Old South States

These are the "Old South" states of the Confederacy: Virginia Georgia South Carolina Tennessee Texas Florida Arkansas Mississippi Lousiana Alabama North Carolina Which of these states is the least like the "Old South"? Which of these are the most progressive?>

2000 Election revote

If you were to choose between Bush and Gore again, who would you go for assuming that you knew Bush will be like this in 2006?>

Shall I visit Chicago or Boston?

I have a travel agent that offers three days tours to these cities from Toronto. Which one is more tourist friendly and offer more to do????(the tickets are same price, 120$) Please help me.>

Your MSA's growth since 1970

Here's an intersesting site to see how the United States' MSAs (as defined in 2005) have grown from 1970 to 2005. http://recenter.tamu.edu/Data/popm00/>

SF First US City to offer Universal Health Care!

This is awesome and a long time coming-hopefully it will spread to other cities Quote:> San Francisco unveils universal health care plan - By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer Tuesday, June 20, 2006 (06-20) 16:19 PDT San Francisco (AP) -- Officials unveiled a plan Tuesday to make The City the first in the nation to provide health care to all its residents through contributions from the municipal government and private employers. The proposal, aimed at 82,000 uninsured San Franciscans who earn too much to qualify for federally subsidized insurance, would offer access to a doctor and hospital network to any adult who lives in the city regardless of their immigration or employment status, said Mayor Gavin Newsom. The city already provides universal health care for children. "Rather than lamenting about the fact that we live in a country with 45.8 million Americans that don't have health insurance ... San Francisco is doing something about it," Newsom said. "San Francisco is moving forward to fulfill its moral obligation." Newsom stressed that the so-called Health Access Plan was not meant to take the place of private health insurance, but rather provide a way to consistently treat people without insurance so they don't end up seeking medical care in hospital emergency rooms. Unlike health insurance, for example, the city's plan would not cover the cost of any medical services its participants seek outside San Francisco, and it would not be open to people who work, but do not live in the city. What it would provide is comprehensive preventive and catastrophic health care, covering everything from checkups, prescription drugs and X-rays to ambulance rides, blood tests and surgeries. Residents would be allowed to enroll despite any pre-existing medical conditions and would be able to choose from 400 doctors who participate in the San Francisco Health Plan, an HMO for low and middle-income clients. The city estimates the plan would cost $200 million a year, an expense that would be borne by taxpayers, businesses that don't already insure all their workers, and participants themselves. Residents would pay both monthly fees and service co-payments on a sliding scale depending on income. A person with annual earnings at the federal poverty line would pay $3 per month, while someone who makes between $19,600 and $40,000 — or up to 400 percent above the poverty line — would pay an average of $35 per month. Details of how the employer contribution would work were scheduled to be presented Wednesday to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which must approve the plan. The most recent version, sponsored by Supervisor Tom Ammiano, would require every business with more than 20 employees to pay $1.60 an hour into the system for all employees not already covered by a health plan, no matter how few hours they work. Laurie Thomas, owner of three restaurants in San Francisco, fumed on Tuesday as officials congratulated each other on the plan that was hammered out by a council Newsom appointed. Thomas, who was a member of the council, said she already contributes to health insurance for her employees who work more than 28 hours a week, but that the hourly mandate Ammiano is proposing would put her out of business. Mitchell Katz, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said the plan reflects a compromise and that it would be difficult for cities with bigger and poorer populations to replicate San Francisco's model . One reason San Francisco can put together the program is the socially conscious city already invests $104 million of its own to provide uninsured residents basic health care at city clinics, money that would be diverted to the new program. "The employee isn't getting a Cadillac, but a basic level of care. The employer isn't getting away with not paying a thing, but the original legislation would have had them paying more," Katz said. >>

What do you like about ****** photographically?

Now here's a question you can answer without ever having visited a city (although visiting sure makes it easier): on sight, strictly the way the city looks, alone, what is it you like about major American cities shown here with photographs on this board...other other pictures or from being there yourself? I'm throwing out attractions, business, culture, restaurants, climate, entertainment...even the people (ouch!!!!!!) and just plain looking at each city. Visually. The eye as a lens. What exactly is the visual appeal of the ones that really grab you?>

(Greed) The most Greedy U.S. Cities?

Greed is a desire to obtain more money, wealth, material possessions or any other entity than one needs. Greed is listed as one of the Catholic seven deadly sins, usually by the synonym of avarice. IYO What are the U.S. cities that are the symbol of GREED.>

CALIFORNIA, STILL THE PLACE TO GO!!

