NYC: light years away...or one of the pack?

THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT THE GREATNESS OF N.Y.C.. A GREATNESS TOO EVIDENT TO EVEN BE DISCUSSED. THIS THREAD IS ABOUT HOW N.Y.C. FITS IN WITH ITS FELLOW U.S. CITIES. You get a sense from many forumers on this board that New York City is in a category of its own, an incomparable place that divides American cities into two groups: • New York • others In other words, "A-#-1, king of the hill, top of the heap", leaving even cities like LA, Chgo, SF, and Boston in its dust. As an American, do you see New York City in such a light....the star above all others in some sort of a hierarchial rating system? -or- Do you preceive that in the last half century, that total control that New York seemed to have had over every aspect of US life (save for government.... and that one it often shared with DC behind the scenes anyway) has been reduced, that power has spead out greatly from its old Eastern Establishment (Bowash) days, that our cities in the last half century have been invigorated with a sophistication unknown to them prior to WWII...so that New York, while still our greatest city, needs to be spoken of in the same breath as other US cities? So, which is it...New York leaves the pack in its dust, or that one is an old paradigm: other US cities have grown too sophisticated, have been acquired too many ammentiies, too many aspects of quality urbanism that no city, even New York, is immune from being grouped with the others?>

Abandoned Municipal Projects

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Do you see any hope for the Rust Belt?

This region has been decaying for decades now, and recent attempts to clean things up haven't been all to successful. Is there any hope for these cities?>

CBD Tornado's

I reall hope someone can give me some insight on what happened to downtowns when a tornado struck the premises. For instance, Oklahoma city...if i recall, a twister struck the CBD a few years back but i never saw any damaged photos. I cant remember any other large cities getting hit except milwaukee near the airport and minneapolis in the suburbs. How do the buildings stand up against the tornado when it enters within proximity. N.O. downtown had countless windows blow out in their towers after the hurricane struck. I love to make the connection with weather and how architects design buildings to withstand such impact. SF is an example of a big city constructing buildings that prevent collapses from earthquakes. What ever happened to OKC that day of the tornado! Some one fill me in and discuss>

A Misfit ahead of "His" Time

Misfit S.F. is just ahead of its time Joan Ryan Thursday, March 2, 2006 It is said that we never really leave high school. The workplace is high school with cubicles. Our neighborhoods are high school with cocktail parties. When I heard about the San Francisco Board of Supes passing a resolution this week calling for the impeachment of the president, a move that followed one of the supes dismissing on national television the need for a standing military, I suddenly had an image of a high school made up of all the major cities in the country. Just as every student plays a role in the dynamic of a school, so does every big city in the dynamic of a country. Los Angeles is the cheerleader with the nose job and the Juicy Couture tank top. Chicago is the good-natured linebacker who is the go-to guy when a keg needs tapping and isn't above stuffing the ballot box to become class president. San Francisco is the odd kid in the back row of the classroom in the tattered vintage jeans and fuchsia scarf with a streak of orange in his hair. He doesn't wear leather and explains with the verve of an evangelist why not. He is of ambiguous sexual orientation and ethnicity, though there's a clear Asian influence. He has amazing bone structure. He is trim and elegant without being too polished. He carries himself the way people do who know they are beautiful. But he doesn't make any particular effort to look good. That would be shallow and, in his book, shallowness is about the most serious sin. He sees himself as an intellectual, someone who is compassionate and sophisticated, well read and well traveled, socially conscious and politically enlightened. That not everyone sees him in the same way is of no concern to him. There is no question in his mind that they are wrong, and he is right. Not surprisingly, he has opinions about everything, and shares them without reservation and without worrying what anyone thinks of him. Indeed, there is often more than a hint of condescension in his opinions, as if he is trying his best to be patient while everyone else catches up to his forward thinking. He has reason to feel a little smug. Many of his ideas that seemed radical when first presented -- recycling garbage, for instance, or banning pesticides from playing fields -- eventually became commonplace. The Fuschia Scarf He's the one at the school who speaks up for the gays and lesbians, the nerds and hippies, the outcasts and losers. He's the one who organizes a boycott of the cafeteria until it serves only organic and free-trade products, who collects food and winter jackets for the homeless and who spearheads a recall of the principal. Sometimes people dismiss him as a kook or even a freak, but he never doubts the rightness of his beliefs. He thinks he can change the world, despite all evidence to the contrary. For instance, he thinks he can get the white kids, black kids and Asian kids to mix into one happy, integrated student body. But despite all his efforts and his social theories, each group separates itself from the others, retreating to its own table in the lunchroom. Some find his idealism refreshing and essential; others think it's childish, impractical and mind-numbingly predictable. In truth, he struggles with consistency. He is a committed vegan until he reads the menu at Gary Dankos. He marches in every anti-whatever parade, unless it conflicts with his trips to Squaw or Kona. He believes deeply in tolerance but shouts down Republican classmates. Few question, however, his facile and unconventional mind. He challenges accepted wisdom. So he blows everyone away with his science-fair projects and multimedia book reports, but he barely passes the courses he considers stupid and irrelevant -- "the old paradigm," he says. He wants to break new ground, invent things no one else has thought possible. He can take himself too seriously sometimes, but he is also a load of fun. He'll try anything, go anywhere, meet anyone. He can be irreverent and silly. He is the only child -- a little self-centered, a little indulged -- of a gracious, wealthy mother and a raconteur father. So he can tie a Windsor knot and box the favorite in the sixth at Golden Gate Fields. He can deliver the most elegant toasts and tell the bawdiest jokes. He's equally comfortable at opening night at the ballet and Halloween in the Castro. In a high school populated by major cities, San Francisco is the wild but likable radical. He's nutty, rebellious, smart, indulgent, arrogant, funny, gorgeous. And as much as his classmates ridicule his crazy ideas and out-there opinions, more times than not, the weird kid in the back of the room with the fuchsia scarf is on to something. E-mail Joan Ryan at joanryan@sfchronicle.com. Her column runs on Thursdays while she on assignment. Page B ->

Bush Government pays people to marry

It's true. The so-called "Republicans" are paying couples to get married. That's YOUR taxpayer money paying for someone half way across the country to get married!!!>

Bush Government pays people to marry

It's true. The so-called "Republicans" are paying couples to get married. That's YOUR taxpayer money paying for someone half way across the country to get married!!!>

Boxiest US Skyline

What US skyline is boxier than boxy? Which ones are so bland and boring you might as well turn your pencil around, erase the thing, and start over cause your art teacher told you it just wasn't creative enough?>

Annex or no annex?

Which do you prefer and why? Annexation or no annexation?>

Are your city's city limits "frozen"?

