flynn050

Ostensibly, smart growth emerged as a way to save nature and preserve open space. Draw a growth boundary, went the thinking, on one side is human development and on the other is nature. Natural lands seemed too threatened by the insatiable growth of roads, subdivisions and roadside businesses to let it go on forever. Of course, it has gone on anyway. In Maryland, the total land area developed in the 30 years between 1970 and 2000 exceeds all lands ever developed before 1970. And now as we write in 2015, one might think that the smart growth laws have hardly made a dent. On March 25 I noted on my  Daily Blog : Footprint of Atlanta versus Barcelona (same number of residents) Aerial comparison  between typical US development pattern and a  typical  German small town As someone who has  written  again  and  again  about sprawl and how it bankrupts American communities and economies, I was very pleased to see this  report  mentioned in t...

Nobody would for one minute mistake a car or an airplane from 1955 for one from today. Everything, from technology to style is just too different. By contrast, enter a new house or an apartment and clues that give away the newness are harder to find: They may be obvious in kitchen and bath, but even that is not certain, since fashionable retro stoves and claw-foot tubs could be deceiving even in those places where technology would be most likely. The new house would probably be more open and bigger, but from light switches to receptacles, from door hardware to double hung windows, things look essentially the same.  On second glance, though, things in the new house feel flimsier, thinner and less substantial. Maybe there is a white plastic porch railing masquerading as solid wood or vinyl siding doing the same, maybe the doors are light, hollow and molded instead of being made from actual wood panels.  This general impression might deepen when one starts looking "under the hood...

Can Design Save the World? Ezio Manzini certainly thinks that design can shape the world and he explains why in a lecture tour on the occasion of his new book  Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, ” ( MIT Press, 2015 ).  Manzini is a Professor and the Chair of Design for Social Innovation at the University of the Arts London (UK), Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and Guest Professor at two universities in China, he is considered by many the guru of "social design" a term that only recently became popular. Naturally, his lecture was hosted by the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) which added a few years ago a program for social design which aptly resides in a strip of Baltimore's North Avenue where MICA has become a real game changer by being socially and financially active. Lecture poster Manzini begins his lecture by explaining why "design" has become such an expansive term that today ...

The triangle of power, cities and architecture may be best illustrated by Cosimo de Medici. Son of Florentine banker who bested his competitor, Cosimo had so much wealth that he was able to direct the Florentine political system. He soon looked beyond money and politics, and attempted an impossible architectural feat: covering the gigantic dome of Florence, which had remained uncovered for quite some time. Success meant construction of the largest span of roof ever attempted.  When Cosimo engaged the architect Bruneleschi and the dome was built, the accomplishment led his home-town to flourish, laying the cornerstone for what would eventually be known as the Renaissance. Cosimo Medici  There are many examples of cities that flourish when powerful interests take hold. The   German Hanse , a trade-guild, brought success to a whole series of German port cities. John W. Garret brought wealth and power to Baltimore when he started his B&O Railroad empire here, and he built...

The City of Annapolis for the Ward One Sector Plan taught me that the world of a tourist town divides into the three distinct viewpoints, those of residents, businesses and visitors. That was thirty years ago and as I learned last week, it still holds true. In fact, there are academic studies about the love-hate relationship of residents and tourists, a bit less is typically said about the businesses who, depending on their nature, live off one or both other groups. Slogan on a lamp post in Bradenton Beach The nuisances coming from tourists and the endangered character of communities, the carrying capacity of the land, the roadways and the ecologies of resorts are debated from Ocean City MD to Key West Florida, from Portland, Maine to Cardiff by the Sea, California and from Veil, Colorado to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. The effect mass demand can have of killing the attributes that people came for in the first place is well known not only in tourism. It played out in American suburbs ov...