Here is a quote from me on another thread!!!!! Quote:> Originally Posted by SILVERLAKE > California rules and it is the best state to live. It is more than a state it is way of life, a noun and adective. It is a state that millions would kill to live in. California is synonmous with the good life, with progressiveness, with trendiness, with diversity, with natural beauty. We are like a perfect blend between Greece, Paris, NYC, Wyoming, Tokyo and London. > >AND TO BACK ME UP! THIS IS FROM TODAY! California, Here They Come Be it for love, money or just the good food, folks keep moving to the Golden State, despite its flaws, where newcomers still surpass defectors. By Maria L. La Ganga and David Streitfeld, Times Staff Writers June 26, 2006 Some planned their moves with meticulous care, plotting over many years to swap dank skies for California's enduring sunshine. Others decided on a whim over wine: Goodbye, Queens; hello, Temecula. Some were drawn by age-old lures — opportunity, a shot at reinvention — while others fled homelands steeped in poverty and pain. ADVERTISEMENT And then there were those who simply fell in love. With a woman. A landscape. Or even, like Pegah Hashemi, an idea. The architectural designer landed near Hancock Park last August, from Iran via stints on the East Coast. In the chaos and crowds and freewheeling culture of Los Angeles, she finally found a home. "Any other place you go, there's a majority and a minority," said Hashemi, 27. "But there are so many immigrants here that the majority disappears. It's liberating. You can grow in whatever direction you want." Even as real estate prices rise to fearsome heights and freeways become impassable, even as wildfires consume some homes and rampaging mud swallows others, even as experts declare the state ungovernable and a major earthquake inevitable, the refugees from New York and Manila and Tehran, from Texas and Nepal and Washington, D.C., continue to come to California. For all the attention focused of late on illegal immigration, California is by far the favorite destination of legal immigrants to the United States — about 200,000 in 2005 alone. Moreover, although the numbers fluctuate with the economy, the Golden State remains a powerful domestic magnet as well, with about 600,000 people from other states arriving here last year. No matter how taxing life sometimes seems here in the most populous state in America, newcomers still outnumber defectors, drawn by varying notions of the California dream. "California is one of the very few states whose allure has never faded," said Marc Perry, chief of the Census Bureau's Population Distribution Branch. "The faces of the immigrants change, the tongues they speak change, but the people keep coming." Why do they come? One of the strongest and most enduring reasons is the sunshine itself. "A Climate for Health & Wealth Without Cyclones or Blizzards," boasted an 1885 booklet from the Chicago-based California Immigration Commission. It worked then. It works now. Just ask Thu Hoang, 43. This winter, Thu and her husband, Hung, were visiting relatives in the San Fernando Valley. They decided to take a weekend jaunt to San Diego. Lunchtime brought them to beautiful, wealthy La Jolla. Back in New York, it was dreary. But the French bistro they chose was soaked in sunshine. There were flowers everywhere. People looked happy. They had just been served the wine when Hung proposed rearranging their lives. "Let's move to California," he said. An information technology manager for IBM, Thu has teams in India, China and North Carolina. Her bosses don't care where she lives. Hung, 57, is a retired information technology executive and musician. In March, they came to scout out houses, choosing one in Temecula twice as big as their apartment in Queens. On April 28, they moved in. "Six months ago we wouldn't have known where Temecula is," said Thu. No fashion hot spot, the Inland Empire city has few venues for Thu to wear the 100 pairs of shoes that accompanied her here. No matter. "It's so beautiful here, it feels like a perpetual vacation," Hung said. For every Los Angeles County resident who told Public Policy Institute of California pollsters in March 2005 that they planned to be gone by decade's end, there seems to be someone like Terry or Kristin Kent. Terry was born, grew up and has spent all of his 32 years in Wisconsin. The only exception was college, for which he voyaged to neighboring Minnesota. That's where he met Kristin, who has otherwise spent all of her 29 years in Wisconsin. Their families are in Wisconsin. Their friends are in Wisconsin. They love Wisconsin. Yet when Kristin got her master's degree in business administration this spring from the University of Wisconsin, the couple refused to apply for any jobs that were not in Los Angeles. ADVERTISEMENT "The world is so big, and there's only so much time," said Terry, a lawyer who specializes in land and water use issues. "So much of what the world has, you just can't find in Wisconsin. But you can find it here." The Kents just rented a one-bedroom apartment in Los Feliz that costs double what they were paying in Madison. Kristin envisions a typical Saturday morning: wandering the neighborhood, stopping in a cafe, heading to the beach — "and doing it in January." Not everyone comes for the sunshine, of course. Galina Angarova was wooed in part by what all that sunlight produces. Living in Moscow, she met and married a Northern Californian. They moved to San Francisco in August; she never wants to leave. In the Siberian village where she was born, she said, "not a lot of things are available, even food. You will not find an avocado…. A lot of my friends don't know what sushi is." Angarova, 30, is eating her way through San Francisco. "The number of good restaurants here on Fillmore Street," she said, "exceeds the number of good restaurants in all of Moscow." The quality and range of the food here are indeed a wonder, thanks to some of the world's most bountiful soil and accomplished chefs. Even the grumpiest Californians would concede that. But try driving across town to a favorite restaurant, they say. Try to find parking at your favorite market. Still, newcomers tend to see congestion differently from longtime residents' view. When Vasinee Florey, 45, left suburban Bangkok for suburban San Francisco, the first thing she noticed about the traffic was that "it's better" here. "You should see the traffic in Thailand, especially in Bangkok," she said. "You cannot go far in an hour." Everything's relative, in other words. Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California, crunched census statistics to uncover the reasons why some people come and go. California's humming economy was the strongest draw; the unemployment rate in several big counties, including Orange, San Diego and Riverside, is significantly under the national rate. More than a third of the arrivals from other states told the Census Bureau recently that they're here for job reasons. But an equal number said they had left California because they'd gotten a job elsewhere. An additional 5% of those departing over the last five years — 134,000 adults — went in search of cheaper housing. In a state where the ability to afford a house is at record lows, that's not surprising. What's truly puzzling is the 84,000 or so adults who said they were moving to California for a less expensive home. Maybe they're all from Manhattan, or maybe it is just further testament to the state's ability to induce derangement. Migration between the states is a murky area. The Census Bureau, using Internal Revenue Service data, calculates that, since 2000, California has lost 340,000 more people to other states than it has gained from them. But the state Department of Finance, using what it says are more accurate data from driver's licenses, calculates a net gain of 366,000. Sunshine and sea and sky are all very well, but in the end, opportunity is what really matters. It's been that way for generations. As a Southern Pacific Railroad poster promised in 1905: "Come to California and see for yourself. Millions of chances for happiness and riches." Think Gold Rush adventurers and those who followed: the merchants who outfitted a state in the making and the engineers who designed the railroads and irrigation systems, the bridges and harbors. The Dustbowl refugees in the 1930s and aerospace workers in the 1950s, and those seeking high-tech riches in the 1990s. For generations, migrants sought a future for their families through the verdant agricultural fields. Think older men like Pedro Pinto, 60, who left Jalisco, Mexico, this spring for the uncertainty of Los Angeles, where he hopes to find work and send money back home: "I'm looking for a job, any kind of job," he said through an interpreter at a labor center. And young men like Jason Hall, 28, who arrived in Fresno in August from Staten Island via Houston. "I wouldn't come here if there were no jobs," said Hall, whose in-laws live in the Central Valley. "Wherever there's opportunity is where I'll go." A computer systems analyst for the county of Fresno, Hall lives with his family in a small apartment with a view of the railroad tracks. But he has his sights set on bigger things. When law school starts this fall at the University of San Diego, Hall will be there, notebook in hand. His wife Tenisha, 26, hopes to soon have her bachelor's degree, eked out online while caring for their toddlers. ADVERTISEMENT "I don't ever see myself living in the middle of the country again," Jason said. "I look out over the water and see limitless opportunity." At least one debate about immigration has kept pace with the successive waves of arrivals like the Halls. Are people pulled here or pushed here? Are they running to hope, or fleeing from disarray? Suman and Nirmala Roka are refugees from Nepal. With that small Himalayan country in the throes of upheaval as an ancient monarchy gives way to an uncertain future, Suman applied for, and won, a green card in the U.S. immigration lottery. The couple — with one 5-year-old child and a baby on the way — ended up in Cerritos on Dec. 5. Relatives in Los Angeles helped cushion the family's landing. A hotel professional in Katmandu, Suman, 39, now commutes in a secondhand Honda Civic to Artesia, where he works the night shift at a 7-Eleven. "In Nepal, the hotels are closing down, my profession damaged," Roka said. "I wanted to give my children a better future." Politics also pushed Annie E. Strickler to California, but it was the domestic version. After Strickler turned 30 a few months ago, she persuaded her boss in Washington, D.C., to let her move her job to San Francisco. The Sierra Club's deputy press secretary said she loves D.C., but her five years there encompassed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the anthrax scares, the snipers who terrorized the region and an administration "that doesn't reflect my values." And so one of the most Democratic states gained yet another Democrat. "My job is the same," said Strickler, "but it's so much easier here." The California dream of an easier life — ample opportunity with a backdrop of natural beauty and a caressing climate — has been artfully packaged since the waning days of the Gold Rush, first by railroad companies, later by Hollywood. Ever since the dream was born, it has produced pain along with pleasure. Some '49ers struck it rich; others went home, poor and broken. Disappointment and failure are persistent California themes. Maria Sementsiv, 20 and hopeful, arrived in Los Angeles from Ukraine earlier this month for her second summer in the Golden State. Her visa expires in October, but she'd like to stay. She thinks. "Those things which I saw on the television, or in books, it was a little different than I thought," she recalled. "It's not all an ideal life, nice houses, rich people. There were some problems for me at first." Will the disappointed dreamers be better off elsewhere? Will California be better without them? Various experts project that the population will rise from 37 million to 48 million by 2030. As a result, the state will require a lot more water, electricity, houses and space on the freeways. California has four of the 10 fastest-growing big cities in America, according to Census Bureau statistics released last week — more than any other state. Experts have been cautioning that California has to stop growing ever since the state was home to only Native American tribes, Spanish missionaries and a few trappers. "Under no contingency does the natural face of Upper California appear susceptible of supporting a very large population," wrote Lt. Henry Augustus Wise of the U.S. Navy. That was 1849, and the warnings have continued ever since. California historian Philip Fradkin remembers moving here in 1960 from New Jersey: "People were saying, 'We're going to be swamped.' " Forty-six years and 21 million new arrivals later, Fradkin has joined the chorus. "At some point, I have no doubt we're going to be swamped." Soon, he thinks, the California dream will finally, officially, irrevocably turn to nightmare for immigrants and residents alike. We're not there yet. California is still a powerful draw — at least for people like Elizabeth Winter. She's a Massachusetts native who graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. On May 15, her 23rd birthday, she arrived in San Francisco. Home will be an apartment shared with three college friends. A dozen other Wesleyan pals are spread around the state. "It's like a 'Westward Ho' thing," Winter joked. She's not sure she'll stay. She knows she'll miss the changing seasons on the East Coast, and her parents. "But sometimes," she said, "you fall in love with a place.">