Are your city's city limits "frozen"....that is, set for eternity? Your first reaction may be "YES!", but keep in mind the following: there were a lot of changes in city limits in the past; who is to say there won't be others in the future? So I'll take you to the future. Let's make it 2050, mid-century, and ask you the following: In 2050, will your city's city limits be exactly in the place they are today? Now that means they can be larger through annexation and smaller by secession. So no matter how old your city is or in what part of the nation it is in, will its city limits change at all in the next 45 years? What do you see will be your city's city limits in 2050?>

Which Area of the sunbelt will be best for investing in real estate in 10-15 years???

Which Area of the U.S. Sunbelt do you feel will be best for investing in real estate 10-15 years down the road? Please justify your answer. Thanks in advance.>

Would Las Vegas to become most successful city and suprasses LA at overall?

Quote:> Vegas Stripping L.A. of Its Luxury Luster For boutiques, dining, stage shows and even palm trees, the desert city has become a rival. By Gina Piccalo Times Staff Writer November 24, 2005 Piero Selvaggio calls it his "Las Vegas experience." It was opening night at Valentino, the Venetian hotel version of his successful Santa Monica restaurant, when a high roller sent his butler to buy some wine to go with dinner. Twenty minutes later, Selvaggio had sold the man more than $4,000 worth of rare Burgundy and vintage Bordeaux. "In less than half an hour," said Selvaggio, one of the Los Angeles area's leading restaurateurs, "I was able to see things I would never have imagined possible." And that was just the beginning. Las Vegas' appetite for the luxe life has grown so ravenous in the last few years that it is stunning veterans of the hospitality industry — and nibbling away at the good life all over the country, nowhere more than in Los Angeles. Call it the Vegas Effect. The city's relentless demand for luxury has contributed to a rise in prices for Kobe beef and palm trees, wiped out exclusive wine stock, lured wealthy Asian tourists away from Rodeo Drive with more exclusive boutiques and kept touring Broadway shows such as "Avenue Q" and "Spamalot" out of Los Angeles. It is siphoning top talent and thousands of workers from throughout Southern California. And everything — from specialty produce from the Santa Monica Farmers Market to ordinary items such as toilet paper and lumber — has to be imported from somewhere, usually Southern California. "When you go to Las Vegas, you have a sense that spending — it's almost easier, looser — and you feel that it's part of the pleasure," Selvaggio said. "The opulence and the variety and quality at the high end in Las Vegas is much, much bigger than Los Angeles. Los Angeles cannot even vaguely compete with this." Of course, Las Vegas has long been a city of superlatives. It has for years been the nation's fastest-growing city. It has the largest job growth rate: 7.4% in 2005 with more than 62,000 jobs created this year. More hotel rooms than any city in the world: 133,000. More conventions and trade shows than any in the United States. Fashion designers, restaurateurs, hoteliers, superstar chefs and Broadway producers all want a presence in Las Vegas, because as L.A. nightlife impresario Amanda Demme said, "If you're known in Vegas, you're known everywhere." Lee Maen, a partner in Innovative Dining Group, which owns trendy restaurants in L.A. and Las Vegas including Boa and Sushi Roku, agreed: "As much as L.A. influences the Vegas market, the Vegas market influences other restaurants across the country." Las Vegas' glittering shopping concourses now house so many exclusive boutiques that the L.A. luxury market looks almost second tier by comparison. When Oscar de la Renta looked west, he opened his third store in the world in Las Vegas, not L.A. The Manolo Blahnik and Dior Homme boutiques in Las Vegas are the second locations outside New York. Overall, Las Vegas experienced four times the retail and trade growth that L.A. did in the last year, according to Ross DeVol, director of regional economics at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica. More wealthy visitors from Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo, who are so cherished by L.A.-area tourism officials, are skipping Rodeo Drive altogether. "Over the past two years, Asian visitations have grown more to Las Vegas than to Los Angeles," DeVol said. "These are high rollers, who stay multiple nights at high-end hotels." "This would be a direct challenge to Beverly Hills and South Coast Plaza," said Jack Kyser, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.'s senior vice president and chief economist. "And now there's direct airline service from Asia. The high-rolling Asian tourists might just choose to overfly L.A." Los Angeles also lost out on at least two popular Broadway shows. This year, billionaire hotel mogul Steve Wynn is leading the city's efforts to bring first-run Broadway productions to Vegas permanently. Thanks to his exorbitant offers — $5 million for "Avenue Q" and $10 million for "Spamalot" — the shows won't tour the region, blacking out theaters in the L.A. area. In addition to Cirque du Soleil's wild success in Las Vegas, "Mamma Mia!" and "We Will Rock You" have become Vegas hits. "We're selling so many tickets to so many shows that there's room for a lot of diversity [in productions]," said Alan Feldman, MGM Mirage's senior vice president of public affairs. "That in turn has prompted some producers to look at their economic model and say, 'What happens if I don't tour?' " Settling down in Las Vegas means getting the benefits of touring without the expense, Feldman said: a fresh audience that comes through every three days, no enormous expenses of a traveling cast or setting up and tearing down the sets, and being able to say to employees, "You can have a family. You can get a house, an animal, live your life." While the restaurant scene is going through a cool period in L.A., where more than a dozen trendy spots closed this fall, just about 250 miles to the east, Vegas is sizzling. The list of celebrity chefs with Vegas outposts reads like a Who's Who of the culinary world: Alain Ducasse, Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Julian Serrano, Thomas Keller, Michael Mina, Tom Colicchio, Charlie Palmer. Just this fall, French three-star chef Joel Robuchon joined the lineup at the MGM Grand. Another French three-star chef, Guy Savoy, is on the way to Caesars Palace. This year, more restaurants opened in Nevada than any other state in the nation, according to the National Restaurant Assn., thanks in large part to the competition among Las Vegas' luxury hotels. Once there, restaurateurs often find the city provides a near nonstop supply of big spenders. "Obviously there's an advantage when you have 15,000 people every night going to a show, a 400-room hotel that's booked all year round at 100% occupancy," said celebrity chef Bradley Ogden, who moved to Las Vegas from the Bay Area to open his namesake restaurant in Caesars Palace in 2003. Even home cooks are competing with Vegas hotels, whose chefs shop for the region's best produce at the Santa Monica Farmers Market. L.A. Specialty Produce, a buyer and distributor, takes orders from nearly every hotel and restaurant along the Strip, then ships them locally grown fruits and vegetables, said Greg Bird, the director of business development. "We usually have two to three people at the Santa Monica Farmers Market every Wednesday," Bird said. "We're in communications with them throughout the course of the week. Some of that stuff never hits the display because we automatically take it." Although the company also sells to chefs in Southern California, Arizona and Hawaii, Las Vegas represents 15% to 20% of its total business. Likewise, Kobe beef — the rich, Japanese-style delicacy — is in short supply all over the United States, thanks in part to demand in Las Vegas, where tourists consume tons of the luxury meat each week. Snake River Farms in Idaho, the largest American Kobe producer, has watched its Vegas business explode in the last five years, said Shane Lindsay, the general manager of sales. "It's grown from a minor player to perhaps our most significant market," he said. "Every casino down the Strip has Kobe on its menu," said Mark Hoegh, marketing specialist for Kobe Beef America of Redmond, Ore. "Vegas has become quite a Kobe town. Even New York — per capita — does not buy as much as Vegas." There are 14 master sommeliers in Las Vegas; Los Angeles has none, according to the Court of Master Sommeliers. And the casinos, with their 50,000-bottle cellars and deep pockets, said Selvaggio, "have literally wiped out the finest Burgundy and Bordeaux, the finest of California, the finest of Italy, the finest of Australia and Spain." Las Vegas casinos can buy rare wines in such large quantities, said sommelier Mark Mendoza of Sona restaurant in L.A., that Los Angeles restaurants often miss out. "One hotel might get four or five cases of the rare white Burgundy Domaine Ramonet Batard-Montrachet where I might get three bottles when I ask for a case," he said. "There's only a certain amount earmarked for the Southern California market when those really hard-to-get wines come out." "In terms of niche wines," said Jack Robertiello, editor of Cheers, a restaurant trade magazine, "a lot of it ends up in Las Vegas because of the buying power of the casinos and places like Aureole or other destination restaurants." Something similar has been happening with palm trees, specifically the date palm, one of the signatures of Southern California. Vegas hotels and housing developments require so many of the lush species — nearly all are grown in Indio — to create a pseudo-oasis, that they have helped drive up the price 50% in the last two years, from $1,800 to $2,700 per tree. "Demand has been steadily rising since 2003, particularly in Vegas, by double digits every year," said Jack McClary, secretary treasurer of the Southern Nevada Landscape Assn. For L.A., that has meant living with fewer date palms — disease has killed off hundreds of the trees, and cities can no longer afford to replace them. "In those communities where the trees are predominant, such as Hancock Park, San Pedro and Van Nuys, we have not been able to replace those trees; we've had to replace the species," said George Gonzalez, chief forester for the city of Los Angeles. About the only thing that's not booming in Las Vegas is manufacturing: The city still imports nearly all its resources from California. Ogden and many other chefs said most of their fresh produce and fish comes from the Santa Monica Farmers Market and the Santa Monica Seafood Co. The seafood company's Las Vegas business has grown so rapidly in the last five years, said its director of sales, Tim Metro, that the company now trucks fresh food from L.A. six nights a week to 75 chefs along the Strip. "Clearly, there's a symbiotic relationship between Los Angeles and Las Vegas," said the Milken Institute's DeVol. "Las Vegas is going to do better if L.A. does better simply from a travel and tourism perspective." But does L.A. do better if Vegas does better? "It's not clear." >At least, we thought that Las Vegas will be at same level as Phoenix shit.>

