Yule Heibel's Post Studio © 2003-2014

Complainers in the Office: 3 Ways to Deal With Them | Inc.com

THIS. Might help explain why American voters are getting dumber: they’re listening to too much crap on the media.
QUOTE
…being exposed to too much complaining can actually make you dumb. Research shows that exposure to 30 minutes or more of negativity–including viewing such material on TV–actually peels away neurons in the brain’s hippocampus. “That’s the part of your brain you need for problem solving,” he says. “Basically, it turns your brain to mush.”
UNQUOTE

tags: neuroscience psychology complaining

For a better L.A., more development and less parking? – latimes.com

A step towards NOT accommodating cars at all cost:
QUOTE
The theory is compelling. Relaxing the rules would allow developers to build in places where it’s currently difficult because of a lack of space for parking. That could have the effect of revitalizing economic dead zones. The parking districts, which would be designated by the City Council, might encourage foot traffic and transit use. (…)
…Similar parking schemes have worked. When parking rules were eased for developers who converted office buildings downtown into residential projects, it started a housing renaissance that helped turn a fading commercial center into a booming urban community. Moreover, public transit in Los Angeles County is getting better and more convenient all the time, thanks to Measure R, the 2008 sales tax measure that is rapidly adding new lines to the system.
UNQUOTE

tags: los_angeles parking cars transit_oriented_development cities urban_planning development

Shareable: How to Rebuild the City as a Platform

More on the city as platform:
QUOTE
While technologists boast of the potential for smartphone apps to connect citizens to city services and institutions, those smartphones double as data exhaust-emitting GPS devices, prompting significant civil liberties concerns. As Alex Howard succinctly puts it, “While the apps used to find city services are generally not the ones used to surveil citizens, in practice the mobile device itself may be an agent of both actions.”

The policies enacted and implemented in the name of innovation require ongoing debate and scrutiny; open data initiatives and civic apps are not ends in themselves. Despite this, the civic tech movement must play a fundamental role in addressing the challenges besetting cities and their denizens in the early 21st century: exploding populations, crumbling infrastructure, unemployment, even municipal bankruptcy.
UNQUOTE

tags: cities urbanism technology

Learning from Venturi and Scott Brown | SmartPlanet

Succinct explanation of the duck-and-decorated-shed analogy:
QUOTE
As a former Venturi Scott Brown colleague explains, “The idea of the Duck and the Decorated Shed assumes that buildings are communicative in some way. Whether it is intentional or not, we generate meaning from what we see in a building. In a duck, the meaning comes from the form of the building itself. Boston City Hall and Richard Meier’s houses are good examples of ducks – they are unadorned buildings, and their form is responsive to the functions inside. A decorated shed is a formally generic building that communicates its function through decoration or signage. In the most extreme form, this can be found in the architecture of the commercial strip – think Home Depot. Without the orange accents and the sign that says Home Depot, you wouldn’t know what it is. But any generic building that generates its meaning through signs can be a decorated shed. They don’t have to be cheap or ugly.”
UNQUOTE

tags: venturi scott_brown architecture smartplanet

What Change Looks Like: Jake Barton at TEDxHarlem – YouTube

“Why does it take a crisis for us to collaborate today?”

tags: community_platforms meetings tedx jake_barton youtube video cities

What the Environment & Mobility Mean for the Nation’s Fastest-Growing Demographic | Project for Public Spaces

That last bit, re. the importance of town centers for rural areas, applies (in my opinion) equally to small cities. When cities “fling” their centers out to strip mall locations, they take away a key asset for an aging demographic (and a hipper, younger demographic, as well):
QUOTE
…Arthur C. Nelson, professor of city and regional planning at the University of Utah estimates that there are 39 million rental units in the US, and that number is expected to rise by between 9 and 12 million by 2020. He foresees a “flood of new rental units in many forms, from new apartment buildings; condo buildings converted to rental; accessory units attached to single-family houses; and existing owner-occupied houses that are flipped to rental.” But, he says, “The most popular locations will be mixed-use, transit-friendly neighborhoods”
(…)
What do you think is most important in terms of making communities more walkable and accessible for the aging population?

The main concerns have to do with Complete Streets, traffic calming, and connectivity. Issues the aging population faces often have to do with sensory loss. Making sure that there is adequate time to cross intersections, good lighting for visibility and safety at night, and having connected sidewalks for those who use canes or wheelchairs are some of the key things that communities can provide. In rural communities, having a town center is extremely important: a place where many different tasks can be accomplished in one area, like shopping for groceries, visiting the pharmacy, socializing with friends, and accessing day care facilities for those who care for grandchildren.
UNQUOTE

tags: place_making complete_streets aging project_for_public_spaces demographics cities