HAS LA SURPASSED NYC AS THE BEST CITY?

HAS IT? WE ARE THE CULTURAL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. WE HAVE HAD MORE IMMIGRANTS THAN ANY OTHER CITY. SO YES, WE ARE BETTER THAN NYC.>

The Places to be this Summer (The Top Travel Destinations by Priceline.com)

Press release: http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...75&newsLang=en Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...57172163511559 The top destinations portion of the study uncovered some interesting year-over-year shifts in summer travel trends. Big-city destinations are more popular this year than last, with sections of New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles all moving up multiple places on the 2006 Top 50 list, or cracking the list for the first time. Most significant was the popularity of Chicago among summer travelers. Chicago's Millennium Park area rose from the 35th most popular destination in summer 2005 to the #1 spot this year, replacing the Las Vegas Strip. "We are thrilled that travelers are choosing Chicago's Millennium Park as one of their favorite destinations," said Dorothy Coyle, Director, Chicago Office of Tourism. "Millennium Park offers visitors world-class art and architecture as well as a tremendous line-up of free performances featuring artists from Chicago and around the globe." Chicago's North Michigan Avenue area was #2 on the list, rising three places. American summer travelers were largely U.S.-centric in their choices. Few international destinations made the list, possibly due to the weakness of the dollar overseas. Vancouver (#7 and #43) and London (#35) were the two most popular international destinations among Americans. Other destinations that rose significantly in popularity this year compared to 2005 were Hilton Head (up 19 places), New York's Midtown East (up 15 places), Anchorage (up 13 places), San Antonio's Riverwalk (up 12 places), San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf (up 11 places) and St. Catharine's Niagara Falls (up 10 places). Big winners in this year's Top 50 List include: -- Chicago's Millennium Park. Opened in July 2004, Millennium Park has been steadily rising in popularity, jumping 34 places on priceline.com's list since last year. The 24.5-acre park features state-of-the-art venues for outdoor and indoor concerts and dance, gardens, art exhibits and sculpture. This summer, the park will feature performances by cellist Yo Yo Ma and the Joffrey Ballet. -- New York's multiple neighborhoods. New York City is a year-round favorite for priceline.com customers. Whether it's the Fifth Avenue shops, Broadway plays, the hundreds of restaurants or catching the Yankees or Mets, the Big Apple can fill up summer vacations of any length. -- Boston's Copley area. The biggest gainer on priceline's list, the Copley area rose 36 places compared to 2005. No wonder. For visitors and locals alike, Copley is the cultural center of Boston. Trendy shops, world-class dining and the city's theater district are all within walking distance. History buffs can visit sites like Trinity Church, the Old State House and the Old South Meeting House. Towering over the scene is the John Hancock skyscraper with its observation deck. -- San Diego's Point Loma and Shelter Island. Surrounded on three sides by water, the Point Loma/Shelter Island area is one of the most relaxing and scenic destinations in the U.S., which helps explain why it jumped 24 places on priceline's most-popular list for summer 2006. Visitors can walk the miles of beaches, explore the 150-year-old Point Loma Lighthouse, go whale-watching, see future America's Cup sail contestants hone their skills, surf with the locals or just kick back with a good book.>

Why You choose to live in your city.