Articles on Phoenix sprawl

Take a look at this, here's one of the many articles (narrated by pictures)on Sprawlopolis USA. It actually shows that the people of Arizona actually prefer the sprawl...also i think you will find the pictures quite...interesting. >

How is light rail for you city?

Choose how you feel light rail is for you city.>

If Darth Vader lived in America, where would he live?

Where would Darth Vader choose to set up shop?>

Show your city's lights and night shots

I'll start with Chicago: Big City Lights >

Whats the largest populated suburb in your greater metro

suburbs/ cities in greater metro heres Milwaukee's top 5 : Racine 81,000 Waukesha 67,000 West Allis 60,000 Wauwatosa 46,000 Brookfield 42,000>

CALIFORNIA: An increasingly Negative Domestic Migration

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/bu...rtner=homepage NY Times November 7, 2005 Saying Goodbye California Sun, Hello Midwest By MOTOKO RICH and DAVID LEONHARDT LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo., Nov. 3 - A year ago, Melanie Fischer, a lifelong Californian, was not entirely sure where Missouri was. So when her husband proposed that they consider moving there, she raced to locate the state on a map printed on her children's placemats. Today, Mrs. Fischer and her family live in this suburb of Kansas City, in a five-bedroom house nearly twice the size of their former home near San Bernardino, with a huge yard and a lake view from the hot tub on their deck. Still, Mrs. Fischer, 28, and her husband, Nathan, 30, had enough money left after their move to pay off the debt on their two cars and buy a 21-foot motorboat. Many of their new neighbors cannot fathom why the Fischers left sunny California for, of all places, Missouri. "You have to give up things," Mrs. Fischer said, "to get things." A growing number of people are leaving California after a decade of soaring home prices, according to separate data from the Census Bureau, the Internal Revenue Service and the state's finance department. Last year, a half million people left California for other parts of the United States, while fewer than 400,000 Americans moved there. The net outflow has risen fivefold, to more than 100,000, since 2001, an analysis by Economy.com, a research company, shows, although immigration from other countries and births have kept the state's population growing. The number of people leaving Boston, New York and Washington is also rising, and skyrocketing house prices appear to be a major reason, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. From New York, the net migration to Philadelphia more than doubled between 2001 and 2004, with 11,500 more people leaving New York for Philadelphia last year than vice versa. The number of New Yorkers who have moved to Albany, Charlotte, N.C., and Allentown, Pa., among other places, has also increased sharply. But the change seems most pronounced in California, which has long been a beacon that draws people from all over the country, with its sun-drenched coasts and dynamic economy. Today, however, the same factors that have made California so alluring have also made it unaffordable for many young families, retirees and recent immigrants to the United States. Some are heading to fast-growing cities like Las Vegas, as they have been for decades. But even less-glamorous destinations, like the Rust Belt and Texas, are on the receiving end of the migration. The last few years appear to be one of the few times on record that California has lost domestic population when its job market was as healthy as the rest of the country's, economists and demographers said. "People are saying, 'Even though I have to take a 10 percent wage cut to go to Vegas or Phoenix, it's actually a wage increase,' " said Ross C. DeVol, the director of regional economics at the Milken Institute, a research group in Santa Monica, Calif. "They look at what housing costs here, and they're making decisions to go elsewhere." Far more Californians are staying - for the weather, the landscape, the culture and other reasons - than are moving, but it is also clear that California is losing some of its attraction. In a survey of 2,500 Californians last year by the Public Policy Institute of California, a research group, about a third of residents under 35 said the cost of housing was making them consider moving to a less expensive area. Two-thirds of those people said they were thinking of leaving the state. The current migration out of California is not as large as the one in the mid-1990's, which was driven more by job losses in aerospace and other industries than by real-estate prices. Today, the most popular destinations for people moving from Los Angeles and San Francisco are less expensive parts of California, like Riverside and Sacramento. Las Vegas and Phoenix also remain near the top of the list, but Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Virginia Beach and Oklahoma City are becoming popular, according to Economy.com. In the Kansas City area, which straddles Missouri and Kansas, a small band of Californians are discovering the plentiful supply of spacious homes for prices that would not buy a shack back where they came from. "They just walk in and go 'Wow, we can have space,' " said Sandy Tasker, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker in Overland Park, Kan. According to I.R.S. data, the net population transfer to Missouri from California more than tripled, to about 2,200, from 2001 to 2004. Guadalupe Osegueda, a 34-year-old ironworker who grew up in Los Angeles, recently chose Kansas City over the desert cities that have traditionally drawn Californians. "I didn't want to go to Las Vegas or Arizona," said Mr. Osegueda, who lives with his fiancée and their two daughters. "Everyone is going there and the prices have gone up drastically." The couple sold a three-bedroom house near Los Angeles for $450,000. They bought a four-bedroom house, with two kitchens and a swimming pool, for $185,000 in Gladstone, Mo., near Kansas City. With a monthly mortgage payment of only $496, Mr. Osegueda said he hoped he could retire by the time he was 48. In California, he said, "people need to work all their lives to pay off their home." The Fischers felt like they were running in place to keep up with their $200,000 mortgage, car payments and other expenses when Mr. Fischer, who managed a fast-food restaurant, heard about an arm of a new Christian group forming in Kansas City. The couple, who met while training for overseas Christian missions, were intrigued by the idea of joining the group. They searched for homes online and quickly saw how much more they could get for their money. Mrs. Fischer realized she could quit her job as a medical billing supervisor and stay at home with their son, Cole, 7, and their daughters, C. J., 5 and Kendal, 3. Mr. Fischer applied for a job managing a bagel chain store in Kansas City. When they found their house, for $189,000, the move started to fall into place. Mrs. Fischer said that leaving her extended family behind in California was "traumatic" and that she missed the warm weather. But she and Mr. Fischer also noted that they had friends who were leaving California for destinations that included Utah and Texas. "Everybody is always like, 'California, oh, so cool,' " Mrs. Fischer said. "But all my friends who were raised there are trying to leave." Perhaps more common than the Fischers' story, however, is the experience of families who leave the state even before they are able to buy a house. Mr. DeVol of the Milken Institute said there seemed to be a rise in the number of Mexican immigrants leaving California after just a few years there. Other young families are making the same decision. Heather and John Franklin were renting a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego when they married last year. On Ms. Franklin's income as a real estate agent and Mr. Franklin's pay as a mechanic, they could not afford a house in San Diego, where the median home price is almost $605,000. In Kansas City, where Mr. Franklin, 22, grew up, the couple, who have a seven-month-old daughter, bought a house for $134,000. Ms. Franklin, 24, who was raised in San Diego, never imagined she would leave California. Since moving to Kansas City, she has had to get used to tornado warnings and the concept of wind chill. "But we are always told how lucky we are to be so young and already have what we have," she said, referring to their three-bedroom home. "We realized we had to sacrifice living in California to get that." That appears to be the biggest cost of the nation's bifurcated real-estate market: some families say they have to make decisions based more on home prices than on jobs or family reasons. They end up with more space than they imagined, but they miss other things. Sam Cannon and Velia Dayton left Los Angeles two years ago when they and their two young children outgrew their two-bedroom rental apartment. Even with a budget of $450,000, they quickly discovered they could not afford anything less than 70 miles from Mr. Cannon's office. "The idea of living in the middle of the desert in a prefab 1,200-square-foot home, stretching ourselves financially and driving three hours a day, wasn't appealing anymore," Mr. Cannon, 34, said. So the family moved to a suburb of Detroit, where Mr. Cannon's parents live, and he took a job at an Internet marketing firm. They bought a brick Tudor-style house for $310,000, near good schools and a 15-minute drive to his office. Mr. Cannon and Ms. Dayton do miss California's "culture and excitement and food," he said. "We've been spending two and a half years trying to find good Thai food and still haven't found it yet." They still talk about trying to get back to Los Angeles. But, he lamented, "housing isn't getting any cheaper there.">

Motown - reborn

I live pretty close to this town and out cities share a "whole bunch of economical realities...". Here's a post I submitted in the T-Dot forum. If any of it is of interest, I'll happily X.......pa. Detroit is not an expressway victim. And I for one would love to see a real (small R) renaissance in Detroit. If partnering with Toronto helps the case... all the better. We are the "have" and they are the "have not". But we have a lot more in common than you think. Detroit has suffered the same political rot (plus many, many other issues) that Buffalo has... the difference between the two can best be described by the 11 PM news, aka "fires at eleven". Buffalo's fires are not politically motivated (lots of wood), while Detroit's always were... I pick Detroit if anyone can figure out how to navigate the war between a wealthy suburban power structure and a very poor, weedy, almost forgotten (but glorious), scary downtown. Did that make any sense??>

In 2008- Republicans vs. Democrats vs. Third Parties

How will you vote during the 2008 Presidential, senate, and House of Representatives (or congress) elections?>

What's the more important world city? LA or Chicago?

Ok, first off I would like to clarify things by saying this is NOT a "which city do you like better" or "which skyline is better" or "which city is more urban", this is asking your opinion of which U.S. city, behind NYC obviously, is a bigger player in the scheme of world cities? I got the idea for this thread by reading another thread that had forumers arguing between which city, LA or Chicago, was more important. This is derived from the 2000 rankings of Alpha World Cities which are: London, New York, Paris, Tokyo Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Milan, Singapore so.. what do you think? and why?>

YOUR CITY DO OVER WISHLIST

This is closely related to the "which city needs to start over" thread. I feel some cities have some things that in retrospect should not have been done, but otherwise have not harmed the city overall. I will start so you get the idea. San Diego, i would not want to start over at all, as they have done a nice job in development and design. However, two things I would change. 1. Deciding on a different place for the airport initially. Its placement has resulted in the stunted growth of downtown and a wasted section of bayfront property. 2. Coronado Island Naval Base. Coronado Island or Penninsula as it technically is, is a gem in california. ritzy houses. however, half of it is wasted by a naval base that houses the aircraft carriers, and the naval air base. I think that island should have been designated EXCLUSIVE from the get-go. Anyone else want to chime in?>

