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Thinking of ways to try and stimulate more interaction here on the blog. I know it should not bother me that not many people are commenting. I know I should just be happy with the fact that so many people read every day, but I have to be honest that it bugs me a little bit. Its like we are not quite accomplishing what we set out to do. (Notice the interlaced sarcasm…)
So here is a little game I want to try. I think I remember seeing it somewhere on another Blog but can not remember where.
The game goes like this. You both answer the last question and ask a new one for the next commenter to answer. So I ask, “What is your favorite place to sit and people watch?” and the next person would answer that question and ask another one. So the last comment in the row is a question meant for you to answer. If that is not a reason to stop lurking and start getting involved I don’t know what is.
And judging from the graph below there are enough of you that this should be interesting.
So the first question is…. What is your favorite city?
24 responses so far ↓
1 Samuel F // Jun 7, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Chicago.
Do you own a car? If so how many?
2 Stanley // Jun 7, 2008 at 12:19 pm
No car 3 bikes.
What is your favorite place to eat in Sacramento
3 Shelly // Jun 7, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Ella is tops in my book…
What changes have you made in your life to be more sustainable?
4 Juliet // Jun 7, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Not nearly enough.
What is your favorite animal?
5 Will S // Jun 7, 2008 at 4:47 pm
The cow.
What will it take for people to realize that suburbs don’t work?
6 doug // Jun 7, 2008 at 4:56 pm
They might work if we had better public transportation…think BART.
Who is your favorite artist?
7 John // Jun 7, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Frank Loyd Wright. Simple clean visionary
Who is your favorite musician.
8 Nancy // Jun 7, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Miri Ben-Ari (the “hip hop violinist”).
What are you doing to make a difference?
9 Micah // Jun 7, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Making Cities Better. Keeping our car for a long time. Our own little habitat for humanity. Sponsoring training of masons in Burkina Foso. Being anti-consumers. Trying not to eat meat. (Damn that is hard) Living urban. This can really start to sound haughty and holier than thou so I will stop here. I want to do so much more!
Is common sense really common?
10 jessie // Jun 7, 2008 at 9:53 pm
It should be. But I am not sure if there is any way everyone can know all the same stuff as everyone else so I am not sure about this one.
What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
11 jal__n // Jun 7, 2008 at 9:57 pm
some common sense is common: don’t touch a hot stove, don’t put that in your mouth, whatever. and some common sense is culturally entrenched, and culturally biased. i think there are a lot of things that white folks might call ‘common sense’ that are really tied up in white culture (call the police if you have a problem might be an example), and not recognizing the white bias in it keeps whiteness invisible. which keeps racism confusing for white people, and can complicate issues of race and class. which i think is really problematic.
(of course i would say that. guess who finally finished school and has time for the internet again??)
what words do you use to describe cities?
12 Levi // Jun 8, 2008 at 12:45 pm
O…Oh.. a question I want to answer…
Vibrant. Electric. Full of life. Raw. Big. Dirty. Thriving. Clean. Efficient. Small. Passionate. Worth While. Grand. Beautiful.
What city do you feel is best for Sacramento to aspire towards?
13 Michael // Jun 8, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Sydney
What cities reputation should we most run from but are likely to end up like?
14 Liz // Jun 8, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Denver. Capital city. Similar geographical situation. Rapid suburban expansion without robust public transportation infrastructure. Lots of new energy and revitalization downtown. It is a cool place in many ways, but ominous in others.
If we can run faster we can write our own story.
What is your definition of the “American Dream”?
15 steve // Jun 8, 2008 at 10:11 pm
A supportive and welcoming community of friends and family. It is composed of a diverse group of people of all ages, opinions, and ideas. THere are spontaneous and planned events regularly. We have fun together, debate, and challenge each other.
What do you want to challenge Sacramentans to do?
16 Steven // Jun 9, 2008 at 7:57 am
Advocate for social justice across socio-economic lines in the process of pushing for eco-urbanism and more livable cities.
What is one change in Sacramento in the last 5 years that you especially appreciate?
17 dustin // Jun 9, 2008 at 9:19 pm
More recently, the addition of bike lanes on some of the busiest streets in the city. it makes my commute safe, efficient and so much more enjoyable!
Do you see Oak Park as a positive or negative addition to the city?
18 levi // Jun 10, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Positive in a huge way! I think there are some things happening that will make it even better but its absolutely necessary that areas like this are added to the urban core and cared for.
What is your favorite memory as a kid in the park? or better yet what memories of playing in parks do you want your kids to have also?
19 dustin // Jun 10, 2008 at 1:51 pm
My fondest memories of the park in my hometown back in Kansas are of crawling around on a giant locomotive, an actual historic locomotive. Exploring all of its nooks and crannies. Climbing over, under and inside. The park was huge and safe. No need for mom to follow me around, I could run from one end where the jungle gym was to the other end where the giant two story slide stood and all the openness in between. Lots of trees and shade so even in the scorching summer heat, it stayed cool under the large canopy. There was a fountain with lots of pennies (wishes).
Do you fear that “green” fatigue may be in our future?
20 Donna Sangwin // Jun 11, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I don’t think green fatigue is on the horizon… I think people will be more savvy of what green really means, and will have green-washing fatigue.”
My question… Do you know the difference between reuse and recycle… and why don’t people talk about re-use much?
21 William Burg // Jun 14, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Recycling is a paper cup that was manufactured from bits of previously manufactured paper. Reuse is my coffee mug. Recycling is a house made of reclaimed or remanufactured building materials. Reuse is not knocking down the old house in the first place.
People don’t talk about reuse much because recycling gets a lot more ad space. While recycling is important, it’s still a way of selling people disposable products, whether they’re coffee cups or houses. It’s still part of the consumerist cycle.
We’re still having our garbage sold back to us.
Reuse, whether it’s a coffee mug or a historic home, means taking care of the things we have so we don’t have to trash them and buy new (even recycled) things as often. It’s akin to stewardship.
What’s your favorite historic building?
22 Ian M. // Jun 16, 2008 at 4:12 pm
The British Museum. Because the permanent built environment in the US is relatively recent, we tend to end up in dead end quandries of how to revitalize a dying historic space. When Norman Foster covered the museum’s library court with a web of glass and metal, I didn’t think they were turning the museum into a shopping mall, I thought it was adding art and utility to an underutilized space, bringing it back from the dead back-of-house that it was for nearly a century.
As Bill said, taking care of things so we don’t have to trash them.
What keeps even the most eco-minded developers from embracing adaptive re-use?
23 micah // Jun 16, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I have only built one adaptive reuse project so I don’t have vast experience but I have studied other projects that have made use of existing structures and here is the main theme: It costs more to remodel than it does to build new.
Only the most historically significant or architecturally prominent buildings make the case for reuse, as well they should. That is why I believe we should build smaller houses with better guts and more architectural thought.
We remodeled a 1910 Convent for the Sisters (It didn’t seem that money was a problem for them) and built four new condo/apartment buldings around it with a assisted living facility. The remodel of the convent took longer and cost proportionally more per square foot than the new buildings. There is no question the Convent was far too significant and beautiful to replace but the project was not something that a third party would have been able to find the funding to accomplish from a financial perspective.
24 Steven // Jun 18, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Micah, you’re messing up the rotation. I’ll ask a question on your behalf:
How do you discern the fine line between rehab-ing a community and gentrifying it, thus losing the original character and residents?
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