I've lived all over the country. There's a lot of cities I love. There are things I miss about every city I've ever lived in. No city is perfect. In fact, sometimes it's the imperfections that help shape a city's character. So, after living in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle I have chosen to finally settle in Boston. Why? 1. I can live in a neighborhood ten minutes from downtown that has a huge arboretum where I can run and walk with my dogs all day long. There's green space everywhere in Boston. Pretty much every neighborhood has it's own unique park space. The park space in Boston is called The emerald Necklace because it strings through the city and every neighborhood. 2. Public transportation will get me to every neighborhood within the city. It will also take me to most of the suburbs, in less than 45 minutes, where there are beautiful beaches and forests. 3.Every neighborhood has it's own character because of the long history of Boston. Each neighborhood has been shaped by early immigrants. They have all gone through major changes over the years but they always hold on to some aspect of every era. The North End is still very Italian and the restaurants are amazing. Back Bay and Beacon Hill are old and charming. Roxbury and Dorchester are gritty and a bit intimidating. But they're both beautiful urban neighborhoods. The South end is vibrant with its little boutiques and restaurants. The history of this city is a major reason why I love it. 4.I can walk from my house to downtown in a little more than a half hour. Downtown is dense, and energetic with new and old high rises all over the place. Downtown is right on Boston Harbor which is now undergoing great changes and a building boom due to the value of the land created by the Big Dig. Downtown Boston is really cool now with it's pubs that sit on old streets next to piers. Most of them look out at the skyline which really seems unreal when you're looking at it from a seat in a building built in the 1800s. Boston is going through a building Renaissance and most of what's getting built was thought out really well. Boston still has a respect for its older architecture but it has a way of looking forward to the future, as well. 5.The people! In general I love the attitude of the east coast. I like the humor, as well. I think there is a difference between west coast and east coast people. As much as I loved my time out west I feel more comfortable with the people on the east coast. I love the diversity and ethnicity of east coast neighborhoods. Bostonians are pretty dry humored, usually very intellectual and well educated. I don't think the rep of us being rude is true. But I will admit it's sort of an insider's city. It can be hard to break in if you're not from here. But a lot of interesting people came from Boston, like Edgar Allen Poe and Conan O'Brien. 6. Fall and Summer. I don't even need to explain why I love the Fall. It's New England! Summer, is steamy hot. Just like summer should be. If it gets too hot I can walk by The Charles River which is cool and breezy or I can be at a beautiful pristine beach in no time. OK, winter sucks! 7. The amount of culture Boston has to offer is incredible. Between it's museums, universities and music venues there is always something to do. 8. Cape Cod and The Islands. Beautiful in the spring, summer and fall. Cape Cod, Nantucket and Marthas Vineyard all are unique getaways that are close enough to the city that you could go for just a day, or a week without running out of things to do. If I want mountains or woods I can get to New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont in a couple of hours. So, those are just some of the reasons I love my city. I'm sure could list more. Let's hear what you guys love about your cities. Hopefully there will be no bashing of other cities. Like I said, no place is perfect and different cities fit different individuals likings.>

Hey mods.... can you ban Silverlake/Los Angeles already!?!?!?

Have you not noticed all of his ridiculous pro-LA anti-any other city or state in the world threads? Can you guys please ban this idiot.... BOTH of HIM. (Los Angeles is clearly a second account of Silverlake)>

US Mayors....whose hot, whose not? Tell us about yours

HOT Gavin Newsom, San Francisco 1. He is currently pushing Universal Health Care in San Francisco 2. He has overhauled The City's policies on Homelessness 3. He is presiding over the biggest building boom in The City since the 70s which all told will include a 1,250ft supertall skyscraper and thousands of housing units and a bullet train to LA that will stop in the heart of DT 4. He is a leading the bay area's effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to NorCal 5. He has presided over a very healthy recovery in SF's job market 6. He has done an exceptional job in bringing differing factions of the city together on several issues. 7. He is a tireless advocate and proponent of equal rights and this is evident in his defiance of state law in the issue of gay marriage. He's very popular in a city that usually hates its mayors and has become somewhat of a worldwide celeb-either loved or hated. >

Local Music in your city

I am in a band here in Indy and I just love music period, so I am curious what is the local music scene like in your city? What is the dominant genre? Finally, do you get out and support the local music scene? Post links to sites or links to the music if you can...>

Local Music in your city

I am in a band here in Indy and I just love music period, so I am curious what is the local music scene like in your city? What is the dominant genre? Finally, do you get out and support the local music scene? Post links to sites or links to the music if you can...>

An American Nunavut?

What do you guys think of the idea of a state "for Native Americans", kind of like Nunavut Territory in Canada is "for the Inuit"? I think it's an interesting concept because while people of today shouldn't pay for any wrongdoing that others did 150 or 200 years ago, it wouldn't be that hard; after all, Indian Reservations function as their own sovereign entities, like their own states or almost even like their own countries. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to just make a huge slice of land, pre-existing Indian Reservation or not, and just make it a 51st State.>

Indy's Monument Circle

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Water in your city

What is the status regarding water for recreation in your city? Are there any navigable rivers in your city? Are there lakes, bays, inlets, or coves for boating and exploring? How are water activities like fishing and waterskiing? Anything else that you can do on the bodies of water in your city? Bear in mind that the activities and uses of the water happen on the water. Discussing your city's beaches, which involves using the shoreline rather than the open water, is for another topic.>

Gridded to the max?