Gross State Product 2004

States ranked by Economic Output per person: States ranked by Gross State Product per capita 2004: Rank State GSP per Capita 1 Delaware 65,634 2 Connecticut 53,402 3 Alaska 51,721 4 Massachusetts 49,513 5 Wyoming 47,974 6 New Jersey 47,811 7 New York 46,793 8 Minnesota 44,227 9 Virginia 43,781 10 Colorado 43,465 11 California 43,010 12 Nevada 42,574 13 Washington 41,878 14 Illinois 41,601 15 Maryland 40,752 16 New Hampshire 40,092 17 Hawaii 39,672 18 North Carolina 39,268 19 Texas 39,168 20 Nebraska 38,862 21 Rhode Island 38,774 22 Iowa 38,687 23 Georgia 38,587 24 Wisconsin 38,428 25 South Dakota 38,138 26 Pennsylvania 37,787 27 North Dakota 37,202 28 Michigan 36,865 29 Tennessee 36,757 30 Ohio 36,504 31 Indiana 36,440 32 Kansas 36,227 33 Oregon 35,637 34 Vermont 35,565 35 Missouri 35,311 36 Arizona 34,768 37 Utah 34,491 38 Florida 34,172 39 Louisiana 33,660 40 Maine 32,871 41 Kentucky 32,659 42 South Carolina 32,229 43 New Mexico 31,997 44 Idaho 31,150 45 Alabama 30,573 46 Oklahoma 30,424 47 Montana 29,886 48 Arkansas 29,099 49 West Virginia 27,433 50 Mississippi 26,249 States ranked by Gross State Product (in billions) 2004: Rank State Gross State Product 1 California 1543.8 2 New York 899.7 3 Texas 880.9 4 Florida 594.5 5 Illinois 528.9 6 Pennsylvania 468.8 7 Ohio 418.3 8 New Jersey 415.9 9 Michigan 372.8 10 Georgia 340.7 11 North Carolina 335.4 12 Virginia 326.6 13 Massachusetts 317.7 14 Washington 259.8 15 Indiana 227.3 16 Maryland 226.5 17 Minnesota 225.6 18 Tennessee 216.9 19 Wisconsin 211.7 20 Missouri 203.2 21 Colorado 200.0 22 Arizona 199.7 23 Connecticut 187.1 24 Louisiana 152.0 25 Alabama 138.5 26 Kentucky 135.4 27 South Carolina 135.3 28 Oregon 128.1 29 Iowa 114.3 30 Oklahoma 107.2 31 Nevada 99.4 32 Kansas 99.1 33 Utah 82.4 34 Arkansas 80.1 35 Mississippi 76.2 36 Nebraska 67.9 37 New Mexico 60.9 38 Delaware 54.5 39 New Hampshire 52.1 40 Hawaii 50.1 41 West Virginia 49.8 42 Idaho 43.4 43 Maine 43.3 44 Rhode Island 41.9 45 Alaska 33.9 46 South Dakota 29.4 47 Montana 27.7 48 Wyoming 24.3 49 North Dakota 23.6 50 Vermont 22.1>

What is America's worst sprawled mess?

Now I know a looooooooooot about urban-sprawl, but I must ask all of you, what is America's worst sprawled city/metro area?>

California Importing Poverty Faster Than Any Other State

California Importing Poverty Faster Than Any Other State—Guess Who Gets To Pay To Fix It CaliforniaÂ's per capita real (inflation-adjusted) income will fall 11 percent over the next two decades if current demographic and educational trends continue. The decline will be larger than that of any other state, and more than 5-times the two percent decline in per capita income projected for the nation, according to a just released study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education [As America Becomes More Diverse: The Impact of State Higher Education Inequality, November 2005] Never in U.S. history has per capita real income declined over a two-decade span. But then again, never have American demographics been so impacted by an influx of unskilled minority workers. The share of CaliforniaÂ's labor force consisting of whites is expected to fall to 39 percent in 2020; it had been 71 percent as recently as 1980. CaliforniaÂ's growth is almost completely within the Hispanic population, whose workforce share is expected to jump from 16 percent in 1980 to 38 percent in 2020. Immigration is the primary driver. Per capita real income is being dragged down because, amazingly, public policy is to import poverty—and all its problems. You might think restrictive immigration policy is a no brainer given these projections. It would postpone, if not reverse, the projected declines in per capita income. But you would think wrong. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education is a think tank supported by the Student Loan Marketing AssociationÂ's foundation. Not surprisingly, it proposes increasing aid to low income and minority students to close the education gap between whites and minorities. ThatÂ's a tall order for any state, especially California. Among the stateÂ's working-age adults, about 52 percent of Hispanics do not have a high school degree, compared to 8 percent of whites. At the other end of the educational spectrum only 12 percent of the stateÂ's adult Hispanics have a college degree compared to 46 percent of adult whites. Both gaps are larger and have grown faster in California than in other states. In a perfect world, states could raise minority college enrollments while leaving white rates unchanged. But the world, alas, is far from perfect. As the The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education report itself says (page 34 [PDF]), Â"With the federal budget deficit at an all-time high and states struggling to fund growth in the least discretionary components of their budgetsÂ….the outlook for increased student aid to low-income families and minorities is grim. Under these circumstances, it is increasingly important that state grant aid programs are carefully targeted at those who need it most and who would not attend postsecondary education without it.Â" Translation: California, like other cash strapped states, will have to finance education aid increases for immigrant minorities by reducing such funds for native-born whites. This makes curtailing mass immigration even more vital. Ask the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education why this didnÂ't occur to it. Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis.>

Wisconsin Space Center proposal!

