all taken by surprise at how much of a change we felt.

     It is apparent that we still segregate men and women in many ways in our society whether it be by the types of clothing we can shop for or the bathrooms we use or in the judgement of how much a person’s time and work is worth, and although the term segregate is avoided at all costs at present, I believe it is the right one to use now. In high school there was often a voluntarily followed non spoken rule that boys and girls would form their own clusters and stick to them in class, extracurriculars, PE, the lunch room … wherever really. This is completely outside the equally apparent trend for these same kids to separate themselves into any number of other subgroups such as race, age, and others. There seemed to be a certain comfort that came with sitting among people of the same gender, even if they weren’t necessarily friends. I can’t explain it, but it’s a problem! Not because it is wrong to find comfort in sharing space with people of the same gender, but because these early decisions of self segregation only reinforce gender inequality all the way down the road. 

     In our class I have never felt like I was a lesser of two genders. There has never been a time when I felt like them men held more power in the room. The women in our class are just as outspoken and confident, if not more so than the men. And Yet. Once we divided ourselves and set about having a chat about how it made us feel, there was a point made that I feel is a completely valid one: In academics, women feel pressure to try harder to keep the same standing as what men inherently have (again something unspoken that I feel to be true, even though no one demands it). Maybe this is true in our class as well. This outspokenness  that I have seen, the confidence as well, is maybe a sign of the pressures put on women to become “as good as” men. Then this need for confidence can be a good thing, but if it comes from a lack of equality, even one that is unspoken and/or unintentional, then it can quickly become a burden that discourages women from pursuing academics. When we divided ourselves in class this inequality that may never have been have been felt or discussed otherwise was actually recognized. Somehow the tension made us more able to speak about this issue and ones like it, but at the end of the day it was nice to go back to sitting wherever, genders be damned. 

Singapore: Biophilic city

     The video Singapore: Biophilic City gives me a feeling akin to culture shock. To see a city that has embraced this feeling of biophilia wholeheartedly is to see what I want my home to be. The urban integrated natural spaces seems as normal as breathing in Singapore. I know that it probably wasn’t all peaches transforming Singapore into what it is today, but it now seems as though the city could never be any other way. When Kelvin Kan, green wall designer in Singapore, spoke about his first implemented green wall, and how the idea for his design came into place I felt inspired by the amount of passion that you can hear in his voice talking about his work. The results of his project are so obviously successful; it is crazy to me that his style of green walls aren’t implemented all over the world. His goal of creating a lively green space was completely recognized, and I loved his description of the place as “the cathedral of green."

     Liak Teng Lit, Ceo of Singapore hospital, speaks about the garden space implemented in the hospital he works in, there were a few things that he said that I was surprised, pleasantly so, to hear.  While I can really appreciate that green space is great to incorporate into healing spaces, what I really enjoyed hearing was Lit speak about was how this green space incorporated into the hospital is a space that should be shared and open to the public and animals, not just kept for patients. As Lit says, "We should maximize the utility of this whole space… We want the birds here.. If you do this the birds will come, if you do that the butterflies will come.” I absolutely love how everyone in the film puts a large emphasis on the importance of bringing birds and insects and other wildlife into the shared green spaces of Singapore: “We, on purpose, plant trees that will attract birds, hopefully to attract hundreds of species of birds, and the fish” —Rosalind Tan.

  

     All of the people spoken to in this film are not only passionate about biophilia and biodiversity, but are so knowledgeable about these biophilic areas that they work within. It seems so obvious to them the benefits of the transformations taking place in Singapore and the need for this kind of work to take place. If we could transplant that passion and that attitude here in the US I can just imagine what we could do. Mohan Krishnamoorthy, primary school teacher in Singapore, has an attitude that I wish all planners could understand. Sometimes all you need to do to get something beautiful and functional created is to.. just do it:  “it wasn’t planned.. you’ve got a blank canvas, just start drawing … it’s not rocket science… It is nothing to design, plants grow if you give them what they need.” Let’s just do it!

SLC a Good Community?