Which US city today is most covered by a single grid? Street grids have always had a special role in US cities. William Penn gave us our first planned grid for Philadelphia, complete with four squares towards the corners and a large one in the middle. Philadlephia is sort of the anti-Boston of colonial times; Philly's cow paths never led to streets. Manhattan used Philadelphia's example to give us our most famous grid that runs north from city hall in Lower Manhattan to clear past the upper reaches of Central Park. It is impossible to imagine the growth and developoment of New York without the democratizing effect of the grid. Even today, it may be the grid in purest form. Broadway alone of major streets runs on an angle in the lower 2/3's of the island. I suspect my own city of Chicago is the most gridded of all. First the city is incredibly large and second virtually every part of it is part of the grid (with the exception of a few fringe neighborhoods. Chicago's grid may not be as pure as Manhattan (angular streets leave the downtown area in most directions, many Indian trails from days past). But it more than makes up for the lack of purity through its gigantic size. Meanwhile, Chicago's overlay of north/south and east/west addresses, all measured from the State and Madison interesection creates a city as easy to negotiate as a real grid with x and y coordinates. DC, as a planned city, managed to grid itself nicely, too, although the grid often gets lost in the diagonal streets with state names and all the circles. San Francisco feels more like an eastern or midwestern city than any out west due to its strongly gridded streets. So...is Chicago, in fact, the most gridded? If not, what could possible have that title of "Single Greatest Grid"? And what unique stories do other cities than the ones mentioned here bring to the subject of grid development?>

U.S. cities, then and now

This is somewhat of a tie-in to the "Old photos USA" thread. This thread is to compare what a certain place in your city looked like in the old days and what it looks like now. Try to have pictures from the same angle for consistency. Here's a comparison of some historic houses on Market Street just north of the Brandywine River in the neighborhood of Brandywine Village in the city of Wilmington. then now >

Best Nightlife in the Rust-Belt?

So, which 'rust-belt' city has the best nightlife (in terms of clubs for the young, rather than bars for crusty old gents)? The only rust-belt cities I'm currently aware of are Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Detroit. (what do you think of those cities, any good?) Ta very much.>

Green-Collar Jobs for Urban America?

The post industrial age in America is moving to China, India, an anywhere else business leaders can cut costs. However, does that mean urban America can not be a cutting edge mecca for manufacturing and business plans that soak in green technologies? This article talks about Oakland, CA potential to be a leader in green technology, but also how the impoverished can see financial and environmental benefits from a municipality looking towards sustainable development. EX: solar panel/wind turbine manufacturing, organic farming, green shipping ports, etc. Or is this just prepping the U.S. to be undercut eventually by foreign countries who can do green technology for much cheaper? Green-Collar Jobs for Urban America by Van Jones and Ben Wyskida Oakland looks for a greener path toward prosperity Union electricians hung out with Youth Against Youth Incarceration. A poet parsed words with a permaculturist. Two seniors and a spoken word artist debated the coming election. Community college students communed with a councilmember, while an architect broke bread with an immigration attorney. On the third Thursday of September 2006, in a college auditorium in Oakland, California, 300 people came together to launch a new movement: a campaign for Â"green-collar jobsÂ" as a path to economic and social recovery for low-income communities. A Â"green-collar jobÂ" involves environment-friendly products or services. Construction work on a green building, organic farming, solar panel manufacturing, bicycle repair: all are Â"green jobs.Â" The green-collar economy is big money, and it's booming. Including renewable energy and clean technology, Â"greenÂ" is the fifth largest market sector in the United States. In the Bay Area, we have seen boom times before. The dot-com era rose and fell all around us, but for low-income people and people of color that wave didn't even register, boom or bust. The question we're asking here in Oakland—that 300 people turned out to answer—is, can the green wave lift all boats? This question is not an abstraction, and the answer is non-negotiable. With murder rates soaring and employment rates plummeting, Oakland is in a literal do-or-die struggle to build a sustainable local living economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. If this movement succeeds, the effort in Oakland can point the way forward—to a new era of solution-based politics for cities across the United States. If this movement fails, a city with so much promise could fall further into despair. The stakes are high, and the next six months offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to write a new story for Oakland. The Murder Capital of California Â… Oakland is the working-class home to almost 500,000. One of the most racially and culturally diverse cities in America, Oakland boasts the nation's fourth largest port, and for decades was an industrial manufacturing hub. The march of globalization and the changing world economy ended this prosperity. As small businesses shut down and good manufacturing jobs disappeared, there weren't many jobs left. The industries that stayed are largely pollution-based, feeding Oakland with one hand and poisoning it with the other. In the poor parts of Oakland, neighborhoods of mostly black and Latino residents, 40 percent of young people suffer chronic respiratory ailments. There are no supermarkets. Ten thousand people on parole or probation lack opportunities for meaningful jobs. Violence reached a boiling point on September 6 when Nicole Tucker, a 27-year old single mother with a beautiful four-year-old daughter, was shot to death in her car. Her family remembers her as a hardworking and loving parent who put herself through school and was saving to buy a house. The media cruelly remembered her as the one who broke the record: Nicole was the 95th homicide of 2006, passing Oakland's total for all of 2005 in just the first week of September. Much of Oakland has been left behind, and it's falling deeper and deeper into despair. Â…Or the Global Green City? Against this backdrop, there is hope for a different Oakland. In 2005, residents reached out to former Congressman Ron Dellums, a visionary black progressive who had *retired from politics. They pleaded with him to run for mayor. Dellums was done with politics, and he stood before a crowd of hundreds ready to say Â"thank you, but no.Â" Looking out at the crowd, Dellums changed his mind. He knew people needed hope. He ran. In his campaign, Dellums embraced big ideas and committed to making Oakland what he called a Â"model cityÂ": a place where visionary ideas like universal health care and education for all take hold, working on a local level and standing as a model of what is possible for the rest of the country. Embracing ideas put forward by community leaders, including our organization, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Dellums promised to make Oakland Â"a Silicon ValleyÂ" of green capital, pledging to make the growth of the green economy central to Oakland's comeback. The choice of a Â"greenÂ" economy isn't random&ndashOakland has some real advantages: Oakland is one of the sunniest, windiest cities in California, poised to be a leader in solar and wind power. The Â"green waveÂ" of investment is hottest right here in the Bay Area. Settlement of an energy lawsuit left Oakland millions to spend on sustainability, and a bond issue left our community college system ready to invest heavily in a bold greening program. Dellums was running against a pro?development, pro-gentrification bloc bent on making Oakland a bedroom community for San Francisco. More condos for the rich and more of the same for the hardest hit neighborhoods in Oakland. But inspired by the Â"model cityÂ" vision, and Dellums himself, the people said Â"noÂ" to more of the same. On June 5, 2006, Dellums was elected mayor. He got just 126 votes more than he needed to avoid a runoff. Progressives and people of color, locked out for so long, now had a chance to lead. A Â"Green Jobs, Go LocalÂ" Plan At the same time Dellums was campaigning for office, the Ella Baker Center co-convened the Oakland Apollo Alliance. Connected to the National Apollo Alliance, an effort to create 3 million clean energy jobs in the next decade, the Oakland Apollo Alliance is one of the nation's first roundtables committed to job creation for low-income people and people of color in the green, sustainable economy. Inspiring efforts were already taking place all over Oakland: A group called People's Grocery delivers fresh, organic food on a truck to low-income families. California Youth Energy Services trains and pays young adults to conduct energy audits. Developers connected to the Apollo Alliance are building Red Star Homes—green buildings constructed by formerly-incarcerated people on the site of a once-toxic brownfield. Our challenge: After so many years of fighting reactive battles, we had a chance to be for something. The Oakland Apollo Alliance moved quickly, offering three big ideas to the Dellums administration: Create the nation's first Â"Green Jobs Corps,Â" a training pipeline and partnership between labor unions, the community college system, and the City to train and employ residents—particularly hard-to-employ constituencies—in the new green economy. Declare Â"Green Enterprise ZonesÂ" in Oakland—areas where green businesses and green-collar employers are given incentives and benefits to locate and hire. This is part of a comprehensive Â"Green Economic Development Plan,Â" a funded and staffed study to identify ways to make a better business climate for sustainable enterprise—provided it hires local residents as a way to keep benefits and money in town. Green the Port, building on an inspiring success story in Los Angeles, where a healthy port program is dramatically reducing emissions. We want to turn one of Oakland's greatest public health threats into an international model for sustainability. By their nature, green jobs are local jobs—and these ideas will have extra impact in Oakland because of the Â"multiplier effectÂ" a town gets when money is spent on a local business instead of a chain or out-of-town company. Converting the Port to biodiesel creates demand for a fueling station and a manufacturing plant nearby. Businesses in the Green Enterprise Zones will need to hire Jobs Corps graduates. Along with a host of other proposals, our larger vision is to turn Oakland into a Â"global green city,Â" where the pathway out of poverty is the new green wave. The reality is that other market sectors and other types of business aren't coming to Oakland. If green isn't the answer, what is? Six Months To Go Now, something remarkable is happening in Oakland. Unlikely allies like labor, environmental, and social justice activists are working together. A coalition of nonprofit organizations is aligning strategic plans for the next six months. Funders are pouring money into Oakland, inspired by the chance for a true progressive success story. Ordinary people, too, are getting involved in campaigns for things they'd never heard of six months ago, calling their councilmembers to demand Â"conservation retrofitsÂ" and Â"biodiesel at the Port.Â" On that third Thursday in September, we launched the Â"Apollo Challenge,Â" our petition drive to encourage the City to adopt the green jobs platform. The first people to sign? An electrician, a poet, a city councilmember, an activist, and a job counselor. In coming months we will take to the streets—a multi-*racial, multi-issue coalition demanding a green future for all of Oakland. Â"We are the HeroesÂ" In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a group of pioneering activists and dedicated citizens decided to focus their efforts on a couple of small Alabama towns in an effort to make change. They didn't worry whether their funders would ask if they were national or regional. They didn't wonder if what they were doing was too Â"localÂ" to make a difference. The towns? Selma and Montgomery. In 1999, citizens in a small town in Bolivia had growing concerns about a new plan to privatize their city's water supply. They went to community meetings. They formed working groups. They volunteered. When nobody listened, they took to the streets, surviving martial law and extreme violence at the hands of the military, and reclaimed their water. Their victory has catalyzed an international movement for change. Their town? Cochabamba. Around our office, we've been wearing t-shirts that say, Â"We are the heroes we've been waiting for.Â" We believe that our little local campaign to win green jobs for Oakland will echo. For us, Â"go localÂ" isn't about going small scale or getting back to our roots. It's about winning a victory that will inspire debate and action in every struggling community in America. http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1551>

