Maybe It's Time to Start Listening to Tom Low

This is an excellent article on New Urbanism's take on sprawl, with a bonus of being about my hometown of Charlotte:

Maybe It's Time to Start Listening to Tom Low - Charlotte Magazine - July 2011 - Charlotte, NC

The firm they refer to, DPZ, and its co-founder, Andres Duany, are the reason why I'm a planner. Six years ago I went to the US Green Building Council's GreenBuild Expo in Atlanta, GA. Ayako and I met up there to look for environmentally-friendly product design jobs, but the expo floor was filled was stalls hawking bamboo flooring and high-efficiency HVAC systems--nothing for high-style consumer product designers.

So, we spent most of our time attending lectures. I continually found myself drawn to urban planning topics. I vaguely remembered learning about planning senior year at CMU, when PennFutures protested the building of a tolled highway by offering an alternative project that boulevarded existing street networks (sound familiar, Seattle?). Ayako, and her then-boyfriend Ryan, went to mostly different lectures, and thus I found myself sitting alone in the back of a large auditorium listening to Andres Duany talk about New Urbanism.

He explained the basic tenets of New Urbanism and how they sought to imitate, and update, old town centers. Then he compared the functions of those centers - open space, gathering places, entertainment - to the specialized rooms being offered in Texas McMansions built on the outskirts of town. Massive homes, 5,000 square feet and more, with personal theater rooms and sun-filled breakfast nooks that resembled outdoor cafes. Huge lawns, in the desert, in the middle of nowhere.

Meanwhile, he says, the owners of these homes will be stuck in traffic for over an hour to get back into the city for work or services, where they will pass by movie theaters, parks and outdoor cafes. Then an hour through terrifying, stressful, frustrating traffic to arrive home cranky, missing two full hours of time with their kids, for the privilege of having a private movie theater, huge lawn and cafe that they don't have time to use.

"The lifestyle of the American middle class is the number one thing ruining the environment," he stated baldly*. It was like a light switch went on in my head. I don't know that he's 100% right, but he's close enough. I lived that life, I know those people. He's right, I said. If I want to do something for the environment, designing environmentally-friendly products that will be purchased once is next to useless if the people buying them are living in 5000 square foot homes with gigantic lawns in the middle of a desert. The real opportunity for change, for helping people and the environment, is in where and how people live their everyday lives. Those are the effects that add up, because it's not just millions of products, it's millions of people doing the same thing, over and over again, every day of their lives.

Sitting in the back of that auditorium I felt my perception shift, and feelings of joy and determination filled me. I had been saying for years that I didn't want to go back to school until I knew what I wanted to do. Until then, it was Starbucks and fruitless applications to design firms where, deep down, I didn't really want to work. School is difficult, expensive and worthless if you don't believe in what you're doing. Now, I knew. I felt sure. As he wrapped up his lecture, my mind was whirring, planning out the next few years of my life.

Now, six years later, I have a master's degree in Urban Planning. I've written a thesis on the relationship between dense development and the ability of natural systems to adapt to climate change. I have three years of planning experience. And it's all because of a single 90-minute lecture by Andres Duany.

*This is not an exact quote - it was six years ago.

Weed control

I just spent almost two hours pulling various weeds - mostly vines - out of the 3-foot walkway between our house and the neighbor's fence. Wondering if there were any easier control methods, a quick googling led me to King County's noxious weed photo identification page. Here's what I have in my backyard:

-bindweed. HATE THIS STUFF. I think it might be hedge rather than field, luckily.
-Rush Skeletonweed. Sounds badass; isn't.
-bittersweet nightshade. Also sounds badass; kind of is.
-English ivy. Hate this stuff, too.
-Herb Robert. Actually I like this stuff. One of its nicknames is "Death come quickly", which is badass. In Washington it's called Stinky Bob because it smells like burning tires when you crush the leaves. Still kinda badass, but in a dive bar sort of way.
-Nipplewort. Heh. Hehehe.

Sorry for anyone who's actually reading this. This is mostly just to keep track of things I have.

Can Underground Water Cool City Houses?

Reading List!

Can Underground Water Cool City Houses? | This Big City

Vegan Southern-style meal, and why factory meat is terrible for everyone

This article covers a lot of ground about why people go vegetarian, or why spending more money on quality meat is important: How the meat industry turned abuse into a business model | Grist

I've said multiple times that I don't expect most people to go vegetarian, let alone vegan. What I would like to see is people buy better meat, less often. Spend the same amount of money, eat less meat, have that meat be delicious and healthy (for the animals, the workers, the environment, and you).

I figure the least I can do is offer some yum meatless meals for those who feel lost at the concept. Here's what I made the other night. It'd be perfect for a True Blood watching party, as it's vaguely Southern-style food.

Vegan Southern Greens

2 tsp cooking oil
1 medium onion, coarse chopped
1 TBSP minced garlic
2 LBS of washed, chopped greens (Collard, mustard or turnip greens, spinach, kale - any mixture works. Trader Joe's sells a big bag of Southern Greens that's perfect - use 2 in this recipe)
3/4 cup vegetable broth (sub water or wine, just add more salt)
2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 TBSP rice vinegar (sub: red or white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar)
salt & pepper to taste
Tabasco sauce to taste (optional)
2 tsp sesame oil, to finish (sub liquid smoke or smoked salt/paprika)

1. Heat oil in your biggest stew pot or wok on medium-high heat. Add onions & sauté until partially translucent.
   
2. Add garlic & sauté until fragrant.
   
3. Start adding handfuls of greens and mixing top-to-bottom. As they cook down, add more greens until they're all in the pot.
   
4. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Stir greens in broth until they're fully wilted (they should reduce by 80% or more).
   
5. Add the red pepper, vinegar, salt, pepper & Tabasco & stir.
   
6. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook uncovered for 30+ minutes, until the greens are tender but not falling apart.
   
7. Taste & add any extra seasonings as needed. Turn off the heat and stir in the sesame oil.
   

Serve with a slotted spoon. They'll be soupy, so either serve with something to soak up the broth or strain it for the next time you make rice or soup. While the greens were simmering, I made a box of Zatarain's Dirty Rice (Jambalaya would work) and in place of meat, drained, washed and mixed in a can of black beans and a can of black-eyed peas (sub kidney, garbanzo or white beans). I feel ok about using Zatarain's once in a while, because they're a New Orleans-based company and there's not too many sketch ingredients as processed food goes, but if you want you can make your own from scratch - I don't like TVP so I would still sub in beans.

Serve side by side with some limeade, sweet tea, bourbon or a mint julep and watch you some "vamperrs".