Dark Roasted Blend has a big round-up of trippy architectural visions of future cities. Here are some highlights:

Luc Schuiten’s Vegetal City

The Walking City by Archigram, an old favorite of mine.

‘Shroom City, by Frederic St. Arnaud

There are many more at Dark Roasted Blend: Hallucinatory Architecture of the Future

(Thanks Trevor!)

Globally, roughly 13 million hectares of forest fall to the blade or fire each year. Such deforestation has long been driven by farmers eking out a slash-and-burn living or loggers using new roads to cut inroads into pristine forest. But now new data appears to show that, at least for the first five years of the 21st century, big block clearings that reflect industrial deforestation have come to dominate, rather than smaller-scale efforts that leave behind long, narrow swaths of cleared land.

Scientific American: City Dwellers Drive Deforestation in 21st Century

(via Chris Arkenberg)

A 3D model city has been generated using the open source, easy to learn programming language Processing.

(via Digital Urban via Bruce Sterling)

See also: Slime mould could design Tokyo’s railway

5. Prypiat, Ukraine
4. Humberstone and Santa Laura, Chile
3. (Parts of) Detroit, Mich.
2. Hashima Island, Japan
1. Centralia, Penn.

HowStuffWorks: 5 Modern Abandoned Cities

(via William Gibson via Mister X)

This article on the recent Suburbia exhibition at the London Transport Museum takes a brief look at the history of suburbia:

Rather than some authentic, uncomplicated, unplanned response to ordinary people’s desires, London’s suburbia was the product of both planning and speculation, heavily mediated, and marketed using an impressive degree of subterfuge. The garden suburb was the official face of suburbia. Developed in 1907 by Toynbee Hall’s chair, Henrietta Barnett, and carefully planned by the socialist and architectural traditionalist Raymond Unwin, it attempted to build William Morris’s socialist “nowhere” in a capitalist context. Unwin and his partner Barry Parker developed a style based on whitewash, pitched roofs and large gardens. This became the basis for its many successors. Yet it was also tightly planned and full of public spaces to encourage social interaction. In the same year, the London Underground opened Golders Green station, and promoted its rural joys in an advertisement campaign, as a means of selling season tickets. Golders Green was enveloped by new, unplanned housing, although the Underground’s posters invariably depicted Hampstead Garden Suburb.

The exhibition alludes to the fact that London’s private transport companies were the sponsors and often the creators of suburbia, extending their lines into open country, promoting the glories of the countryside, and then developing it out of existence.

Guardian: Suburbia explored

(via Tomorrow Museum)

On Sunday morning, 40,000 people will run, walk and wheel their way 26.2 miles through New York’s five boroughs in a whirlwind tour of the city at its most festive. My personal marathon, restricted to the long rectangle created by Baltic and Warren Streets and Fourth and Fifth Avenues in Park Slope, Brooklyn, offered something more subtle: a glimpse at a day in the life of my neighborhood.

The idea came to me on my umpteenth walk with Barnaby, a basset hound with a trace of beagle that we adopted from a shelter in June. Somehow, the thought “This is pathetic — I’m walking miles every day without getting anywhere” morphed into “What if we kept walking — without going anywhere? Wouldn’t that be kind of cool?”

Suddenly, the dutiful, oddly agrarian-feeling urban activity of escorting an animal outdoors for nature’s call took on the urgency of adventure. With the hound as social lubricant, I would immerse myself in the quotidian rhythms and stutter-steps of the block, watching its lives intersect or sometimes — it’s a neighborly block, but this is New York City, after all — float by one another without acknowledgment.

New York Times: Block-a-Thon

(via Eva)

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.

Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.

Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes.

Most are former industrial cities in the “rust belt” of America’s Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.

Telegraph: US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

Previously: Parts of Flint May Go Feral

1: Raleigh, N.C.
2: Austin, Texas
3: Charlotte, N.C.
4: Phoenix, Ariz.
5: Dallas, Texas
6: San Antonio, Texas
7: Houston, Texas
8: New Orleans, La.
9: Atlanta, Ga.
10: Denver, Colo

Forbes: Ten Cities Where Americans Are Relocating

(Thanks Amber)

Property abandonment is getting so bad in Flint that some in government are talking about an extreme measure that was once unthinkable — shutting down portions of the city, officially abandoning them and cutting off police and fire service.

Temporary Mayor Michael Brown made the off-the-cuff suggestion Friday in response to a question at a Rotary Club of Flint luncheon about the thousands of empty houses in Flint.

Brown said that as more people abandon homes, eating away at the city’s tax base and creating more blight, the city might need to examine “shutting down quadrants of the city where we (wouldn’t) provide services.” [...]