What Statistics on Home Sales Aren’t Saying

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/bu...ss&oref=slogin December 6, 2006 Economix What Statistics on Home Sales ArenÂ't Saying By DAVID LEONHARDT Down in Naples, Fla., a fast-growing city on the Gulf of Mexico, there was an auction of houses about a month ago. An auction isnÂ't the usual way to sell a home, but it can make sense for people who donÂ't want to leave their houses on the market for months at a time and also donÂ't want to take the first offer to come along. So on a Saturday morning inside the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club, a few dozen houses went on the block in front of about 500 bidders. Based on the official housing statistics, you might have guessed that the sellers would have made out just fine, despite all the talk of a real estate slump. According to one widely followed real estate index — tabulated by the government agency that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the average house in Naples sold for 20 percent more this summer than it would have a year earlier. But that wasnÂ't what happened at the auction. In fact, if you were at the beach club that Saturday, you could have been excused for thinking that the real estate market was crashing. One three-bedroom ranch house with a pool sold for $671,000. In 2005, the same house sold for $809,000. Another house, just steps from Naples Bay, sold for $880,000 at the auction., compared with $1.35 million a year earlier. On average, the houses that changed hands at the auction had fallen about 25 percent in value since 2005, according to Thomas Lawler, a real estate consultant who analyzed the auctionÂ's results. Now, Naples is not a typical housing market. House prices nearly tripled in the first half of this decade, and speculators, who are more likely than residents to sell a house in a panic, flooded into the area in recent years. But with that said, Naples is not as unusual as you may think. The truth is that the official numbers on house prices — the last refuge of soothing information about the real estate market on the coasts — are deeply misleading. Depending on which set you look at, youÂ'll see that prices have either continued to rise, albeit modestly, or have fallen slightly over the last year. But the statistics have a number of flaws, perhaps the biggest being that they are based only on homes that have actually sold. The numbers overlook all those homes that have been languishing on the market for months, getting only offers that their owners have not been willing to accept. In reality, homes across much of Florida, California and the Northeast are worth a lot less than they were a year ago. The auction in Naples may have exaggerated the downturn in the market there, but not by much. Tom Doyle, a Naples real estate agent, estimated that a typical house there, sold in the normal way, would go for about 20 percent less than it did the previous fall. In the Boston area, prices have fallen about 10 to 15 percent since the middle of 2005, estimated Chobee Hoy, who owns a real estate brokerage firm in Brookline. Jerome J. Manning, who runs the Massachusetts-based auction company that conducted the Naples sale, told me he thought that values had dropped about 20 percent around Boston. (The government, meanwhile, says the average price rose 1 percent from last summer to this summer. But hereÂ's all you need to know about how well the government tracks the Boston market: the index excludes any mortgage larger than $417,000.) In September of last year, Ms. Hoy sold a one-bedroom condominium in Brookline for $395,000. She recently sold another apartment of the same size in the same building for $300,000. Since March, her firm has been listing a house in the Fisher Hill neighborhood of Brookline that cost $995,000 when it last sold, in the summer of 2004. Ms. Hoy expects it to sell this time for less than $900,000. The market in northern Virginia is similar: prices are down 10 to 15 percent, according to an analysis by Mr. Lawler, a former Fannie Mae executive whoÂ's based there. In Portland, Me., the typical house has lost about 10 percent of its value in the last year and a half, said Bill Trask, the former head of the local RealtorsÂ' board. In New York City, where co-op boards generally bar the door to absentee speculators and creative mortgages, prices seem to have slid a bit in the last few months, but only to roughly their 2005 levels. In the New York suburbs, though, values have fallen perhaps 10 percent or more since last year. Prices also appear to be down in Sacramento and San Diego. For many homeowners, of course, the decline doesnÂ't much matter. They didnÂ't really benefit from the run-up, and they wonÂ't suffer from the decline. And for any renters hoping to buy a home, the fall in prices is downright good news. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of families that took on huge mortgage debts based on the ephemeral peak values of their properties. In effect, they cashed in on the housing boom without cashing out. As Ed Smith Jr., the chief executive of Plaza Financial Group, a mortgage brokerage firm near San Diego, said, Â"So many people picked up their homes, turned them upside down and shook them like a piggy bank.Â" The withdrawals have been so big that the average household in Boston now has slightly less equity in its home than it did in 2000, according to an analysis by MoodyÂ's Economy.com that took inflation into account. And that analysis used the house prices reported by the National Association of Realtors, which appear to be more accurate than the governmentÂ's data right now but are still too rosy. Then there are the people who bought their homes in the last couple of years and made almost no down payment. Many of them may now be underwater, owing more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. Most worrisome, growing numbers of these families are falling behind on their mortgage payments, and they wonÂ't be able to bail themselves out by refinancing or selling their homes. Â"WeÂ're now going to combine a high amount of debt with falling home values,Â" said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com. For the broader economy, this may turn out to be just a hiccup. Big piles of debt can often look scarier than they really are. Then again, the housing slump of 2006 may also be the start of something larger. Mr. Zandi considers it to be Â"the most significant threat to the global expansion.Â" Over the last few decades, the worldÂ's financial system has endured a crisis roughly once every three or four years. There was the stock market crash of 1987, the Asian and Mexican meltdowns in the 1990s, the dot-com implosion of 2000 and, most recently, the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. We may now be living on both borrowed money and borrowed time.>

Are there limits on how far a waterless downtown can go?

Can a major city that has its downtown in a waterless area (no lakes, rivers, ocean, bay, etc.), even one that is a major business center and is economically important, truly have that special, ultimate downtown location it wants? Is a watefront essential to create the right environment, to bring the folks downtown to live and to play....or can a city do quite nicely without that waterfront? If water were to be considered essential, would the relatively narrow creeks, rivers, or canals in places like Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Indy (canal), LA (LA River) work? UTLIMATELY HOW IMPORTANT IS WATERFRONT TO A MAJOR CITY'S DOWNTOWN?>

frank lloyd wright

post pictures and locations of what you have of his work in your state/city. Someone brought him up in one of the threads, and showed a neat skyscraper in the central US. I would like to see where his work is throughout the country. thanks here's some wisconsin pictures: Johnson Wax Tower: racine,wis. Sullivan, Wis FL Wright and J.L. Silsbee: Unity Chapel, Spring Green, WI, 1886 Unitarian Meeting House, Shorewood Hills (Madison), WI, 1947 Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwautosa, WI, 1956 [IMG]http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/flw/orthodox02.jpg [/IMG] my favorite: lone rock "house on the rock" the infinity room Hillside Home School, 1902, Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin theres so many more, and im sure ya'll know alot more than me on this guy, but it would be appreciated if ya'll posted some good pics and links if you have some. Quote:> Frank Lloyd Wright was born in the agricultural town of Richland Center, Wisconsin, United States, on June 8, 1867, just two years after the end of the American Civil War. He was brought up with strong Unitarian and transcendental principles (eventually, in 1905, he would design the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois). As a child he spent a great deal of time playing with the kindergarten educational blocks by Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (known as Froebel Gifts) given to him by his mother. These consisted of various geometrically shaped blocks that could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions. Wright in his autobiography talks about the influence of these exercises on his approach to design. Many of his buildings are notable for the geometrical clarity they exhibit. Wright's home in Oak Park, IllinoisWright began his formal education in 1885 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Engineering, where he was a member of a fraternity, Phi Delta Theta. He took classes part-time for two years while apprenticing under Allan Darst Conover, a local builder and professor of civil engineering. In 1887, Wright left the university without taking a degree (although he was granted an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the university in 1955) and moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he joined the architectural firm of Joseph Lyman Silsbee. Within the year, he had left Silsbee to work for the firm of Adler & Sullivan. Beginning in 1890, he was assigned all residential design work for the firm. In 1893, Wright was fired from Adler & Sullivan by Louis Sullivan himself, after Sullivan discovered that Wright had been accepting clients independently from the firm. Wright established his own practice and home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, IL. He had completed around fifty projects by 1901, including many houses in his hometown.[1] >>

Your state: how does it structure its public univ's?

Please respond.... if you are interested: Describe how your state structures its public university system: • Does it have one flagship state university....or two? • If two, how do they differ? Is the land grant school of the two leveling the playing field and going into areas like law and medicine? Are the two strongly differentiated in curricula (i.e. KU, K-State) or have considerable overlap (Mich, MSU)?? • Which university is its land grant college? • Which (if any) are consider metropolitan universities? • Which grew from normal (teaching) colleges? • Are some part of a system? (like UC and CSU in Calif, UW in Wisconsin, UT in Texas, UNC in N. Carolina? Or are they all under one board (i.e. Iowa and Florida) • Is competition between universities strong or weak? • Do some schools have strong autonomy with little control from the state (almost private school with public funding, by nature).>

Question: Next City MTV's "Real World" Will Be Shot?