     Freiburg, Germany is one of the many places around the world that has responded with strength, vitality, and ingenuity to catastrophe and destruction. After WWII, Freiburg had to rebuild not only its physical structures but its spirit and image as well. What they have made of themselves as an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable city is a pretty damn impressive example of good planning. Places like Freiburg thrive because their citizens decide what is going to happen with their open space, their streets, their energy, and much more. I think that one positive side that comes from the sad situation of having to restart a community after a disaster, is that the whole community gets to be involved with each new detail that happens, and with the infrastructure that is put in place. Here in SLC we work from old infrastructure and add on bits and pieces without any real community movement behind any one decision. 

     Community involvement is an aspect that makes Freiburg stand out to me and I believe that it is something that my community in Salt Lake City could learn from. I live directly downtown at about 2nd West 2nd South, looking the Salt Palace (our convention center) dead in the eyes. It always feels to me like the decisions made in this city that largely effect the people who live and work in the area are made by, well, not us… and are made for, well, not us. This is a critical part of what makes Salt Lake City what it is, for while we are really good at hosting people to our city, we often do not consider what it would take to make this area (which will soon be home to many many more people) an engaging enjoyable place to live long term. We do function as hosts to tens of thousands of people with each of the larger conventions that comes to our city, not to mention other social (spiritual etc.) events that come to our city every year. 

     My neighbors and neighborhood business owners are all affected by this and more often than not are putting their efforts into making sure the little part of the city they are responsible for is ready and able to host people from out of state. Why wouldn’t they be? The community makes a lot of money! But this way of thinking does not always promote good decision making for the community. Prices for food, goods, housing, and parking all go up for everyone during these times when we have an influx of visitors. I often feel shunted aside as a local when I visit my favorite shops during convention time because servers and store owners know (or at least think they know) that convention attendees spend lots and tip large. My community is doing pretty great economically, but socially? environmentally? Well, it seems like there is hardly a thought in those directions unless it is for our “guests."

Biophilic City

    Growing up, I always felt connected to nature in one way or another. When I lived in San Diego as a little girl I developed a strong connection to the ocean and the many benefits of sharing space with it. Now, as a Utahn, I cannot imagine life without all the natural spaces the mountains provide. One thing that I think Utahns can pride themselves on is this connection to nature, and even though Salt Lake City is not biophilic by some standards, you can bet for sure that everyone around has a love for nature (in one way or another) in their hearts. I find that Utahns are also always looking for ways to incorporate the natural Utah environment into their daily lives, whether through their gardens or through the architectural design of their buildings. As we learn more about being efficient and environmentally friendly here in Salt Lake City, more and more people recognize the potential for beauty and life in the natural desert climate without imposing what we think our needs are on it.

     In his film,The Nature of Cities, Timothy Beatley shows green urbanism at its very best, presenting communities that are successfully incorporating the natural environment into their towns and neighborhoods and even their very homes. The greatest takeaway from this movie for me is the impact that these practices seem to have on the people who get to enjoy them. It almost seems like incorporating nature into the daily lives of the people brings them back a hundred years to a time when we gave ourselves more freedom to explore, and not just go from designated place to designated place. Often I find myself going from home to school to gym to home and nowhere else living in our city. I forget that there are other places that are open to me like parks and trails, although perhaps not as many accessible public outdoor spaces as there should be. I feel like most space that I see in my daily life is private and/or unwelcoming. In these biophilic places that Beatley presents in his movie, people aren’t scared to walk around, run around, bike around because they have natural public spaces that belong to the community, whether it is right in the middle of the neighborhood, or weaving between city buildings. Parking in front of buildings? Nah, walkways and gardens instead.  

     We as human being yearn to connect with other living systems. That is what the Biophilia Hypothesis by Edward O. Wilson says. Perhaps the tenseness and isolation found in so many urban spaces today is caused by our lack of connection with other living systems and can be relieved by the reintroduction of plant and animal habitat into our spaces. I think that opening the spaces we have claimed for ourselves up for nature to come back and take a place in our lives could do nothing but good. It is a selfish idea to think that the spaces where we live should only support human life, and it is also an unfortunate one, for it disconnects us from the earth.

Bicycle Mobility in Salt Lake City

     

     It seems like everyone that I spend time with is comfortable biking in Salt Lake City. My partner is a bicycle courier, my mother does Triathlons and trains in the city, and my dad uses his bike to get from place to place. This is CRAZY to me. I enjoy riding, but I don’t think I’ve been on a bike in Salt Lake City since I turned 12. Even on slower traffic days, I don’t feel safe even as a pedestrian, let alone as someone who has to constantly compete for road space with cars and buses (buses are great, but they can be terrifying to be around.. bus drivers just go). I think that my lack of confidence in my safety continues to get worse every year as I continue to not bike. Do I have the stability to signal with one hand off the handlebars? I don’t really think so. 

