Livable Cities

"Urban planning deals with the layout and function of towns and cities. Variables within the patterns of urban development are sometimes described as the 'five D's': density, diversity, design, destination accessibility, and distance to transit." (Robertson 2014)

Im not sure how well Fort Myers was planned out. It is quickly becoming a very dense city that has a random design to it. There are neighborhoods going in everywhere; it doesn’t matter if they are next to a Walmart or if they are in an open area. I also don’t think that the public transit is that good down here. We have busses and other forms of transit but it doesn’t seem to be the easily accessible to people who live on the outskirts of the city. It would have been nice to see what Fort Myers would be like if the city planners laid it out a lot better than it currently is.

Urban Planning posted on http://urbanblightphotoessayassignment.weebly.com/

"New Urbanism is an urban design movement closely related to smart growth, focused on the elements of a neighborhood that make it attractive and successful, with a strong sense of community." (Robertson 2014)

Its cool to visit a city that is planned out in a practical way. One of the best planned out ones I can think of that is close would be Lakewood Ranch in Sarasota. It is basically a giant neighborhood that is planned so that it can operate basically by itself. They have their own schools, groceries, and entertainment within the layout of the city. You can feel a strong sense of community pride when you enter the limits. But when you go from a place like that to somewhere like Lehigh there is a big difference. Lehigh seems just has houses built basically where ever someone wanted one and there is no real plan for the neighborhood. It would have been nice if they would have thought it through and tried to plan out a nice laid out neighborhood.

Urbanism posted on http://globalbasketball.com/global-basketball-summer-league-new-york-city/

"Urban planners are working to complete the streets, that is to make them convenient and safe for all users, all travel modes, and all abilities." (Robertson 2014)

I think this could be a big step towards sustainability in many urban environments. There are a lot of bike lanes around here which is good to promote bike use instead of driving cars but I’m not sure how safe they are. Especially with Florida drivers, I think there needs to be a barrier, either concrete or plant, in between the bikes and cars. I think this would get a lot more people to ride their bikes places because it would be safer for them to do so. In cities like Vancouver there are a lot wider bike lanes that are clearly marked with green plant that gives the biker a safer ride than the ones down here. If we were to change the bike lanes down here it would take a lot of effort by civil engineers to rebuild the streets and the bike lanes that go along with them.

Safe Bike Lanes posted on http://www.bikearlington.com/pages/biking-in-arlington/bicycle-facilities/

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Douglas/ Water

"In California, 80 percent of the demand for water lies in the southern two-thirds of the stat, most of which receives only a few inches of rainfall a year, while about 70 percent of California's available water falls as precipitation in the less-populated northern third of the state." (Robertson, 2014)

This may be the biggest problem that we will face in the near future. Over the last 10 years we have been hearing more and more stories about water shortage in places all around the world. In California they have been implementing different techniques to try to conserve the little water they have left. When I was out in California a couple of years ago you can see the lack of water everywhere. Water reservoirs and canals on the side of the road are dried up and show no sign of water. We need to develop new techniques to try to distribute water throughout the states when some of the state doesn’t get a lot of water. If we could find a way to get some of the water from the northern section of California down to southern California we would have less of a problem than we have now. But as of right now we have not developed a technique like that yet.

Water Shortage posted on www.southbayresidential.com

"In parts of the arid US West, 70 percent of residential water may be used for keeping lawns green." (Robertson, 2014)

This is crazy to me. I understand that we want our lawns to be nice and pretty but if we are running out of water something has to give. I work the night shift as a security guard and when I drive around my neighborhood there is so much waste of water. Lawns get watered two times a night and sometimes the sprinklers are pointed onto the street and are not watering anything. Another thing I see is the water running when it is raining. Why would we need to water our lawns when it is raining outside? If we can change some simple things it seems like we can cut back on the amount of water we use for our landscaping.

Watering Lawns posted on Huffington Post

"The saw grass stands drying to old gold and rustling faintly, ready, if there is a spark anywhere, to burst into those boiling red flames which crackle even at a great distance like a vast frying pan..." (Douglas, 2011)

This is what happened a couple of weeks ago. Right now we are in the dry season and haven’t gotten rain in a couple of months. This causes the grasses in the everglades to dry out and when a spark hits the dry grass, either by man or by nature, all the grass goes up into flames. This is a natural phenomenon that has happened for centuries but it effects us now because we are trying to develop as close to the everglades as possible and the flames can start to damage humans. Natural the flames would just die off but since it was threatening us we had to put it out. We see this battle with nature all over the US with wildfires damaging infrastructure.

Everglades Wildfire posted on Wild Fire Today

Douglas, M. S. (2011). The Nature of the Everglades. In University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future. Acton, MA: Copley Custom Textbooks

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Food/Food Inc

"Permaculture emphasizes the use of perennial plants rather than annuals and avoids disturbing the soil by digging and plowing. Chickens and other animals have a variety of roles to play including nutrient cycling, pest control, and food production and are often part of permaculture farms." (Robertson, 2014)

I think that this is a really good concept in theory but I don’t know how practical this would be in today’s society. The larger scale producers of meats and grains would not be able to produce the quantity that they do if they couldn’t plow the ground and had to only rely on perennial plants. It also seems that it would cost them much more money than what they are spending now to produce their crops and of course they wouldn’t want to spend more money when they don’t have to. I think this would be a good practice for small self sustaining farms or farms that produce small quantities of things. It should be a relatively easy switch for them to implement this idea with out to much money spent.

Permaculture posted on eco-evolution

The first wow moment that I could think of in the Food Inc movie was when they were talking about how farmers could be sued if some of Mosantos seeds blew onto their land, even if the farmer wasn’t using them. A farmer shouldn’t be penalized if the wind or animals pick up seed somewhere else and bring it to their property. It would be almost impossible for the farmers to tell the difference between the two seeds unless they tested every plant that was growing. Plus Mosanto is a big enough company that if this where to happen they could almost sue the farmer out of their farm and therefore destroying their lives. We are almost punishing people for wanting to produce their own crops instead of selling their land to a big company and that doesn’t seem right at all.

Corn Field posted on pinterest

The second wow moment was the drop in food safety inspections by the FDA. It said that there has been a drop by almost 42,000 in only 30 years which is ridiculous. The way we produce food now there should be more inspections done because there seems to be a lot more deadly disease outbreaks. The way most of our food is produce helps bread diseases and we are just willing letting them go unchecked. There should be more legislation in place that says the factories that produce our food should at least be check once a year. This would cut down on outbreaks and would lead to a better quality of food produced. Its crazy that we don’t think that we deserve at least disease free food.

FDA food inspection posted on marlerblog.com

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.