October 16, 2012
Its tone is part Chitty Chitty Bang Bang surrealism and part Walker Evans photojournalism, at once jubilantly surreal and brutally ethnographic. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Joshua Dubler via Frequencies

Its tone is part Chitty Chitty Bang Bang surrealism and part Walker Evans photojournalism, at once jubilantly surreal and brutally ethnographic.

Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Joshua Dubler

via Frequencies

2:43pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZfO81yVPoI8Z
October 16, 2012
"

The reason for the rent inflation is that the speculative value of the land is going up. Landlords see the number of amenities in the neighborhood increasing, and they start thinking they can get away with charging higher rents. Vacant lot owners see rents increasing, and they hold off on developing them into housing until rents go even higher.

So the rent increases are all about land speculation – the expectation that land values will be higher in the future, so we can charge higher prices today without adding any extra value.

There’s a simple solution to this – taxing land speculation directly.

"

— http://www.keystonepolitics.com/2012/10/land-value-tax-rent-inflation-and-gentrification/

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October 15, 2012

(Source: thedailykrog)

8:57am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZfO81yVKz8S1
(Notes: 3)
  
October 10, 2012
stephenkennedy: Temporary Playground to Turn Kids Into Planners An experiment in Germany engages kids to build micro-cities as playgrounds. The idea is coming to downtown Philadelphia. Kolle 37, as it’s called Berlin, is “is one of Germany’s most successful attempts at reforming how children play and learn by providing an interactive space for play,” reports Next American City’s Alex Vuocolo. A proposal in Philadelphia may see the American version of such a project take place. “But will a concept that works in a progressive borough of Berlin also work in the complicated legal landscape of an American city, where strict safety guidelines have defined playground construction for over 30 years?” asks Vuocolo. “[Alex Gilliam, director of Public Workshop], is confident that it will, and not only out of blind faith. He said that for youth engagement and crowd-sourcing projects to avoid liabilities and result in a successful finished product, there must also be subtle top-down management.” (via Next American City)

stephenkennedy:

Temporary Playground to Turn Kids Into Planners

An experiment in Germany engages kids to build micro-cities as playgrounds. The idea is coming to downtown Philadelphia.

Kolle 37, as it’s called Berlin, is “is one of Germany’s most successful attempts at reforming how children play and learn by providing an interactive space for play,” reports Next American City’s Alex Vuocolo. A proposal in Philadelphia may see the American version of such a project take place.

“But will a concept that works in a progressive borough of Berlin also work in the complicated legal landscape of an American city, where strict safety guidelines have defined playground construction for over 30 years?” asks Vuocolo. “[Alex Gilliam, director of Public Workshop], is confident that it will, and not only out of blind faith. He said that for youth engagement and crowd-sourcing projects to avoid liabilities and result in a successful finished product, there must also be subtle top-down management.”

(via Next American City)

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(Notes: 5)
  
October 10, 2012
Share or Die

We’re using 50 percent more natural resources per year than the earth can replace, and the global population and per capita consumption are growing. And, despite the overconsumption, countries all over the world are being rocked by social unrest because of how unevenly resources are distributed. The social contract is in tatters, and threats to peace and security seem likely to escalate. It’s now glaringly obvious to me that we need to learn to share on a global scale, fast, or die.

But the threat is not only one of biological death. Those like me – who are in no danger of starving anytime soon – face a spiritual death when we act as if well-being is a private affair, deny the influence we have on each other, and gate ourselves off from the rest of humanity with money and property. We can neither survive nor live well unless we share.

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September 18, 2012
"Our forefathers bled and died and in recent years, we lost lives because people were trying to gain equal rights. That’s what the President is guaranteeing. That’s what he ought to be doing."

—

Joseph Lowery speaks out against black ministers who are urging their parishioners to stay home on election day because of Obama’s stance on gay marriage, while his 90-year record of being a perfect human being remains unbroken. (via peachtreekeen)

we got some good people down south.