     Wouldn’t it be great if I could have a wide protected bike path or even a separate bikeway where I could learn to be comfortable on a bike again, and hardly ever have to worry about cars? I think so. I feel shamed whenever my partner asks me to go on a bike ride with him downtown and I say no. I don’t know if I should feel comfortable biking on our city roads. I don’t and that makes me feel like I am missing out on something that I shouldn’t be. I mentioned that my mom is an avid biker. She’s been in bike/car collisions many times as a biker, but just recently I asked her about a small dent in her car door, only to find out that she and a biker collided because of a lack of bike lane and a misunderstanding about a right hand turn. If you know my mother, then you know that this would NEVER have happened except for the complete lack of infrastructure around biker safety. Bikers feel like they have no space for themselves on the roads and sometimes make risky decisions because that is the only way to get where they need to go. 

Copenhagen Rocks. Look at that happy baby.

     I really feel that if we made safe space for cyclists (for ourselves as cyclists) on our streets that downtown would be a better place. This is where I spend most of my time, and I think that the more bikers we have feeling comfortable on our roads, the less car traffic there would be. The less car traffic, the healthier people would be, and the easier it would be to get around on foot. I would definitely ride everywhere that I currently take public transit to if I felt safe doing so. If bicycle riding was an accessible transportation option for people, I think that mental health quality would be greatly increased in Salt Lake City A) because you mentally realize that you are becoming more fit when you’re physically exerting yourself, B) because increased blood flow is good for you in general, C) because being able to see people as individuals as they go from one place to another is much better than seeing a mass of cars, and D) because, as my partner says, “bikes just make people happy."

Dumb Design for Mobility (Public space and Bus transit)

     One of the major mobility issues I see in the city is the immense amount of space solely devoted to the automobile, to the detriment of every other mode of transport. This means that people walking or riding their bikes have very little designated space. This is frustrating to me because as a person who likes to walk downtown a lot it can be annoying to have to skirt the edges of traffic and go out of your way to find paths and safe areas to be. The quality of sidewalks makes this even worse; while roads will be repaved or repaired almost every year most sidewalks in the city will be left in horrible conditions for years at a time, to the point where they are nearly completely unusable, especially for people with physical disabilities. It also feels like construction disproportionately affects pedestrians. There are several areas downtown on Main and State Street where sidewalks have been taken over by construction crews and replaced with narrow, shoddy wooden walkways or pushed out onto the street. More and more space in the city is being designated for roads and parking, and spaces where people could once spend time are now only available for automobiles which take up an immense amount of space even when they’re only transporting one person.

     To address this issue we need to focus on ways of getting people out of their cars and onto their feet. I like incentives for walking and I also support the idea of returning downtown to the people. There are already several ways cities try to cut down on driving: higher gas taxes, congestion tolls on busy days, tolls for driving on days that already have bad air. You can also make walking, biking, and public transit more attractive by offering tax incentives, discounts, and events that encourage sustainable behavior (maybe a “Don’t Bring Your Car to Work” day). Another way to incentivize other modes of transport is to simply make these options more viable and more on par with the ease of car travel. This means putting out more buses; having shorter waits in between each bus or train; and having safer, more enjoyable, and more beautiful sidewalks and bike paths.

     You can also boot out cars entirely and start designating downtown pathways solely for the use and enjoyment of pedestrians and cyclists. This would decrease the amount of space for cars instead of giving cars more space. As we focus more on putting emphasis on public transportation and biking and walking we can focus less on creating more spaces for cars to be in the city and the university so that we can use that space for more important things. Less public space will be set aside for the automobile. So many of the roads downtown are already nearly worthless for car travel (traveling north on Main Street by car can easily take longer than TRAX or even walking depending on the day, but people still do it) that reclaiming them and turning them into pedestrian only spaces would be a quick and easy process that would make the city immensely better for the people that live here.
--------------------------------------------

A simple solution here would be to have this stop labeled with the bus routes that can stop here

Why isn't it?

