Category: World

New Urbanism:

THE PRINCIPLES OF NEW URBANISM

The principles of New Urbanism can be applied increasingly to projects at the full range of scales from a single building to an entire community.

1. Walkability

-Most things within a 10-minute walk of home and work
-Pedestrian friendly street design (buildings close to street; porches, windows & doors; tree-lined streets; on street parking; hidden parking lots; garages in rear lane; narrow, slow speed streets)
-Pedestrian streets free of cars in special cases

2. Connectivity

-Interconnected street grid network disperses traffic & eases walking
-A hierarchy of narrow streets, boulevards, and alleys
-High quality pedestrian network and public realm makes walking pleasurable

3. Mixed-Use & Diversity

-A mix of shops, offices, apartments, and homes on site. Mixed-use within neighborhoods, within blocks, and within buildings
-Diversity of people – of ages, income levels, cultures, and races

4. Mixed Housing

A range of types, sizes and prices in closer proximity

5. Quality Architecture & Urban Design

Emphasis on beauty, aesthetics, human comfort, and creating a sense of place; Special placement of civic uses and sites within community. Human scale architecture & beautiful surroundings nourish the human spirit

6. Traditional Neighborhood Structure

-Discernable center and edge
-Public space at center
-Importance of quality public realm; public open space designed as civic art
-Contains a range of uses and densities within 10-minute walk
-Transect planning: Highest densities at town center; progressively less dense towards the edge. The transect is an analytical system that conceptualizes mutually reinforcing elements, creating a series of specific natural habitats and/or urban lifestyle settings. The Transect integrates environmental methodology for habitat assessment with zoning methodology for community design. The professional boundary between the natural and man-made disappears, enabling environmentalists to assess the design of the human habitat and the urbanists to support the viability of nature. This urban-to-rural transect hierarchy has appropriate building and street types for each area along the continuum. 

The Transect

                                                                                                 More information on the transect

7. Increased Density

-More buildings, residences, shops, and services closer together for ease of walking, to enable a more efficient use of services and resources, and to create a more convenient, enjoyable place to live.
-New Urbanism design principles are applied at the full range of densities from small towns, to large cities

8. Smart Transportation

-A network of high-quality trains connecting cities, towns, and neighborhoods together
-Pedestrian-friendly design that encourages a greater use of bicycles, rollerblades, scooters, and walking as daily transportation

9. Sustainability

-Minimal environmental impact of development and its operations
-Eco-friendly technologies, respect for ecology and value of natural systems
-Energy efficiency
-Less use of finite fuels
-More local production
-More walking, less driving

10. Quality of Life

Taken together these add up to a high quality of life well worth living, and create places that enrich, uplift, and inspire the human spirit.

Very good that this New Urbanism movement exists.  ready made for the Christchurch earthquake recovery and rise up.

New Urbanism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

New Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use strategies.

New Urbanism is strongly influenced by urban design standards that were prominent until the meteoric rise of the automobile in the mid-20th Century; it encompasses principles such as traditional neighborhood design (TND) and transit-oriented development (TOD).^[1] It is also closely related to Regionalism, Environmentalism and the broader concept of smart growth. The movement also includes a more pedestrian-oriented variant known as New Pedestrianism, which has its origins in a 1929 planned community in Radburn, New Jersey.^[2]

Market Street, downtown Celebration, Florida

The organizing body for New Urbanism is the Congress for the New Urbanism, founded in 1993. Its foundational text is the Charter of the New Urbanism, which says:

We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.^[3]

New Urbanists support regional planning for open space, context-appropriate architecture and planning, and the balanced development of jobs and housing. They believe their strategies can reduce traffic congestion, increase the supply of affordable housing, and rein in suburban sprawl. The Charter of the New Urbanism also covers issues such as historic preservation, safe streets, green building, and the re-development of brownfield land.

Cheering for war and empire | SocialistWorker.org:

Cheering for war and empire

Crowds celebrate outside the White House as Barack Obama announces the killing of Osama bin Laden

THE ASSASSINATION of Osama bin Laden is being celebrated as rough justice by U.S. politicians across the spectrum and a mainstream media that is glorying in every grisly detail.

