So Cal Participate - The Great Outdoors Initiative: Nationwide Public Hearings

We all love the great outdoors, and here is our opportunity to have the federal government agencies hear our ideas.

On July 8, 2010 from 3pm - 7pm there will be a Public Listening Session in SoCal at Occidental College's Thorne Hall on the America's Great Outdoors Initiative and give our opinions on how to build a 21st century conservation and recreation agenda for America's great outdoors public domain. Register by July 1st by sending an email to sun.nelly@epa.gov with your name, name of the organization, telephone and email address.

The Great Outdoors initiative was established by President Obama in April 2010. The departments of the Interior and Agriculture, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality are leading the efforts of the initiative.

Columbia Expansion Plan Updates

Wow, it is so exciting to follow the development of this project...My work at Columbia's Facilities Department helped me to find my passion for urban planning.

I know this is a controversial project...but the controversy is what sparks my interest!

In news today, the New York Times reports that the New York State Supreme Court upholds Columbia's campus expansion plan.

Link to article: Court Upholds Columbia Campus Expansion Plan
Link to my Facebook: Comments

Professional Community Opposition Consultants

By any means necessary, private sector rivals secretly finance 'community-like' opposition to Walmart development plans/neighborhood expansion. See the Wallstreet Journal Article

Meet your friendly neighborhood 'community-like' opposition consultants, they even have an iPhone App: The Saint Consulting Group.

The Market Likes BP's New Fund & Dividend Suspension

...Or so it seems from the fact that BP's stock opened at $29.90 and closed at $31.85, up $1.95 and both the Dow Jones (10.409.46, up 4.69 points) and the NASDAQ (2,305.93, up 0.05 points) markets closed higher after BP execs met with President Obama and announced they would suspend dividends and set a fund for oil spill claims.

Next American City ~ City Parks

Public-Private Partnerships to improve and sustain our Parks:

Next American City » Buzz » Issue 27 Preview: The High Cost of Free Parks


The New York City: Public-Private Partnership Snapshot:

• The Central Park Conservancy was founded in 1980, it raises 85% of the parks $27MM annual operating budget
• According to the NYC Parks Department, half of the city's 1,800 parks and playgrounds now depend on some type of private group for maintenance
• In 2008 the Madison Square Park Conservancy raised more than $3.1 MM from donations, corporate-sponsored events and Shake Shack proceeds & held cash and securities of almost $8MM; employed 28 maintenance staffers, guards, & administrators

I have mixed feelings about the benefits of the public-private partnerships in New York City Parks, on the one hand I have enjoyed many wonderful moments in the public-private partnership parks of NYC, and now after reading this article I can't help but wonder at the expense of whom.

Ascot Hills Park in Los Angeles, CA

Today construction of Phase II of Ascot Hills Park commenced and brings the residents of LA's Eastside, especially those of the El Sereno neighborhood, one step closer to having park space closer to home.

The City of Los Angeles District 14th's decision to purchase and protect land on Elephant Hill and the Northeast Hillside Ordinance, will protect and ensure the hillside from overdevelopment.

The $3.3 million Phase II will stretch over 53 acres and will include:

• Outdoor Amphitheatre
• New Hiking Trails
• Stream Restoration
• New Native Paintings (I'm assuming local artists will be involved)
• Irrigation
• Fire Safety Improvements
• Additional Parking

Information vs. News

Paulo Coelho's social commentary on news and information in his novel, The Winner Stands Alone: "The public prefers news to information."

Infrastructure Needed to Promote Green Car Markets

The deteriorating the state of our planet's ecosystem has made most of us evaluate our impact on the earth's rate of pollution. There is a general consensus that we MUST go green to reduce and maybe even one day counteract our negative effects on the earth's ecosystem.

The big question has always been related to cost, "how do we entice people to make the switch to green building, green cars, water rationing, and other green solutions?"

But what would happen if everyone does make an immediate change, can today's infrastructure really support these new eco-friendly ways? Unfortunately, the answer for many countries is NO.

When "Green" first started hitting mainstream channels, the resistance against Green always seemed to be the high costs associated to going green. But now that the private and public markets have found a good counter argument and solution to the cost allegations through a combination of full life-span analyses, and government rebate and/or financing incentives Green is no longer perceived as cost prohibitive.

As a result, we are starting to get a better idea of why we can't all just switch immediately to Green solutions: Infrastructure compatibility and availability.

Case and Point: The Electric Car

Raymond Tsang, from Bain & Co., "Price is not the only reason that keeps people from adopting [electric vehicles] today. The infrastructure and the drive range are some of the critical issues for people to think about."

The world or any country for that matter can not switch over to electric cars because there is simply not enough public recharge stations to support the demand, and countries, cities or states can not fully promote such a change until such infrastructure is in place to support a decent percentage of the expected demand.

For more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65124Y20100602

Architectural Digest Editor-in-Chief to Retire

Paige Rense Noland, Architectural Digest editor-in-chief for the past 40 years will retire, but will now be the editor emeritus. AD has yet to name a successor, but they will certainly have big shoes to fill.

Read more: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/paige-rense-noland-to-retire-from-architectural-digest/?src=busln

Mobile Communication...Have We Regressed?

Remember when cell phones were affordable? And when we weren't all addicted to smartphones: iPhone and blackberries?

We are definitely regressing back to when cell phones first came out and were not affordable to most, but now we are all so use to them, that it doesn't matter that we spend at least +$100 on our cell phone bills each month...AT&T is the first to start doing this because they have a monopoly on the iPhone and know that we will continue to pay.

AT&T's move is just the beginning, I am willing to bet money on the fact that Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint will not be far behind to make their own data-plan adjustments, it is basic economics.

Our only salvation may be that Apple fights for the consumer. In this scenario, AT&T seems like the only money hungry villain but I'm sure Apple was aware of these expected changes before the press release came out...which is to say that if this is happening in the US, other smartphone users will also soon face similar data-plan adjustments around the globe.

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/att-adds-iphone-tethering-kills-unlimited-data-for-ipad-smartphones/#ixzz0pibMaUNz