Does anyone have information on where the next Real World from MTV, is being filmed? If I had to pick a new city, I'd guess Atlanta, Washington DC, or Detroit should be next...>

Your city's housing stock

What types of housing can be found your city? Any interesting styles? Please post pictures here, I know every city has a different housing stock. >

Christmas City USA

Well, it's almost that time of the year again, so someone had to do it. I've always thought that no city does Christmas like New York City. I would actually go further and say they actually invented the modern Christmas. But what other American cities struck you for their Christmas atmosphere?>

Living without a car...?

I live in downtown Milwaukee and am considering ditching my car. Just wondering what thoughts people had on living a car free life.. Are there any suggestions, tips, or things I should consider before I ditch it? I haven't used my car in weeks and only use it when I go to visit family in the south burbs about a 20 minute car ride away. And for a background on Milwaukee's alternative transit options.. there is only a bus system and cabs.>

What direction does your city sprawl out the furthest? And how far?

In which direction does your city sprawl out to its greatest extent? How far? This includes exurbs, and open land between sprawled communities. For this thread, sprawl ends when the last strip mall and suburban division ends (or you run into another metro area). Milwaukee's western suburbs sprawl out about 35 miles or so west of downtown, to roughly oconomowoc (just out of frame to the west Waukesha). I would imagine LA is probably the winner of this contest. I think the inland empire reaches 100 miles or so inland.>

How to Cope With the Next 100 Million Americans

Short article about facilitating the next 100 million Americans. Talks about how 60% of that 100 million will be coming to "megapolitan" corridors or regions like Raleigh to Atlanta. Didn't mean to make a duplicate. Houston Chronicle Dec. 17, 2006, 10:44PM How do we cope with those 100 million more people? By NEAL R. PEIRCE How do some of America's best minds in the real estate and urban development game — leaders and friends of the Urban Land Institute — react to projections of 100 million more people by 2043? They agree the growth won't just spread out to all regions and areas in any equal way. Or, as Robert Lang of Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute noted at the ULI's Larson Forum in Washington last week, at least 60 million of the next 100 million people will likely locate in 20 or so "megapolitan" chains of closely connected city and suburban regions, from Charlotte-Raleigh to Chicago-Milwaukee to the Houston/Gulf Coast area. A common characteristic of all: high degrees of inter-region commuting. Notably, the development community's reaction to coming waves of population isn't just rah-rah for new moneymaking opportunities. Instead, the ULI leaders and advisers focused on goals rarely mentioned in their circles a decade ago: sustainability (with special reference to energy and climate change challenges), equity (focused on the growing income gulf between American classes and races), and international competition (how our citistate regions can compete globally). As one participant put it, we need a "triple-bottom-line" goal of economic profitability, social equity, and a healthy environment. Without being hooted out of the room, several people asked: Isn't it time — for the first time since the Reagan political revolution — to talk of federal leadership, of setting a national framework of critical priorities in developing our cities and regions? The physical chessboard will be different. Unlike the traditional city-suburb-"exurb" pattern of the 1950-2000 period, the emerging "megapolitan" regions show commuting patterns linking, "daisy-chaining" and filling in once-empty spaces between formerly separate places as much as 100 miles apart. Employment is split among the historic downtowns and new suburban office centers. Some people endure incredibly long commutes among parts of these regions, or, in a sure-to-grow phenomenon, telecommute from amazing distances, visiting their formal offices only occasionally. But will the growth be as sprawling as development of the last decades? Yes, quite likely in expansion-happy areas such as Charlotte and Atlanta, said Lang, though even there, smaller cities in the path of the development surge could try to create more walkable downtowns and neighborhoods and less large lot subdivisions — a pattern some of the ULI conferees called "refocused centralization." Conversely, very dense development is almost inevitable in such increasingly land-locked regions as Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach and Los Angeles-San Diego. Across all the regions, though, the ULI conferees saw tough problems — trip wires in the way of sound development: • Energy/climate. A worldwide energy crisis could paralyze the economy of America's heavily oil-dependent metro regions. Hundreds of new coal-burning, greenhouse gas-emitting power plants are proposed in this country, as well as in India and China. Global warming threatens both our coastlines and the snow packs that provide the West's water. "Economically, environmentally, we have to figure out how to compete with but also collaborate with the world, in transformative ways," said one developer at the ULI conference. • Splintered government. Local land use regulations dictate lots of development choices — often badly. Example: green-light approval for wasteful McMansions, barriers for compact units appropriate for today's smaller family units. But with huge regions of atomized units of government, it's tough to see what will trigger important reforms — new building and zoning codes to encourage recycling land and more mixed-use development, "green" buildings, distinctive town centers, and a more democratic town-by-town mix of housing prices. • Infrastructure — and a will to invest. The United States is the only significant player in the modern world economy that's not building high-speed rail — the ideal way to bypass clogged highways and spread economic opportunity in regional clusters of citistates and their airports. Energy-efficient freight rail is languishing, losing ground to trucks. • Schools. Inner cities lack great public education; substandard schools repel many families who'd otherwise choose dense cities. The No Child Left Behind program is apparently no magic cure. The development community needs to play a role — as one panelist put it: "The United States built its success with commitment to a vibrant public education system. It created a much more balanced, just society than we have today." • Regulatory takings. Restrictions on eminent domain following the Supreme Court's 2005 Kelo decision, the ULI conferees felt, throw a shadow over "important city regeneration projects." Even worse — the regulatory "takings" measures on several states' ballots last month. The proposals give private owners sweeping rights to sue government if regulations purportedly reduce their property values. Three of four initiatives failed this fall, but ULI panel members fear they could return and "paralyze" planning for more careful and conserving future development. The perplexing bottom line: Sound 21st century development isn't likely without government support. But the Urban Land Institute doesn't lobby. The progressive development community needs the political voice it noticeably lacks right now. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...k/4408940.html>

Huge, all encompassing, flagship city park...does your city have one?

Does your city have that one special park, huge in size and filled with all the amentiites you'd expect a park to have -or- are park functions spread over a series of smaller parks? Exampes of the type of special parks I'm referring to: Central (NYC) Lincoln (Chgo) Golden Gate (SF) Griffith (LA) Forest StL) Fairmont (Phil) Belle I. (Det)>