I have started working on moving this blog over to a WordPress format with its own domain. However, there is the rub. Both the domains for The Built Environment, and just Built Environment are taken. So I am trying to figure out a good domain name. Any ideas?
Recently, there was an article in the New York Times about a suburb in Vauban, Germany where cars are basically outlawed. Street parking, driveways, and home garages are forbidden within the community. If you do have a car, you have the option of purchasing a garage space on the outskirts of the community to park it in…at a mighty premium. From what I gather, this community is wildly popular among the eco-friendly and executives alike. This community works where it is, because it happens to be located along a tram line with a direct link to downtown Frieberg, and connections to the commuter rail. Compared to the United States, it is widely known that Germany and the rest of Europe have a very comprehensive and successful public transportation system, that makes living car free for entire communities possible.
Can it work here? In my opinion, it can in limited locations across the country. Indeed, you can find people almost anywhere that don’t have cars, either because they can’t afford one, or choose not to have one, and they get along fairly well. But for an entire community? I say, this won’t happen on a large scale in this country until we start thinking about the common good, with a look at the long term, and start putting some real emphasis on creating a viable public transportation system, that actually goes somewhere. I am not talking about just Fort Collins, but the country as a whole. People have to be mobile, and to go without cars, there needs to be a way to get from point A to point B in a relatively short period of time. We are starting to see signs of life on this front, but we have a long way to go. Of course, this will also require more compact development patterns. Indeed, in Vauban, single family homes are not generally permitted. Basically the community is a TOD project, but taken one step further.
To further this goal and concept, I think we also need to get away from the idea that homes must face paved public streets. Why does a street have to have 30-50 feet of asphalt to function as a public street? Why can’t homes face “green streets”? Instead of asphalt, why not landscaped courtyards? This would also serve as a place to play for kids that is close to home…and allow for smaller lots and denser developments. I have been pushing this concept for years with some success. A current project that I am working on is attempting to do this. I have blogged about Midori before, with more coming soon. The battles I face in trying to do “green streets” is how do we address the homes without a paved street, how to get utilities to them without a front door, and the real issue of fire access. Of course, people also have to get away from the idea that they have to have a garage attached to the home. There are some communities that have been successful at this, including co-housing communities, and many of the communities built by The Cottage Company Interestingly though, many other builders who try to build off the concept of The Cottage Company include attached garages now.
I would love to find an infill piece of ground to create a car free community in Fort Collins. Anybody want to join me on this?
Those of you that know me, know that I am a huge mac fan. I love my MacBook, and will tell anyone that listens that even though Mac’s are more expensive upfront, you spend far less time keeping them running, as you do with Windows on PC’s. Mac’s just work. However, some of the software I use for work, specifically AutoCAD only works on windows. So I am also forced to run windows on my mac as a virtual machine. I won’t go into all the details, but for the most part it has worked well. I do use XP, and have stayed away from Vista.
A couple of weeks ago I started having all kinds of issues with XP running extremely slow. I even did the standard Windows thing, and did the equivalent of reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling everything. That has helped somewhat, but there is still a bug in it somewhere.
However, at the same time I learned about Windows newest operating system, Windows 7. Usually I am very suspicious of anything new from Microsoft, but I took the leap and downloaded the free evaluation version of the operating system. One advantage of running thinks virtually, is that I can easily set up more than one operating system. Anyway, long story short, I am very impressed with Windows 7.0. Even though it is still in pre release form, it has worked for me without any issues, and is far faster than XP. So far, it far outshines Vista, and seems to be better than XP. One downfall for windows though, is I hear they will have several versions of the it coming out, as they have done in the past, only to add to the confusion.
Don’t get confused, Mac is till the superior operating system, and the fact there is only one version of it is a big plus to boost. But if I have to run Windows too, then, at least for now, Windows 7.0 looks very promising.
As recently reported in the Los Angeles Times, a bank that took over a failed housing development in Victorville, CA has decided it will be cheaper to demolish the unfinished project, rather than finish it and sell the units. Granted, things are no where near this bad here in Colorado, but I still find this story rather wild. Of the 16 homes in the development, 8 were under construction in some fashion, while 4 were finished model homes. All have been torn down. In Victorville, home values are about 50% off from where they were when this project was started.
Fortunately, the on site crews have been selling off a lot of the materials, and are recycling a lot of the rest, so at least it isn’t going into the landfill. But this entire exercise is still a waste of resources from building the homes in the first place, to tearing them down. Not to mention all the money spent on this project for building and ultimately demolition, taking the project back to dirt.
It just frustrates me to no end when I need to tackle a 5 minute task, but it takes an hour and a half or so to solve a computer issue, so I can get to that 5 minute task.