I take the bus every day to school and so this is the main form of transit that I am exposed to. Our bus systems in Salt Lake City are run by UTA, and they provide a website where you are supposed to be a be to access information and plan out your trip in order to get from one destination to another. The first issue that I see with the bus systems is this website. The trip planner does not recognize many addresses that exist in SLC and even areas that are right along specific bus routes will not be recognized. Another reason that the website is not helpful for people planning their trips is the lack of information about routes. Each route has a schedule provided, but each schedule only has a handful of the stop listed. This is ridiculous because it means you have to roughly estimate when your bus will get to a stop you are not sure even exists (often the time gap between labeled stops is 20 minutes!), and even if the stop does exist, you will not know for sure if the bus even stops there. This is extremely irritating because the majority of the bus stops downtown are not even labeled with all the buses that may stop there! Agh. How is a person from out of town supposed to get around?
First solution: put bus route numbers on all bus signs
Second solution: put bus times on bus signs, park city has a simple system that labels bus signs with minutes after the hour that a bus will be at the stop. It's great!
Third solution: have every bus stop applicable to a specific bus route labeled on schedules provided on time. 

Dumb Design

     Dumb design is design that doesn't fulfill its purpose. It is design that doesn't work for the people have to use it, and often just doesn't function at all. When I think of dumb design I think about the documentary The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, and what William Whyte and his team discovered about what is necessary for a successful gathering space. His observations really emphasize how most city plaza lack any functional design and are really only created to look good, take up space, and lead up to a building. These kinds of dysfunctional spaces are easy to see all over the place. There are so many office buildings in downtown Salt Lake City that appear to have attempted to create sitting areas for their employees that are never used, or areas that are so-called parks that certainly look more like an area that nobody is welcome in. The Salt Palace, for instance, on the south-east corner of the block has a wide open paved area with a few trees which is approximately .235 acres or 10,000 feet. This space is edged with sidewalk on both sides, and considering its location, proximity to many restaurants and office buildings, and amount of time it spends unused, it would be a great place to have some tables and chairs and shaders so that people could use it as a place to sit and eat and absorb some sunlight. I for one live very close by and wouldn't mind having a place to meet people, or snack, or do homework. This location would also be a great place for food trucks to congregate because it does get a lot of foot traffic and, as I said before, it is so close to many offices. Currently there is one food truck that will stop in this location occasionally but the more the better. I don't know if food trucks need to get permission from Salt Palace management to be on premisses, and I don't know if parking on the street by the curb is even considered being on premisses.

    Another place where I see dumb design is with some of the choices made regarding TRAX stop design and TRAX line placement. Obviously, all TRAX stops should have mid-block crossing available. Any implemented urban design that causes people to feel the need to put themselves in danger in order to get where they are going is dysfunctional and needs to be reworked. There are many TRAX stops that have walls and fences up in order to keep people from getting to them instead of making them safely accessible via midblock crosswalks. This seems completely counterintuitive and illogical to me.   I have missed so many trains just because I had to walk all the way up a block to cross then only to have to walk all the way back down the stop  to a location I could have reached so much faster if I could have just crossed to it. I have seen people almost get run over by cars and trains just to get to the stop before the train. This is obviously a problem. Another issue I see is the lack of covering and human friendly seating over the majority of TRAX stations. While there are coverings, the space they cover is small and mostly taken up with the supports it takes to hold it up. The seating under these is usually taken by 1 or 2 people and after that people chose to stand out in the elements rather than sit close to others. This can be seen as a design problem as well as just a people problem (come on people lets not avoid human contact so desperately. Hah.). The last problem I have with TRAX is the positioning of the Red line as it goes through campus. The positioning is an issue because for some reason the line skirts the edge, and only on one side, of this ridiculously sprawling campus. This mean that if you need to get anywhere in the center or on the other side of campus, TRAX is really unhelpful for you. This is not just a transportation issue, but a social justice issue as well. TRAX could be a great option for people with physical disabilities as far as getting around campus if only it got people anywhere near where they need to go. As it is, it is just not accessible enough. If we had a line that went directly through the middle of campus as well as to the dorms this would alleviate much of the dysfunction.