City Council President Jim Ananich said the idea has been on his radar for years.

The city is getting smaller and should downsize its services accordingly by asking people to leave sparsely populated areas, he said.

Full Story: Mlive

(via Cryptogon)

See also:

Feral cities – The New Strategic Environment

Update: See US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

Although it is small consolation in the face of overwhelming economic strife in Detroit and elsewhere as the foreclosure crisis continues, this story gave me a real feeling of hope and renewal. To me, this example and other corresponding cases – like the artist-driven re-imaginings of shopping malls and big box stores seems symbolic of an even larger cultural shift. The arts community isn’t just moving into one downtrodden urban neighborhood; rather, they’re taking on the ruins of the unsustainable. They’re taking on big box stores, shopping malls, and grid-connected homes in the car capitol of North America. And they’re not just creating new art. They’re seizing the opportunity to turn old shells of buildings into independent, renewable energy-powered, 21st century-ready spaces.

What I’m most eager to hear next is that creative pioneers are conquering McMansions in the suburban hintersprawl. As Bryan Walsh wrote recently for Time Magazine, “The Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech predicts that by 2025 there will be a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (on one-sixth of an acre [675 sq m] or more) in the U.S.”

Will subdivisions be turned into workshops and performance spaces? Or possibly into small-scale agricultural communities, or enclaves for artisan food-production? At the very least, will they become denser, transit-connected and less car-dependent … and what will drive that?

Full Story: WorldChanging

See also:

The Sudden Stardom of the 3rd World

Looks like #d09 is already under way:

Buying that first house had a snowball effect. Almost immediately, Mitch and Gina bought two adjacent lots for even less and, with the help of friends and local youngsters, dug in a garden. Then they bought the house next door for $500, reselling it to a pair of local artists for a $50 profit. When they heard about the $100 place down the street, they called their friends Jon and Sarah.

Admittedly, the $100 home needed some work, a hole patched, some windows replaced. But Mitch plans to connect their home to his mini-green grid and a neighborhood is slowly coming together.

Now, three homes and a garden may not sound like much, but others have been quick to see the potential. A group of architects and city planners in Amsterdam started a project called the “Detroit Unreal Estate Agency” and, with Mitch’s help, found a property around the corner. The director of a Dutch museum, Van Abbemuseum, has called it “a new way of shaping the urban environment.” He’s particularly intrigued by the luxury of artists having little to no housing costs. Like the unemployed Chinese factory workers flowing en masse back to their villages, artists in today’s economy need somewhere to flee. [...]

But the city offers a much greater attraction for artists than $100 houses. Detroit right now is just this vast, enormous canvas where anything imaginable can be accomplished. From Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project (think of a neighborhood covered in shoes and stuffed animals and you’re close) to Matthew Barney’s “Ancient Evenings” project (think Egyptian gods reincarnated as Ford Mustangs and you’re kind of close), local and international artists are already leveraging Detroit’s complex textures and landscapes to their own surreal ends.

In a way, a strange, new American dream can be found here, amid the crumbling, semi-majestic ruins of a half-century’s industrial decline. The good news is that, almost magically, dreamers are already showing up. Mitch and Gina have already been approached by some Germans who want to build a giant two-story-tall beehive. Mitch thinks he knows just the spot for it.

Full Story: New York Times

It could be worse

We think we have it bad here in Portland, but many cities have it much worse. According to this BLS report, Portland clocks in at 269/369 in employment rates – ahead of struggling cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Not to mention economically crippled cities Detroit and Flint.

Inventive City

According to the Wall Street Journal, Portland ranks 13th in number of patents filed, trailing Silicon Valley but beating Seattle and New York. Why is this important? As the article says “New patents often lead to the creation of new companies, which in turn mean more jobs.” Whatever your position on patents and intellectual property, having a large number of inventors in town bodes well.

Renewable Energy Leadership

The announcement that wind turbine manufacturer Vestas is expanding their North American head quarters in Portland was overshadowed by gloomy layoff announcements by OHSU. That, combined with the fact that the Pacific Northwest has a clean power surplus paint a bright picture for Portland’s future in the “green economy.”

Portland’s also been ranking as one of the cities best prepared for Peak Oil.

Creative economy

I’ve talked off and on here about Richard Florida and his creative economy ideas (the patent thing plays into this as well). Portland’s home to apparel heavy-weights like Nike and Columbia (and is the regional headquarters for Addidas) and start-ups like Nau and Ryz.