This hasnt gotten alot of responses in the Midwest section....which is weird. Here it is for your enjoyment. Bill envisions liftoff for Sheboygan With lake to east, affinity for rocketry, city may have makings for spaceport By PATRICK MARLEY pmarley@journalsentinel.com Posted: Nov. 28, 2005 Madison - The latest economic development plan coming out of the state Capitol could be summarized as one small step for Sheboygan, one giant leap for Wisconsin. Sen. Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan) said Monday that his plan to create the Wisconsin Aerospace Authority would attract federal aid for Spaceport Sheboygan, a potential launch pad for commercial satellites, rockets bound for the international space station and, eventually, spaceships packed with tourists. "I think everybody realizes this is a new economic frontier for Wisconsin," Leibham said. "When the future has arrived, . . . we want to be ready to meet the economic opportunity." Leibham and his supporters at a public hearing Monday acknowledged that many people initially react to the idea with disbelief, but said they quickly come around when they learn the space tourism industry alone could enjoy revenue of $1 billion a year by 2020. Former Lt. Gov. Margaret Farrow said creating a state aerospace authority would turn Sheboygan into a "doorway to space" and suggested that skeptics today should remind themselves of what people thought of the possibility of traveling to the moon in the 1950s. "Now people no longer scoff at Buck Rogers," she said. The Senate Committee on Economic Development and Consumer Affairs held a hearing Monday on Leibham's bill (SB-352) to create the aerospace authority. Leibham said he expects the Republican-led Senate to vote on it next month. Doyle was traveling in northwest Wisconsin and unavailable for comment Monday, but spokeswoman Melanie Fonder said he was open to the proposal. "It's an intriguing idea," she said. "The governor proposed a third year of math and science earlier this year, so these are the types of jobs he's interested in creating in Wisconsin. It sounds promising, and we'll take a look at it when the bill moves a little further." Rockets and shuttles tend to launch east over large bodies of water, making Sheboygan well-suited for a spaceport, said George French, the president of Rocketplane Ltd., a firm developing a spaceship. French, who testified Monday, is also the president of education group Space Explorers Inc. Launches from Sheboygan would not have to compete with other aircraft because much of the airspace over the lake is restricted, he said. Representatives from Kennedy Space Center have inspected the site and deemed it appropriate for such launches, he said. Christina Paape, vice president of Space Explorers Inc., said Sheboygan's geographic location makes it better situated than Florida for launches to the international space station. Since 1995, rockets have been launched from the site as part of the local Rockets for Schools program. Each year, more than 300 students from Wisconsin and neighboring states build 8-foot-tall rockets and develop experiments to conduct on their flights. Specialists who assist them also launch a 20-foot rocket. The Sheboygan Development Corp. and other area boosters for years have been pushing a plan to develop a spaceport, as well as a $15 million education center, which would be funded with private donations. Tapping deep pockets The spaceport would likely be able to tap into money from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the military and venture capitalists such as Amazon.com president Jeff Bezos and Virgin Airlines owner Richard Branson who, with others, have poured more than $1 billion into space projects in recent years, French said. But the spaceport likely can't obtain any federal money unless the state creates the authority, Leibham said. The project would be undertaken without using money from state taxpayers, Leibham said. Once created, the authority would have to develop a business plan even though it would have no funding for its day-to-day operations. Leibham noted that volunteers for years have worked on getting a spaceport in Sheboygan and would continue to do so after the authority was created. The agency could issue bonds worth up to $100 million, but those funds would have to be paid back without tax money. Revenue would be generated from launch pad rentals and other charges. But Sen. Russ Decker (D-Schofield), a member of the committee that held Monday's hearing, said he was concerned that the state eventually may have to bankroll part of the effort. "The whole emphasis of the Republican Party for years has been to privatize, to have government get out of the way," he said. "This seems to be a 180 (degree)" turn. The bill's supporters disagreed, saying the authority was merely a way to make sure the Sheboygan project could capture federal grants. The bill would allow the authority to design and develop spaceports and spacecraft, and would require the state to establish a spaceport in Sheboygan. The authority would be required to promote Spaceport Sheboygan and other facilities through advertising. The Wisconsin Aerospace Authority would be a quasi-governmental body, one structured less like the Department of Transportation and more like the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. As such, the Legislature would not have approval over the authority's budget or its administrative rules. Nine individuals would oversee the authority - six appointed by the governor and approved by the Senate; one appointed by the Senate president; one appointed by the Assembly speaker; and the director of the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, which is the Wisconsin arm of NASA.>

US universities: who determines "what's in a name"?

For American universities, who really determines "what's in a name"....the institutions themselves or the market place? That market place is often linked to universities' atheltic programs. For better or worse, in an era when image is everything, names count. And what a university is known as means a great deal to the instittuion and how it projects itself to the public. Schools rarely choose to to be known by their "offical names" which are often an uncomfortable mouthful: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. And who ever hears the term "University of California, Los Angeles". Schools choose to be known by their "perferred names": Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, UCLA. But who determines if schools get to be known by their preferred names, the schools themselves or the marketplace? I suspect it is the market place. Louisiana State University gets to call itself LSU; other schools so named (___ State Univ) are not allowed to use the initials in the marketplace. Florida State may choose to call itself FSU, but to the media, it's listed as "Florida State". Kansas State prefers K-State, but the marketplace usuaully lists it as Kansas State. Perhaps LSU gets the pass because it is Louisiana's only flagship. The University of Mississippi calls itself Ole Miss and the marketplace complies, probably due to the degree the school itself chooses not to be called "Mississippi". Yet similiar names (Cal, Mizzou, Bama) are used by the market place, but not for listing purposes. UCLA is the only Univ. of __ @ __ school to only use initials. There never was a Cal-LA. A couple of others (UNLV, UAB, maybe UTEP) now have the same status. But less known schools do not: UIC may be UIC in Chicago, but the sports media calls it Illinois-Chicago. That goes along with Wisconsin-Milwaukee, UC Davis, Missouri-St. Louis. Meanwhile, I wonder how much influence Ohio State had in Ohio University being known as Ohio U. rather than just plain Ohio. So who determines what the school really is known as: institution or marketplace? How about your alma mater: what are the differences between its offical, preferred, and market place names?>

Blandness

Who takes the crown for blandness in the United States? In fact, lets make this three categories: blandest big city, blandest state, and blandest region. After visiting the Mississippi Delta area I can say that it's pretty damn bland down "thurr".>

Which US city is most like......us!?!?

This forum is loaded with people filled to the brim with civic pride, if not downright civic chauvenism. So many of us are fascinated by our city, love to read about it, talk about it, and share it with others. We seek out documentaries about our city and fill our houses with momentos of it. Which US city comes closest to being like us on the forum, filled with people who so interested in and passionate about their city that their city takes on qualities of being bigger than life?>

What American city needs to "start over" the most?