Q&A: Julie Corbett, founder and CEO, Ecologic Brands | SmartPlanet

Interesting observation on the importance of design, especially in eco-production.
QUOTE
Design has everything to do with what we’re about. People like to be sustainable, but they don’t want to compromise form and functionality. When you’re a packaging company, you have to be able to transcend different markets. I have to have a product that speaks to consumers no matter who they are — even if they’re not sustainability-minded. That’s how I make a difference. Design had everything to do with it, from gripability to comfort on the bottle. But then you have to be able to manufacture it. We’ve come up with the right combo.
UNQUOTE

tags: smartplanet julie_corbett ecologic manufacturing

Rag Drag by Nicole Gelinas – City Journal

This is so interesting. Maybe there will be a backlash, and people opt for some “artisan” clothing that lasts?
QUOTE
As for accessibility and variety, Cline notes that you can’t compare what a nice dress cost three decades, half a century, or even a century ago—a few hundred dollars in today’s inflated currency—with what it costs in 2012. Why? Because back then, people could sew. If a middle-class or working-class woman wanted a designer knockoff, she wouldn’t go to Zara and buy one for $10; she would select a pattern and a fabric, and get to work. Women’s and girls’ magazines featured sewing tips. Poorer people, especially children, had higher-quality charity castoffs. Look at an archival photo of a postwar kid at Coney Island, and you’ll see that he’s better dressed than today’s kids.

Sure, the rich can pay up for a nice outfit—thousands of dollars for a well-made dress or suit. But even the wealthy must practice caveat emptor; a top designer will try to sell you a $1,000 sweater made in China, with the label better hidden. And less-than-rich luxury seekers who choose a name-label polo top over a generic one aren’t getting higher quality. As Cline puts it, consumers have learned to ask themselves, “Why buy a $75 Ralph Lauren polo shirt when it’s not any better than the store-brand polo on the rack at Target?” When a Shenzhen factory finishes its two shifts for a label, it often will run an identical third shift for the generic market.
UNQUOTE

tags: city_journal nicole_gelinas clothing fashion economy

Americans Want to Live in a Much More Equal Country (They Just Don’t Realize It) – Dan Ariely – The Atlantic

Shocking.
QUOTE
…from the total pie of wealth (100%) what percent do you think the bottom 40% (that is, the first two buckets together) of Americans possess? And what about the top 20%? If you guessed around 9% for the bottom and 59% for the top, you’re pretty much in line with the average response we got when we asked this question of thousands of Americans.

The reality is quite different. Based on Wolff (2010), the bottom 40% of the population combined has only 0.3% of wealth while the top 20% possesses 84% (see Figure 2). These differences between levels of wealth in society comprise what’s called the Gini coefficient, which is one way to quantify inequality.”
UNQUOTE

tags: socialjustice socialtheory wealth atlantic_monthly dan_ariely

Evgeny Morozov: The Naked And The TED | The New Republic

Evgeny Morozov’s brilliant take-down of shoddy thinking and the never-ending push to be on an intellectual gravy-train for life…
QUOTE
AS IS TYPICAL of today’s anxiety-peddling futurology, the Khannas’ favorite word is “increasingly,” which is their way of saying that our unstable world is always changing and that only advanced thinkers such as themselves can guide us through this turbulence. In Hybrid Reality, everything is increasingly something else: gadgets are increasingly miraculous, technology is increasingly making its way into the human body, quiet moments are increasingly rare. This is a world in which pundits are increasingly using the word “increasingly” whenever they feel too lazy to look up the actual statistics, which, in the Khannas’ case, increasingly means all the time.
UNQUOTE

tags: evgeny_morozov tnr ted_conference socialcritique

How Urban Parks Enhance Your Brain, Part 2 – Arts & Lifestyle – The Atlantic Cities

Why even pocket parks need to be as lush as possible:
QUOTE
…the findings provide urban planners with some nice food for thought. The most intriguing conclusion to be drawn here is that the size of an urban park isn’t nearly as important as the density of its vegetation. Even when a nature site borders an urban road or housing development, it can function as a restorative place so long as it offers easy access to a dense interior. In other words, the ultimate goal is not to see the city for the trees.
UNQUOTE

tags: atlantic_cities trees evolutionary_psychology urban_forest

The Case for More Urban Trees – Neighborhoods – The Atlantic Cities

On the benefits of urban forests:
QUOTE
Several years ago, walkability guru Dan Burden wrote a detailed monograph titled 22 Benefits of Urban Street Trees. Among other things, he calculated that “for a planting cost of $250-600 (includes first 3 years of maintenance) a single street tree returns over $90,000 of direct benefits (not including aesthetic, social and natural) in the lifetime of the tree.” Burden cites data finding that street trees create slower and more appropriate urban traffic speeds, increase customer traffic to businesses, and obviate increments of costly drainage infrastructure. In at least one recent study (reported after Burden’s analysis), trees were even found to be associated with reduced crime.
UNQUOTE

tags: trees urban_forest amenities atlantic_cities