Green Organic City

   

     I think that in a green organic city people would be mindful of how any expansion affects the  surrounding environment. It is important in a green city that new buildings are built to a certain standard. Green buildings are built to be environmentally responsible and energy efficient. This means not only once it’s up and running but also while it is being planned and built. The demolition of buildings needs to be sustainably done as well. As many materials as possible should be recycled and reused, waste should be minimized. There are many materials that can be recycled from demolished buildings like piping, furniture, bricks, and wood.  When new buildings are constructed there are certain steps that can be taken in order to ensure a sustainable and durable building is created. It is important to take these steps when retrofitting an old building as well, which is almost always preferable to just replacing it with a new one. Become LEED certified is one way to ensure that buildings are environmentally friendly as well as productive in society. Another step that can be taken is having a Life Cycle Assessment done to understand the impacts that a building is going to have. It is important not to focus on building according to best practices but on instead the actual measured outcomes of certain strategies.

     Living in a green city would also mean having a large focus on urban agriculture. Urban agriculture offers access to healthy food for the entire community. Many communities have a serious social justice issue involving who has access to healthy food and who does not. Often in poorer areas of a city there are many less grocery stores that provide good meal options and many more quick stop stores like Seven Eleven which provide less nutritious and plentiful options for meals. another major issue in many communities is the price of healthy food. Organically grown food, while become somewhat more plentiful, is still out of reach for many individuals. Urban agriculture provides healthier food for the entire community as well as offering the infrastructure for people to have a place and what support they may need in order to grow their own food. This way food security can go way up in a community. This would go a long way to fixing certain inequalities that existing communities have. Other benefits of urban farming and agriculture include reducing blight in crops, building the local economy, job creation, and physical well being.

     I believe that green cities should inevitably become more enjoyable for its occupants as the community strives to be sustainable and considerate of the environment. Green cities should have high walkability and accessible eco-friendly transit. They should offer enjoyable and productive living space that is also beautiful (an easy way to achieve beautiful living spaces is to incorporate plants that are likely to thrive in the area without outcompeting others). Architecture in a green cite should be designed and implemented with the health and happiness of citizens in mind, as well as sustainability. Incorporation of natural elements such as natural light into new buildings is a great way increase sustainability as well as health and beauty in a certain building. green cities would also keep in mind that waste is never waste and always has a place to be productive in the community. Businesses and citizens should work together to make the most of what they have. 

Solastalgia and Solaphilia

  

Kennecott Copper Mines   

Sometimes I feel really sad on the days where the mountains are mostly just a blurry grey purple place on the horizon. Sometimes I look at the Kennecott Copper Mines and wonder what the mountains must have looked like before. Sometimes I am just darned upset because I cannot see the stars. These feelings that I have can be explained by solastalgia. Solastalgia can be taken to mean a lot of different things. It can be the distress caused by environmental change and specifically by ecosystem distress. It can also just be the feeling of homesickness or the feeling of loss at being taken away from one’s own land. 

     As Glenn Albrecht, a professor of sustainability and philosopher, says “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault… a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at ‘home.’” Solaphilia it is not just caused by destruction caused by humans. Places like Haiti that endure natural disasters like a 7.0 magnitude earthquake are places that have endured major ecosystem distress. As people attempt to find their feeling of place that they once had within these areas, there is the realization that their home is no longer home. 

     Solaphilia is love of place. This is what you feel when you are experiencing the place you call home or a place that you care about. I feel solaphilia about Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake and The Avenues and Main Street in Utah. Sometimes this love of place stems from the natural ecosystems that exist, and sometimes is stems from what human interaction has created within these areas. Even Glenn Albrecht speaks about the places people feel solastalgia and solaphilia for and describes alfalfa fields and dairy farms; places that would not exist without human intervention. This is interesting because if you can feel solaphilia around ecosystems untouched by humans and ecosystems that are predominantly influenced by human beings, then you have to wonder what specifically causes solastalgia for people if its not human interaction and alteration of ecosystems directly. Some places that are beautiful and cause people to feel solaphilia are places that were created through the destruction of ecosystems.