We also just saw the release of Coraline from Portland animation studio Laika, and the release of Hellboy 2 based on the Milwaulkie, OR based Dark Horse Comics series. Portland is also home to Top Shelf Productions, publishers of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell comics, and Oni Press.

Portland’s also become a hub for marketing and design companies, most notably Wieden+Kennedy.

Intel upgrading during the recession

Intel, the areas largest employer, is closing some locations in Hillsboro. But they’re also investing in upgrading other local plants. Intel bet on their higher end processors, missing the better opportunity in lower end (but more innovative) processors for netbooks. Intel is investing in their future during the recession, preparing to produce more chips for netbooks and smartphones.

Conclusion

Incidentally, none of this depends on government stimulus spending, though that certainly won’t hurt the green energy part. Portland is a strong position ecologically – we’re able to subsist on a comparably low amount of oil, and are positioned within a region producing an excess of electricity. We also have a wealth of visionary talent, complemented with the resources to design, manufacture, and market their creations. Most importantly: we don’t have all our economic eggs in one basket. Things are tough right now, but there are few places in a better position for the future.

Q: What can we expect?

A: Pretty much what you read about in New Scientist every week. Climate change, dust bowls caused by over-cultivation necessitated by over-population, resource depletion in obscure and irritatingly mission-critical sectors (never mind oil; we’ve only got 60 years of easily exploitable phosphates left — if we run out of phosphates, our agricultural fertilizer base goes away), the great population overshoot (as developing countries transition to the low population growth model of developed countries) leading to happy fun economic side-effects (deflation, house prices crash, stagnation in cutting-edge research sectors due to not enough workers, aging populations), and general bad-tempered overcrowded primate bickering.

Oh, and the unknown unknowns.

Q: Unknown unknowns? Are you talking about Donald Rumsfeld?

A: No, but I’m stealing his term for unprecedented and unpredictable events (sometimes also known as black swans). From the point of view of an observer in 1909, the modern consumer electronics industry (not to mention computing and internetworking) is a black swan, a radical departure from the then-predictable revolutionary enabling technologies (automobiles and aeroplanes). Planes, trains and automobiles were already present, and progressed remarkably well — and a smart mind in 1909 would have predicted this. But antibiotics, communication satellites, and nuclear weapons were another matter. Some of these items were mentioned, in very approximate form, by 1909-era futurists, but for the most part they took the world by surprise.

We’re certainly going to see unknown unknowns in the 21st century. Possible sources of existential surprise include (but are not limited to) biotechnology, nanotechnology, AI, climate change, supply chain/logistics breakthroughs to rival the shipping container, fork lift pallet, bar code, and RFID chip — and politics. But there’ll be other stuff so weird and strange I can’t even guess at it.

Q: Eh? But what’s the big picture?

A: The big picture is that since around 2005, the human species has — for the first time ever — become a predominantly urban species. Prior to that time, the majority of humans lived in rural/agricultural lifestyles. Since then, just over 50% of us now live in cities; the move to urbanization is accelerating. If it continues at the current pace, then some time after 2100 the human population will tend towards the condition of the UK — in which roughly 99% of the population live in cities or suburbia.

This is going to affect everything.

It’s going to affect epidemiology. It’s going to affect wealth production. It’s going to affect agriculture (possibly for the better, if it means a global shift towards concentrated high-intensity food production, possibly in vertical farms, and a re-wilding/return to nature of depopulated and underutilized former rural areas). It’s going to affect the design and layout of our power, transport, and information grids. It’s going to affect our demographics (urban populations tend to grow by immigration, and tend to feature lower birth rates than agricultural communities).

There’s a gigantic difference between the sustainability of a year 2109 with 6.5 billion humans living a first world standard of living in creative cities, and a year 2109 with 3.3 billion humans living in cities and 3.2 billion humans still practicing slash’n'burn subsistence farming all over the map.

Q: Space colonization?

A: Forget it.

Full Story: Charlie Stross’s web page

(via Grinding)

Reading that Richard Florida article yesterday reminded me of Florida’s rival Joel Kotkin and the debate around urban economies years after the dot-com crash.

I came across Richard Florida’s ideas when I was a senior at the Evergreen State College and hoping to break into the public relations industry in Seattle. Florida’s thesis – that the educated “creative class” was the key to economic success and that cities should be doing their best to woo us – was seductive. Any idea that states that you are important and other people should do their best to please you is seductive.

But it didn’t take long for me to start seeing his work as a sort of “guidebook for gentrification” (in retrospect, this might not have been fair). Meanwhile, the cities he celebrated, like San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, had yet to bounce back from the dot-com boom and I was constantly hearing about people moving back to the midwest.

