Awww yeah

http://www.planninglove.org/

How to shelter from fallout after a nuclear attack on your city

Fascinating, and a mix of terrifying and oddly reassuring. I suppose anyone in a city or near a military base or testing zone should probably add a list of potential fallout shelters to their emergency plans.



I'll have to think about this. My basement has windows.



How to shelter from fallout after a nuclear attack on your city:



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Why it's a good idea to stop eating shrimp

Why it's a good idea to stop eating shrimp : TreeHugger:

Alternative for people with low willpower: start by eating less, or making it a tie-breaker when choosing between 2 menu items that sound good. Sometimes saying NEVER AGAIN can be overwhelming and overall does less good when people can't stick to it, whereas saying LESS is pretty doable.

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Factory-Farm-To-Table Restaurant Proudly Serves Locally Tortured Animals

Vegans vs. Locavores. FIIIIIGHT!

Factory-Farm-To-Table Restaurant Proudly Serves Locally Tortured Animals | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

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How The Netherlands Became The Biggest Exporter Of Resilience

How The Netherlands Became The Biggest Exporter Of Resilience | Co.Exist | ideas + impact:

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Two articles about Michigan Rust-Belt Cities

Manufacturing jobs won't save Detroit:

Manufacturing May Be Coming Back, But It Won’t Bring Jobs

...but parks might save Flint:

How An Innovative Land Policy Is Turning America’s Deadliest City Into A Giant Park

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Trying to Shame Dune Holdouts at Jersey Shore

Lest you think I was being hyperbolic, or overly critical of Americans, in my last post:

Trying to Shame Dune Holdouts at Jersey Shore

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Why We Don't Design Our Cities to Withstand 1,000-Year Floods

Why We Don't Design Our Cities to Withstand 1,000-Year Floods

This is a good article. The title is inaccurate, though, since it doesn't explain WHY we don't design our cities to 1,000 year floods, but the Dutch do. FEMA maps are based on 100 and 500 year floods, but design standards and insurance are generally based on the 100 year (or 1% chance floods, I'm glad they're moving away from that terminology).

The Dutch standards are for 1,000 years, or .1% (and the large infrastructure, like the storm barrier at the entrance to Rotterdam, for 10,000 years, or .01%) because they can be, because the Dutch people agreed that they should be after a massive flood in the 50s. The Dutch also have national planning and they don't have the same concept of private land and land rights as the US.

 "Is the government going to tell people they can't build their cabin next to the stream?" says Axt. "They don't want to be told that."

That's it, right there. The Dutch WILL tell people that they can't build their cabin next to the stream, and the law backs them up. If the cabin already exists, and they want to be able to flood that wooded area to save a city, they will say hey, we will relocate your cabin to any of these places, free of charge, or give you a replacement cabin elsewhere, or give you enough money to build a new cabin in a different place. But you're not staying here, or else you are putting an entire city at risk. The Dutch cabin owner, most likely, will say oh of course, let me get out of your way, glad to help, thanks for the cash.

The American cabin owner, most likely, would stock up on guns and/or hire a lawyer and tie up the whole works until he gets a court order, or wins a lawsuit, or puts the project over budget, lest his rights be infringed. To be fair, the American government (Federal, State or Local) likely will not have sufficient funds to purchase, relocate or swap the cabin, and instead will just inform the owner that the flood insurance on the cabin is really high, so he should move. So the cabin owner won't buy the insurance. When the flood does arrive, the cabin owner will still require rescue and demand reimbursement, even though he hasn't offset any of those costs buy buying insurance. Meanwhile, the city floods.

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New Orleans has a radical new plan for managing floods

Yeah! Go Dutchies!

New Orleans has a radical new plan for managing floods | Grist:

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Rebuilding in Flood Plains - It's Difficult to Resist

I'm on a roll today.

This is why incorporating natural disasters into a master plan is important, and why preparedness planning is also important. Have the codes and moratoriums in place that are automatically triggered when an event strikes, rather than trying to make decisions at the same time as rebuilding and recovery. Have financial incentives in place, coordinated with federal funding, to relocate to a more resilient location and people can rebuild quickly without putting themselves back in harms way. Quick-as-possible economic rebound only makes sense if it doesn't keep happening over and over, like flooding in a flood plain.

Rebuilding in Flood Plains - It's Difficult to Resist | Planetizen

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