Mid Block Cross-Walks in SLC

West Temple and 150 South

This is a mid block crosswalk that I use on average about twice a day. This crosswalk is the best way to cross if you need to get over from the Salt Palace to City Creek Center or vice versa (thinking as a convention attendee. Well, they all use the light but they should cross here). I guess it is probably (kind of) safer to cross at the light up the block but this is always faster and much less confusing for pedestrians and drivers, although this assumes that you have the attention of the driver as the pedestrian. I like this crosswalk BUT you have to be willing to walk defensively. And sometime offensively. You’ve got to know how to stare down drivers in a friendly but dominant manner that lets them know you ain’t messin’ around. If you act like you don’t know what you are doing and you are trying to get across the street say, around lunch time, you’re going to be sore out of luck and a lot safer at a crosswalk with a light. 

Anyway, this crosswalk has no flags, but it does have a crossing light signal. The yellow flashing kind that doesn’t do much during the day. It especially doesn’t do much when you cannot activate it from one side of the street and only one side flashes, which happens to be the case with this particular crossing. It is better than nothing though. I have almost gotten hit  2 or 3 times at this crosswalk. Honestly I probably would have at least once if I hadn’t been paying better attention. Besides the people who are talking on their phones, or chatting with like all ten of the other people they have in their car, or who have some sort of strange rage at pedestrians who are crossing legally, I kind of get it. Mid-block crosswalks are easy to miss unless you have a red light and a crossing countdown to abide. Vehicles who do see you as a pedestrian and decide to stop before you step out on to the street are more likely to wait till you have walked far enough for them to legally start driving in my experience. Most of the time it is the cars that didn’t really notice you and stopped just short of the crosswalk and then only because you are menacingly staring them down^ that start driving again as soon as they think they can probably get by without killing you. 

Flags help! For some reason, people see flags more than they see people without flags. It is probably the bright colors and reflectivity and science reasons, but I like to believe there is something special about people who pick up flags when they cross the street. A lot of people who are willing to pick up flags, and that is not an overwhelming percentage of individuals, like to dance around and be very apparent in lots of other sassy awesome ways. It is usually that, or they have kids. Or they are kids. (I don’t mean you can’t be awesome with or as kids, just that people with kids are more concerned about crossing safely. Kids just like flags). 

Back to pedestrian assertiveness. Or Road Dominance. You know, whatever works. People who are in crowds are much more likely to be comfortable and assertive about crossing the street. That makes sense because the more people there are the less likely you are to be the one getting hit. Just kidding. More people means higher visibility and depending on the crowd size, cars literally can’t get through. Also people who are from the area and know what to expect around certain crosswalks are going to be more confident, and arguably safer as well. If you don;t know if you are going be able to get across a street using a certain crosswalk and you exude that mentality, cars are just going to go for it. Also, people that continue to drive at a pedestrian in a crosswalk, or who think scaring pedestrians with their car by edging forward is funny, or who get angry a pedestrians and drive really close past them, do not seem to understand that they are taking a deadly weapon and jokingly or angrily saying to this pedestrians: "my time and happiness is more important than your life.”

The Precautionary Principle

Okay.

According to the 1998 Wingspread Conference

The Precautionary Principle:

"When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically."

This seems like a good idea. Like... I ate a really cool looking and colourful forest mushroom and soon after lost feeling in my legs for like... a whole hour. Even though I am NOT 100% SURE that the mushroom is what caused that really interesting loss in feeling, I should probably not eat it again.

Translating an academic article on the health effects of highway air pollutants on the people who live near them

What I have learned after reading the article:

Near-highway pollutants in motor vehicle exhaust: A review of epidemiologic evidence of cardiac and pulmonary health risks

is that the jargon and terminology used in this review is great for making its insights inaccessible and bewildering to anyone that may be concerned about how these study results may affect them, or to anyone else for that matter.

Sentences like these are ridiculous:

"Several lines of evidence now suggest that steep gradients of certain pollutants exist next to heavily traveled highways and that living within these elevated pollution zones can have detrimental effects on human health."

• All this means is: There are a lot of pollutants found in higher densities near highways that will probably cause you health issues if you spend too long around them. 

"In contrast, studies that relied on central monitors [27,28] or interpolations from central monitors to highways are prone to exposure misclassification because individuals living close to highways will have a higher exposure than the general area. A possible concern with this interpretation is that social gradients may also situate poorer neighborhoods with potentially more susceptible populations closer to highways."
.....

• Which basically says: Air quality monitors that are placed in central areas in cities don't accurately show just how bad air is closer to highways. -- and then I'm completely lost with the second sentence. 