It is nothing of the sort. Bin Laden’s death did not make the world “safer” and “a better place,” as Barack Obama claimed in his televised speech Sunday night. On the contrary, this political killing will be used to make the world less safe–by building support for more violence committed by the U.S. government in the name of the “war on terror.”

The hunt for bin Laden while he was alive was never about justice, but justification. Revenge for al-Qaeda’s September 11 attacks was the most effective selling point for U.S. wars and occupations that weren’t designed to make the world safe from terrorism, but to safeguard the flow of Middle East oil and ensure the continued domination of the U.S. empire.

Now that bin Laden is dead, this former U.S. ally-turned-public enemy number one will be exploited again–his killing proclaimed as a vindication of 10 years of bloodshed on a scale far more horrible than anything al-Qaeda was ever capable of.

News of bin Laden’s death produced an outburst of jingoism and anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. The New York Daily News printed “Rot in hell!” across its front cover. In Portland, Maine, the words “Osama Today Islam tomorow (sic)” were found spray-painted on a mosque. As Obama was announcing the killing on television, crowds of people gathered outside the White House to chant “USA, USA, USA”–the very image of callous arrogance that stokes bitter anger toward the U.S. around the world.

Anyone who cares about peace and justice needs to raise their voice against these celebrations, because they only pave the way for more war. “Whenever America uses violence in a way that makes its citizens cheer, beam with nationalistic pride, and rally around their leader, more violence is typically guaranteed,” wrote Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald.

Continue reading “Socialist Worker on bin Laden killing”

Resilient futures: supporting recovery in greater Christchurch:

Resilient futures: supporting recovery in greater Christchurch The resilient futures event happened on Monday 18 April 2011. The conference on Monday was well-attended by a diverse crowd of elected, non-elected, community and institutional representatives. Christchurch City Council Deputy Mayor Ngaire Button opened the conference with an inspiring address where she touched on the need to maintain a fair ratings policy that focuses on restoring affected areas without neglecting those areas with less damage. She concluded with a number of personal ambitions for the future of Christchurch which included making the city more cycle-friendly and putting aside space for a School of Performing Arts.

The West is no friend of Libya’s revolt

http://www.iso.org.nz/news/23/644-the-west-is-no-friend-of-libyas-revolt.html

Wednesday, 23 March 2011 05:22

by Simon Assaf

Western military intervention in Libya is being sold to us as “humanitarian intervention” to defend the revolution.

The uprising against Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal regime that began on 17 February remains an inspiration.

Gaddafi responded with attacks on civilians, the aerial bombardment of demonstrations, mass round-ups and executions.

This left many people in despair, and feeling that Western intervention was the only solution to save their lives.

But the West’s interests are not those of the Libyan revolution.

Western governments are not innocent or impartial. They are using this opportunity to reassert their influence in the region.

The ruling class has been rocked by the mass popular revolutions which brought down their allies—Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt.

If the West’s support for popular revolutions against violent dictators is genuine, then why are they not supporting all the revolutions?

Where is the challenge to the repression of protests in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen?

Aroha.net

Welcome to the very small web page for aroha.net

www.aroha.net provides email addresses for those who serve in the spirit of aroha

Aroha is a Maori (and now New Zealand English) word with many layers of meaning. The light translation is love. 

Teacher and tohuna Ruth Makuini Tai explains:

“The word Aroha holds a premier position within the Maori language of Aotearoa New Zealand. Maori language and practise holds the memory of a time when the force of Aroha was understood and respected by all. Aroha is the creative force behind all dreams. Aroha defines great leadership, ensures personal success, inspires us to go the extra mile. Aroha means Love. However when we explore its roots Aroha yields a profound message about love that is not widely understood.

ARO is thought, life principle, to pay attention, to focus, to concentrate
RO is inner, within, introspection
HA is life force, breath, energy
OHA is generosity, prosperity, abundance, wealth“

Aroha may be described as the binding force of all that is.

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I can never really understand what is happening in the world till I read what the socialists say.  I am not sure I really have a handle on it, but this is worth a read:

Nothing humanitarian about U.S. intervention | SocialistWorker.org:

WORLD LEADERS and their defenders in the mainstream press are praising the West’s “decisive” military action against Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi, but as the long record of “humanitarian” intervention demonstrates, the governments with the ability to use force in Libya have aims and strategies that will not serve the Libyans they are supposedly there to help.