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I haven’t been posting too much lately mainly because my writing time has been devoted to web site content.
We’re working on a few ways to present Eco-Urban through the site. We need to have a tie between the car we’re driving around and the site, so people can get a better understanding of Eco-Urban and what we’re doing.
So, we’re taking each scribble on the car and creating an interactive element on the site where people can look a little closer at the car and its scribbles. Each scribble will have a short description “riffing” on the eco-urban correlation as well as what LJUrban is doing that relates to the concept.
Its fun taking other people’s answers to the question “what is eco-urban” and responding to them.
Here’s an example… we’ll see if it sticks… my challenge (as usual) is figuring out how to state things succinctly and sufficiently.
Eco-Urban
How much is your time worth? Ultimately, eco-urban is about quality of life (which starts by sustaining life itself). Suburbia sold millions of people on a false promise of “sanctuary” as typified by a single-family home on a quarter acre. However, this vision failed because the cost of this narrow depiction of “sanctuary” came in the form of increasingly longer commute times now so clearly correlated with sprawl. And as our society struggles to come to terms with the increasingly faster pace of modern living, we’re finally recognizing that sanctuary is a quality of both time and space. The benefits of urban core proximity preserves not only our open spaces, air quality and healthy climate patterns, but also the sense of personal well-being we get from having more time with family and friends.
LJUrban
By commiting ourselves to only building in the core, we’re giving more people more options to spend their time doing the kinds of activities that feed our souls, whether playing hide and seek with your 2 year old, strolling down to the river, or sharing dessert at the local café with your best friend.
Jason
3 responses so far ↓
1 Greg Balzer // Mar 2, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Neat idea. It may not work on your website - but it would be neat to compare/contrast the idyllic Sunday morning paper images of suburban life in the country with the reality - long lines of cars stuck in traffic on the freeway heading to a countryside of stucco walls and tile roofs. “I checked the commute and it only takes 20 minutes on a Saturday”
We all “want to get back to the garden” but there is a BIG disconnect between the dream and the reality provided by the mainstream development environment. Good luck in highlighting this disconnect.
2 jason // Mar 2, 2007 at 5:54 pm
the compare/contrast concept-deconstructing suburban myths–is one we’ve toyed alot with…your idea sounds fun, greg. we’ve also played with doing a “driving directions” audio file where you hear someone trying to give clear and thorough directions of how to get to their place compared with directions to anywhere in the grid.
regarding getting back to the garden…a fundamental problem is that by allocating all of our “garden” to non-urban environs, we ignore the need for “garden” within the city and we use up all of the garden outside.
living eco-urban means you substitute your own private “garden” for the larger shared garden that more people can enjoy.
3 Greg Balzer // Mar 3, 2007 at 12:21 pm
25 years ago when I was a student in Landscape Architecture, there was a development approach proposed by both Ian McHarg (Design with Nature) and John O Simmonds (Earthscape)to identify the areas most suited to development and intensively develop those areas - meanwhile conserving the natural beauty of the undeveloped areas - the larger gardens we can share.
I still long to see this day - where common greenspace and public places for people to walk and gather are the fruit of higher densities - rather than wider thoroughfares for cars. Compare J street with Douglas Blvd. and you know why I prefer living “in the grid”.
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