Anyway, the idea to come away with after reading this article is that while there still needs to be some more conclusive research done about the subject, it is a pretty good bet that living within 300 meters of a highway is going to be unhealthy. And also that there is not a whole lot being done to change regulations regarding this problem and the health of the populations who do live near highways (this article came out in 2007 so that may no longer be the case).

Observations on Nature Hostility

This is a picture of the Tesoro Refinery just north of central Salt Lake City

(photo from deseretnews.com)

There are a few different ways to interpret the meaning of nature hostility. Consider the above image. The kind of nature hostility seen here is just obvious harm being done to the environment. These refineries, which we keep so close to home that I could drive to this one in less than 15 minutes, are like an infected scar on the land. This to me is one way nature hostility can be understood. 

Another meaning of nature hostility makes itself apparent in commercials like this one:

This ad is interesting because although it is advertising a diesel (and supposedly more environmentally friendly) vehicle it is actually doing a really good job of making fun of people who take actions to be more environmentally friendly. In the ad you see a group called the "green police" overzealously and comedically persecuting people for doing un-green things like using the wrong lightbulb, or asking for plastic bags at the grocery store. This shames people who are actually taking small steps like composting leftover food and using reusable traveling coffee mugs, and says something along the line of: "Hey, instead of doing all those meaningless little things that probably don't do any good anyway, why don't you just buy this here new shiny car? You can drive lots and not feel too guilty about it; plus you'll look cool." This is another form of nature hostility, although perhaps not so blatant as the jeep ads where cars are driven through rivers destroying natural habitats.

My Excess

Images from my life that represent what I consider to be excess

It may be difficult to see excess in just one of these images individually but when I look at all these things grouped together, I definitely see where I could cut back on my consumption of unnecessary things. When I see my Jeep I think about driving less. When I see all these different times I have bought a coffee and a snack just for something to do I then think about how these things unnecessarily increase my carbon footprint. Eating out at restaurants is something that should be a treat and can be wasteful in many ways that cooking at home with local goods is not. I also see the gadgets I have, like my camera or computer and others, that I don't necessarily need to live my life. They may have been made in a different country by people who may not be paid enough, just to be shipped back here, maybe across seas, and purchased by me. 

300 South Bike Lane (Structural Issues)

Protected bike lanes on 300 South in downtown Salt Lake City

     The introduction of the protected bike lanes that run along 300 South in downtown Salt Lake City are a great move in the right direction away from a compact automobile dependent society. In this post I am going to talk about the benefits of this new infrastructure as well as some things that are problematic with the way it functions currently. This bike lane like any protected bike lane gives bike riders peace of mind that they would not otherwise have riding among car traffic or dodging pedestrians on the sidewalk. Novice riders can choose bike riding as a mode of transportation without feeling like they have to compromise their safety to do so. Another benefit of these concrete curb protected bike lanes is that it would be very difficult for a car to block them unless a person physically drove their car into the lane. These bike lanes can also prevent an angry driver from following a biker and threatening bodily harm to the bicyclist with their vehicle.


The Salt Lake City Government Transportation website sites some other benefits that they hope to achieve with the implantation of these lanes:

Increases bicyclists' comfort and safety, attracting new riders:

• Ridership increased by 55% in Chicago, on the Kinzie Street protected bike lane
• Ridership increased by 40% in Washington D.C.
• Ridership increased by 28.5% in New York City
• 86% feel safe or very safe, compared to only 17% in traditional bike lanes
• 49% consider driver behavior to be safer around protected bike lanes

Decreases motor vehicle speeds, leading to fewer fatal/serious crashes:

• 75% of motorists exceeded the speed limit before, and only 20% after, in New York City

• Average motorist speed was 34 mph before, and only 27 mph after, in New York City

• 66% of motorists exceeded the speed limit before, only 26% after, in Washington D.C.

• Average motorist speed was 29 mph before, and only 22 mph after, in Washington D.C.

Provides safety in numbers:

• Repeated studies of crash rates in locations across the globe have concluded that the risk of injury or death from crashes with motor vehicles declines as ridership increases

• These studies have come from: Portland OR, Berkley CA, Davis CA, New York City NY, Australia, Canada and Europe.

