Shared Air

Richmond VA:  Capital City, River City, and now the first city in Virginia, and likely the United States, to have a major urban park system preserved in perpetuity under a conservation easement.

Signed into law on 29 May 2009, the Conservation Easement places about 280 acres of parkland, including the James River Park System, Great Shiplock [...]

[Read more →]

Every morning I wake up to cars driving by on the highway less than a quarter mile away from my room. Recently, the Richmond Times Dispatch (our local White newspaper) published a news article (link below) about a repair project on Hwy 64. The article said “The $43.3 million I-64 project will repair and resurface [...]

[Read more →]

We mentioned Portland’s $150 million transportation stimulus bonanza here last week. Well, here’s PBS’ documentary explaining what the Oregon city of similar size and geography to Richmond has been doing to earn it, and how they’ve had to tackle the transport, land use and energy economics and mindsets that worked in 1957 but no longer [...]

[Read more →]

His latest column, “Build it, and they will come?” is one-half exasperation and one-half folding to what he percives to be a better hand…
It’s time to end this long, drawn-out debate over the best site for a new baseball stadium in Richmond.The Shockoe Bottom location represents the only real momentum we have toward a ballpark. [...]

[Read more →]

Fitzgerald: The rich are different than you and me.
Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
It seemed sadly appropriate that I thought of that quotation about rich people and then mangled it for this post’s headline about the below article. Sad and appropriate because the original, a dialogue claimed by Ernest Hemingway between him and F. [...]

[Read more →]

Majora Carter’s very cool Sustainable South Bronx has a website. This link is to the basics of green roofs and their effect on reducing city heat islands and storm-water runoff and, yes, energy costs. Here’s a look at their Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (B.E.S.T.) program, charged with training for green jobs in building sectors and [...]

[Read more →]

William Hogeland gets semi-medieval on historical revisionists in Inventing American History…
“Neo-Hamiltonians have been chopping up the past to make it conform to their political aims. Alexander Hamilton’s national vision and founding economics are far more troubling–so more compelling–than his promoters acknowledge … Hamilton is routinely credited for favoring a strong executive branch. What he really [...]

[Read more →]

Friday 15 May 2009 is National Bike to Work Day.  Join the Convoy!
Arrive in Monroe Park by 7:15 a.m. for a presentation by Governor Tim Kaine and a representative from the City of Richmond. At 7:30 a.m., Governor Kaine will lead the group down Franklin Street towards the Capitol and riders can head to [...]

[Read more →]

Via vi.sualize.us.

[Read more →]

National Geographic has a nice story and gallery about green roofs, something Europe has embraced for decades and cities like Chicago are fast turning into real economic and community value. I especially like this quote:
“If we steal the ground for a building,” says International Green Roof Association director Wolfgang Ansel, “we can give it back [...]

[Read more →]