(via brookehatfield)

(via brookehatfield)

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(Notes: 19)
  
July 11, 2012

theparisreview:

“We made our way to the line in the beige customs hall. Suspended above the booths is Deborah Masters’s twenty-eight-panel frieze of scenes from New York City life—people riding the subway, men playing basketball, bathers at Coney Island. The line for American citizens moved steadily, and then we were at the front, waiting to be beckoned to one of the processing stations. And that was when I saw a seemingly unremarkable piece of paper and discovered we had walked into a whole new kind of environmental cinema. I would like to think this was some rogue strain of Documenta, but I know better. On a pillar someone had taped a production notice from National Geographic Television that stated, ‘By entering this area, you consent to your voice and likeness being videotaped and used without compensation for exploitation in any and all media.’”

—Liz Brown, “Documenta 13”

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(Notes: 8)
  
July 11, 2012
With $100,000 to spend, and some sketches on graph paper, Mr. Michot was already imagining a different kind of house: a piece of bayou bricolage made from sunken cypress logs and salvaged shacks, architectural heirlooms and family junk. And all that Spanish moss. For the first 400-pound load, Mr. Michot went to see a man in Catahoula. Under a brush tree, a mountain of moss was retting — a process that to the untrained eye looks a lot like rotting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/garden/at-home-with-louis-michot-of-the-lost-bayou-ramblers.html?ref=garden

With $100,000 to spend, and some sketches on graph paper, Mr. Michot was already imagining a different kind of house: a piece of bayou bricolage made from sunken cypress logs and salvaged shacks, architectural heirlooms and family junk.

And all that Spanish moss. For the first 400-pound load, Mr. Michot went to see a man in Catahoula. Under a brush tree, a mountain of moss was retting — a process that to the untrained eye looks a lot like rotting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/garden/at-home-with-louis-michot-of-the-lost-bayou-ramblers.html?ref=garden

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April 5, 2012
A Facebook for Cities?

The internet has been buzzing this week about the launch of Neighborland, a kind of “facebook for cities, or a collective urban planning platform that grew out of a project launched by artist Cindy Chang in 2010 when she began posting nametag style stickers reading “I wish this was ____” on abandoned buildings around New Orleans.  People began filling in the blanks on her stickers, which made Chang wonder what it would be like to allow these kinds of organic conversations to happen on a larger scale and eventually led to the launch of the site.

Grist has a pretty interesting article on Neighborland here and the Streetfight blog has one here.

Neighborland is on Twitter too

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April 5, 2012
Designing Healthy Communities

Designing Healthy Communities, a new PBS series, looks at the health impact of the built environment and connects bad community design with increasing health costs.

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January 25, 2012
“A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.” —Susan Sontag, 1977

“A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.”

—Susan Sontag, 1977

(Source: laphamsquarterly)

7:18am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZfO81yFLAWD3
(Notes: 29)
  
November 10, 2011
jetami: The Rap Board. The best website of late 2011. 

jetami:

The Rap Board. The best website of late 2011. 

(via travisekmark)

9:37am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZfO81yBkz0Hj
(Notes: 68)
  
November 10, 2011
thekittencovers: The ReMEOWns

thekittencovers:

The ReMEOWns

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(Notes: 1,607)
  
November 3, 2011
paavo: The Architecture of the 1%

paavo:

The Architecture of the 1%

(via senojp)

5:23pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZfO81yBSyV3L
(Notes: 21)
  
November 3, 2011
South downtown must be fixed for Atlanta to thrive  There’s a reason that early episodes of “The Walking Dead” were shot in south downtown: it took minimal effort to make the area resemble a post-apocalyptic urban wasteland. via Creative Loafing Another Thomas Wheatley gem! So jealous he got to interview THIS GUY and Tim Crimmins of Making of Modern Atlanta fame. Darren Amato, owner of Rondo Distributing Co., a Mitchell Street spiritual shop and Atlanta treasure that sells lotions and oils to ward off bad juju, says the once-crowded streets were reminiscent of New York City.

South downtown must be fixed for Atlanta to thrive 

There’s a reason that early episodes of “The Walking Dead” were shot in south downtown: it took minimal effort to make the area resemble a post-apocalyptic urban wasteland.

via Creative Loafing

Another Thomas Wheatley gem! So jealous he got to interview THIS GUY and Tim Crimmins of Making of Modern Atlanta fame.

Darren Amato, owner of Rondo Distributing Co., a Mitchell Street spiritual shop and Atlanta treasure that sells lotions and oils to ward off bad juju, says the once-crowded streets were reminiscent of New York City.

9:25am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZfO81yBS7dE4
(Notes: 6)
  
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