Now here are some structural problems that I see with the planning and realities of this new system:

• Unless a novice rider's destination and starting point are on 3rd south, this bike lane may be of little use to them. Obviously this just points to a need for the city to expand the project to other streets throughout the city and even the state. 
• The curbs, parked cars, and planters between the biker and the street traps bicyclists and makes it difficult for them to change directions or turn left at intersections, as they would be trapped on the right side of directional traffic. 
• Visibility, visibility, visibility is an issue for cars and bicyclists. 
• On 300 south there are a lot of intersections and driveways. The parking in front of the bike path makes it difficult for drivers to see wether or not there is a biker in the protected lane when they are turning into a driveway or at an intersection. 
• Cars can easily accidentally turn into the bike lane (which is just wide enough for most cars) instead of the lane for automobiles, and because there is a concrete curb and parked vehicles between the bike lane and other traffic the car can be trapped in the lane till the next block. Cars that aren't quite wide enough can end up getting high-centered on the curb. 
• During bad weather such as rain storms in SLC the water near curbs and therefore in bike lanes can get up to 8 inches deep. Bikers have no escape if they are in the protected lane and come on one of these puddles. 

     

This is a picture I took in downtown SLC on 200 South after good rain. When it rains hard this can be expected on many intersection from 100 South to 400 South and 600 East to State Street (100 East).

My Issues with TRAX

TRAX: Above ground light rail in Salt Lake City
Photograph by CountyLemonade on Flickr

Salt Lake  Trolley Map - Deseret News

Salt Lake City used to have a wide-spread trolley system, covering almost every street in the downtown area and beyond. These trolleys were open air, moved at a pedestrian friendly speed, and were entirely powered by a small hydro-electric plant located up Big Cottonwood Canyon. You could get almost anywhere in the city by hopping on a trolley and then walking at most a block or two. Because the trolleys were on almost every street people were very accustomed to interacting with them and were not dangerous or a cause for worry.

Unfortunately as the trolley systems began to wear down here in Salt Lake and in other places that they were located across the country like Baltimore, Los Angeles, Philadelphia they were allowed to fail as the country moved on to small capacity automobiles. This was, in large part, due to the influence of Henry Ford and his campaign against public transportation in order to sell his individual automobiles.

UTA TRAX Map - UTA

 Salt Lake City has made some headway in bringing back public transportation as the country realizes how detrimental and unnecessary automobiles have been, especially in the interiors of dense cities. The TRAX system was implemented in time for the 2002 olympics, and has been slowly expanding since. TRAX is great for people who must travel from one end of the valley to the other, but does not allow for people to easily travel through Salt Lake City's dense urban landscape. TRAX can get you moving towards your destination, but you will usually need a combination of car, TRAX, bus, and walking in order to make a complete trip, even for relatively short distances. Also, unlike the early trolleys we once had, TRAX is not easily accessible and is marginally less safe.

Urban Development - Then and Now

A comparison of how Minneapolis changed as an urban ecosystem from 1953 (left) to 2014 (right)
Provided by The Institute for Quality Communities at the University of Oklahoma

       There are many changes that can be observed in these two images. I think that one of the most important changes made to the city of Minneapolis between 1953 and 2014 was the addition of highways, which appeared right in the middle of this bustling urban city. While highways were introduced in order to allow residents to travel quickly from one major area to another and to therefore connect people and different parts of the city, it is important to note that in many ways they achieve the opposite effect. These massive automobile arteries do more to divide a city than anything else. Areas that were once densely populated with vibrant and diverse neighborhoods no longer exist and the distance between the neighborhoods that were allowed to remain is so large that they no longer are part of the same community. This division between walkable areas also means that local shops and stores are less likely to thrive because their lifelines to residents have been severed and the pool of possible customers is now quite small. Because they are small stores that cannot offer as diverse options as large chain outlets people are not willing to travel via the highway to them when major stores are often placed right at highway exits.
       Highways also create major class divisions. Unsurprisingly, they are rarely built in affluent areas, instead they bulldoze straight through areas where residents don't have access to legal representation and may have less time and resources at hand with which to combat decisions made by local government. This means that poorer people are often displaced or forced to live next door to noisy and polluting freeways, which of course aren't catering to them in the first place. I feel like communities that are so auto-centric lose the many benefits of having a more localized populace where you actually know your neighbors, and stores aren't a half-hour drive away. When communities are not so divided and dispersed by roadways there are more opportunities for the local economy and small business owners to thrive.