There are some American cities that have gone so far into a pit of self-destruction and despair that some may even proclaim, "we might as well start over!" Some cities may even be somewhat healthy but have a major flaw in their design that just prevents them from reaching their full potential. However you view it, lets ask the question: which American city, if possible, would benefit the most from starting ALL over with a clean slate? This is assuming, of course, that plenty of money and interest would exist to actually rebuild the city from scratch.>

CHICAGO: "High Anxiety" Article

It is an interesting article which I think you should show it to your city's planners. HIGH ANXIETY Tall and thin may be the future, but city's mission must be to see the light -- and patches of blue -- as its new, dazzling towers reach for the sky By Blair Kamin Tribune architecture critic (www.chicagotribune.com) Published November 13, 2005 Chicago has long been a city of cloud busting skyscrapers, but its latest push toward the sky is enough to make jaws drop, eyes pop and start alarm bells ringing. Every week, it seems, a rendering of a new tower is splashed across the front page or the business page in the hopes of generating positive "buzz" and attracting potential buyers and investors. Some of this may be pure hucksterism. Nothing like a sexy architect's rendering to drum up a prospective tenant or two. Still, every proposal bears watching. It's the ugly one we ignore that -- surprise! -- will get built. The trend goes beyond the biggest headline grabbers, the 2,000-footers that have spawned nicknames such as "the Drill Bit" and "the Tweezer Tower." Not since the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Sears Tower, the Standard Oil Building (now the Aon Center) and the John Hancock Center redefined the Chicago skyline, have there been such spectacular possibilities for aesthetic payoffs and pratfalls. At stake in this profusion of residential towers and one proposed broadcast tower is the character of North Michigan Avenue, the lakefront, the riverfront and the walls of buildings flanking Grant Park. The skyline is sure to assume a new center of gravity along a new Gold Coast -- the once-foul Chicago River, where Donald Trump's much-hyped, 1,361-foot hotel and condo tower soon will rise out of a construction pit, and more giants may follow. None of this is accidental. With little public discussion, Mayor Daley's administration has made a dramatic policy reversal, encouraging great height rather than forcing developers to make their towers shorter. At the House of Daley, where the city's architectural cloth gets cut, tall and thin is in. Short and squat is out. It is, on the whole, a change for the better. City planners envision a skyline comprising pencil thin "point" towers that leave space around them for light and air. When it works, it should be dazzling, offering the best of both worlds -- great height without overwhelming congestion. Yet all architecture, like all politics, is local. Tall towers do not belong everywhere. Some stand to do as much harm as good, canyonizing streets, dwarfing waterfronts or marring the skyline with bizarre Buck Rogers silhouettes. The emphasis on bigness still has to come to terms with smallness -- the shops, restaurants and other human-scaled features that give cities their accidental, quirky appeal. Almost no one suggests that Chicago adopt a highly prescriptive set of design rules that would mandate the shape of towers. That could well kill off a building boom that is the envy of other cities and staunch the city's celebrated tradition of innovation. But there is a need for the city to develop a planning framework that offers specific guidelines about where tall towers should go, how they can be placed so they block as few views as possible, and how they should behave at ground level to avoid the sort of city-deadening blank walls that now blight River North. Such guidelines offer the prospect of carefully managed growth instead of unchecked, Dodge City growth, a specter that became very real last month when developers J. Paul Beitler and LR Development Co. unveiled plans for a 2,000-foot broadcast tower along the lakefront. The plan, it turns out, was a slick switcheroo. For months, the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR), a respected neighborhood group, negotiated with LR over a condominium tower of about 60 stories that was to rise on the west side of Lake Shore Drive just across from Lake Point Tower. Chicago architect Ralph Johnson of Perkins & Will, who has produced some of the city's finest residential towers, designed the structure, whose details haven't been made public. SOAR members were happy with the broad strokes of Johnson's design and with details such as a dog run. Then they woke up on Oct. 25 and read the front-page story about the broadcast tower, designed by New Haven, Conn., architect Cesar Pelli. "Basically, it's a giant utility pole," said Brian Hopkins, a SOAR board member. Following the route usually taken by developers, Beitler and LR only pictured their plan when they announced the tweezer-shaped tower, conveniently ignoring another planned 2,000-foot skyscraper just a few blocks to the south, Santiago Calatrava's Fordham Spire, which would be shaped like a giant drill bit. Calatrava's design, which still must be financed and receive city approval, appears astonishingly graceful when it stands alone, an extraordinary piece of architectural sculpture that marks a special place in the city, the meeting of the lakefront and the river. But with the broadcast tower alongside it, as pictured in a composite photo prepared for this story, it looks like one-half of the world's largest set of football goal posts. This is but one example of the costs of unchecked growth. Chicago's explosion of tall towers is at once a real estate phenomenon and an urban planning phenomenon, illustrating how quickly ideas from one city can migrate to another in the global age. One reason for the tall towers, real estate experts say, is that developers have moved from secondary sites, such as the West Loop and the western flanks of River North, to marquee locations, such as North Michigan Avenue. There, land is more expensive and the developers need to build taller so they can make a profit. Then there is the Trump factor. The developer and reality TV star has pushed Chicago's luxury condominium market to new physical and financial heights, blazing a trail that competitors lust to follow. Trump reportedly is getting stratospheric prices at his Trump International Hotel & Tower -- about $1,000 a square foot, up from roughly $675 a foot when he started selling condos there a few years ago. "Other developers are looking at his numbers and drooling," says Gail Lissner, vice president of Chicago-based Appraisal Research Counselors. Last but hardly least is City Hall's changing attitude toward tall buildings, a shift that reflects the growing influence of Vancouver in urban planning circles. Why Vancouver? Because it offers an eminently livable model of tall, thin high-rise towers set on townhouse podiums. That prototype clearly is familiar to key city planners, including Lori Healey, the city's new commissioner of Planning and Development, and Sam Assefa a former San Francisco planner who is Daley's deputy chief of staff for economic and physical development. Assefa helped encourage Chicago architects David Haymes and George Pappageorge to stretch their planned One Museum Park condo tower at the southern end of Grant Park to 720 feet from an initial proposed height of 450 feet. That move shocked the architects, who recognized that the site demanded a commanding presence, but were used to the city's old ways of knocking down height to make towers palatable to neighbors. "They said: `Can't you make it taller?' We were taken aback by that," Haymes said. Healey said: "There has been a growing movement in the design community to educate the development world that tall, slender buildings are not bad things . . . [They allow] developers and their architects to be innovative." Of that, there is little doubt. Look at the contrast between the tall and thin Park Tower, which soars 844 feet above the sidewalk at 800 N. Michigan, and the short and squat Peninsula Hotel building, which sits just to its south at 730-750 N. Michigan, and you see the basic wisdom in the city's shift. Yes, the mansard-roofed Park Tower, which was designed by Lucien Lagrange Architects, looks like a big yellow rocket ship and could have been more architecturally daring. But it's still a good piece of urban design, with elegant proportions and a silhouette that doesn't overwhelm the neighboring park around the old Chicago Water Tower. By contrast, the 20-story Peninsula building is a stump, a five-star hotel with a one-star public face. More skinny towers are on the way, and with Daley warming to adventurous design in the wake of Millennium Park's success, they promise to be fresh and modern rather than tried-and-true traditional. One intriguing example, now under construction at 340 E. Randolph Drive and designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, will soar 672 feet and will include a 25th-floor winter garden with exterior glass walls that open in warm weather, allowing residents to proceed onto a terrace and gaze over Millennium Park. But top-of-the-line amenities for affluent buyers by no means guarantee the quality of the public realm we all inhabit. As towers rise, so do concerns about snarled traffic, blocked views and pedestrians being blown off their feet by downdrafts that woosh off the sides of skyscrapers. Density is good because it means people can walk or take public transit to their jobs instead of driving. But when it takes 10 minutes to drive a few blocks in Streeterville at rush hour, are we starting to reach the limits of density? Streeterville is especially vulnerable to congestion at street level, for unlike the Illinois Center mega-development south of the Chicago River, it has no three-tiered subterranean circulation system. Thank goodness for that. But this means Streeterville's narrow, at-grade street grid must carry the load -- delivery vans, garbage trucks, taxis, even the pizza guy. Such quality-of-life concerns transcend architecture, suggesting that there is far more to the debate over the city's growth than the graceful presence of towers on the skyline. Indeed, while the design standards of the new towers are head and shoulders above the concrete hulks of River North, good architecture in some cases may not be enough. A fresh example is the newly announced proposal that would replace the banal north tower of the InterContinental Chicago hotel on North Michigan Avenue with an 850-foot hotel and condominium skyscraper while leaving intact the hotel's 42-story Art Deco south tower. The plan, designed by Lucien Lagrange Architects, calls for a glass-sheathed tower that would rise straight up from the North Michigan Avenue sidewalk. And that has the potential to cause great trouble. Even though the architectural quality of buildings along North Michigan Avenue has declined precipitously in recent years, it remains a delightful place to walk -- not a darkened canyon, like LaSalle Street, but a boulevard with abundant sunlight and patches of blue sky. The chief reason for this blessing is that nearly all the very tall buildings along North Michigan, from the John Hancock Center to Lagrange's own Park Tower, have towers that are set back from the street, either behind plazas, parks or retail podiums. The InterContinental proposal offers something very different. While it would have notches in its upper reaches, there would be no setbacks. The architecture is appealing enough, at first glance, and could, with considerable tweaking, form an elegant backdrop for the Art Deco tower to its south. But if the building rises without a significant setback, it might open the door to other, very tall towers along North Michigan. And that would risk turning the street into a darkened canyon. Trump's tower offers a taller, bulkier variation on this theme. No one doubts the ability of its architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago, to superbly detail the giant. What remains very much in question, however, is whether Trump's mega-tower will overwhelm the riverfront with the substantial girth of its clifflike southern wall. The squat Chicago Sun-Times building that used to occupy the site looked, at best, like a marooned river barge. But at least its seven stories didn't hog the sky. All this demands a question: Can the city do a better job guiding where tall towers go? Healey, the planning commissioner, expressed satisfaction with the way things work. When it comes to the placement of skyscrapers, "we respond to the private sector," she said. Asked if that means the Department of Planning and Development is essentially passive, more like the Department of Reacting and Development, she responded that Chicago does guide growth by regulating density. Many of the new tall buildings, she added, are actually less dense than zoning laws allow. It's true that Chicago's Planning Unit Development zoning category has been an effective, if secretive, arm-twisting device for winning public amenities. But typically, as the pitiful public art and other decorations tacked onto the bases of the monstrous high-rises of River North reveal, these efforts amount to little more than damage control -- the regulatory equivalent of perfuming the pig. Why not develop flexible planning guidelines that direct growth in advance rather than forcing planners to engage in futile rear-guard actions? Architect Johnson, whose credits include the acclaimed Skybridge and Contemporaine high-rises, offers some answers: He suggests that the city spell out where conventional wall-like buildings should go (along Grant Park and the lakefront) and where tall "point" towers would be appropriate (behind the clifflike lakefront wall). City planners, he adds, also could encourage developers to provide lively streetscapes instead of brute walls, lining parking podiums with townhouses, plus the shops and restaurants that provide essential neighborhood gathering places. "A framework like this might make sense out of what we are doing," Johnson wrote in a series of sketches laying out his ideas. "It's at least better than nothing." He's right. Without more fine-grained tools to guide growth, Chicago risks becoming a city of mega-projects where the small gets lost in the big and the big is placed indiscriminately amid the cityscape with devastating consequences. There is a difference between a vital city and a healthy city. In a healthy city, traffic is not perpetually snarled, tall towers inspire awe rather than fear, and there is not a Darwinian struggle for access to light and views. Chicago's reach for the sky is heading in the right direction, but it must be refined if the cityscape is to reach its highest, humanistic potential -- truly healthy rather than merely vital. >

Downtown Living Boom?

I've noticed many mid-sized cities starting to have strong downtown living trends. Condos and Apartments are being announced in many cities, like Charlotte's fabulous Epicenter. Omaha and Indianapolis are getting some pretty tall developments. Here in OKC, downtown units are expected to increase by 10,000 by 2015. (And I think it could even be more than that; there are already a lot of ongoing conversions and developments going on.) Also, many modern television shows that I have glanced at depict their main characters living in apartments with a skyline view, so I think that makes the idea of a high-rise unit even more popular. People like to live the active downtown lifestyle, and I think it's showing in smaller-sized cities.>

Weekly Lists - Good Visibility

Good Visibility: 10 cities in the United States with the Highet Percentage of Time When Visibility is 10 Miles or More Visibility is generally best in the Rocky Mountain states where the air is dry and relatively clean and cities are widely spaced. However, rapid growth in many of these cities threatens the previousl high visibility City, State .............................................% of Time when vis. is 10 mi. or more 1 Tucson, Arizona..............................................99.4% 2 Las Vegas, Nevada..........................................99.1% 3 Honolulu, Hawaii..............................................98.6% 4 Albuquerque, New Mexico..................................98.2% 5 Phoenix, Arizona..............................................98.1% 6 Grand Junction, Colorado...................................96.3% 7 El Paso, Texas.................................................95.9% 8 Helena, Montana..............................................94.8% 9 Pueblo, Colorado..............................................94.2% 10 Casper, Wyoming............................................93.5%>

Eastern States, Central States, Western States: Place each state in a category.

What states do you consider Eastern States? List them. What states do you consider Central States? List them. What states do you consider Western States? List them. I post them as there are often discrepencies in how people regionally define different areas of the country.>

What is America's premiere hipster city (part 2)?

Hi, I'm a retard from LA who needs somebody to lick my ego from time to time. I am not really secure about my home city, thus I keep starting threads that loudly proclaim how great LA is and how it is equal to NY in every possible way imaginable. Then I start polls where only LA and NY are options because it is my goal to make everybody think that their city is inferior to mine.>

Most underrated skyline

So, which is it? You can vote for many.>