On the other hand, I never bought Florda’s key rival Joel Kotkin’s ideas either. Kotkin seemed to agree that middle class professionals were important for a city’s economy, but disagreed with Florida about how to attract them. Kotkin wrote about the need for cities to attract families and thought lax building and zoning regulations and cheap housing were the answer. In other words: sprawl.

While Florida held up San Francisco as the model city, Kotkin was a booster for Phoenix. And while I’m still not convinced Florida is right – Kotkin has been soundly proven wrong. The housing market collapse in Phoenix and Las Vegas dwarfs the dot-com bust. And while San Francisco and Silicon Valley – Florida’s darlings – haven’t escaped the effect of the global economic meltdown, they’re not in as bad off as the rest of California (more on that later).

So I thought I’d check in on what Kotkin is writing lately. He doesn’t so much as admit that he was wrong but warn (or whine) that Florida was right in this Forbes article. Meanwhile, he chastises LA for not being more like Phoenix and blames environmentalists for California’s economy. The funny thing is, not too long ago he was praising LA as a model city.

The money line from his California article: “To many longtime California observers, the inability of the political, business and academic elites to adequately anticipate and address the state’s persistent problems has been a source of consternation and wonderment.” Kotkin was one of these elites, writing essays in magazines and newspapers across the country cheering on the housing bubble. It’s amazing that he’s still being taken seriously.

I was skeptical about this essay. After all it is Richard Florida and it is the Atlantic. But this is definitely worth reading:

Before the Great Depression, only a minority of Americans owned a home. But in the 1930s and ’40s, government policies brought about longer-term mortgages, which lowered payments and enabled more people to buy a house. Fannie Mae was created to purchase those mortgages and lubricate the system. And of course the tax deduction on mortgage-interest payments (which had existed since 1913, when the federal income-tax system was created) privileged house purchases over other types of spending. Between 1940 and 1960, the homeownership rate rose from 44 percent to 62 percent. [...]

If anything, our government policies should encourage renting, not buying. Homeownership occupies a central place in the American Dream primarily because decades of policy have put it there. A recent study by Grace Wong, an economist at the Wharton School of Business, shows that, controlling for income and demographics, homeowners are no happier than renters, nor do they report lower levels of stress or higher levels of self-esteem.

And while homeownership has some social benefits—a higher level of civic engagement is one—it is costly to the economy. The economist Andrew Oswald has demonstrated that in both the United States and Europe, those places with higher homeownership rates also suffer from higher unemployment. Homeownership, Oswald found, is a more important predictor of unemployment than rates of unionization or the generosity of welfare benefits. Too often, it ties people to declining or blighted locations, and forces them into work—if they can find it—that is a poor match for their interests and abilities. [...]

Finally, we need to be clear that ultimately, we can’t stop the decline of some places, and that we would be foolish to try. Places like Pittsburgh have shown that a city can stay vibrant as it shrinks, by redeveloping its core to attract young professionals and creative types, and by cultivating high-growth services and industries. And in limited ways, we can help faltering cities to manage their decline better, and to sustain better lives for the people who stay in them.

Full Story: the Atlantic

I remain skeptical of the idea that the key to American economic prosperity will be a continued reliance on “innovation” and “ideas.” In more concrete terms, Florida is arguing that the States will remain globally competitive by exporting designs and allowing the products and services continue to be made and supported elsewhere. But China and India are catching up to the US in the product and software design markets.

Renegade futurism is decidedly not about making predictions, but the future of the American economy I imagine is more local. It’s maker faires and farmer’s markets. It’s repairing stuff or making new clothes out of old ones. It’s neo-artisans bartering with each other. It’s co-ops, credit unions, and local currency.

Sure, there will still be imports and exports – but with increasing costs of shipping and more makers unemployed local production could make a big comeback.

(Thanks Nick)

I live in the unhappiest city in America:

Portland, Ore.
St. Louis, Mo.
New Orleans, La.
Detroit, Mich.
Cleveland, Ohio
Jacksonville, Fla.
Las Vegas, Nev.
Nashville-Davidson, Tenn.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Atlanta, Ga.
Milwaukee, Wis.
Sacramento, Calif.
Kansas City, Mo.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Memphis, Tenn.
Indianapolis city, Ind.
Louisville, Ky.
Tucson, Ariz.
Minneapolis, Minn.
Seattle, Wash.

Full Story: Business Week

(via Tara)

Re-posting from klintron.com:

According to Forbes:

Madison, Wis.
Washington, D.C.
Boston, Mass.
Richmond, Va.
Milwaukee, Wis.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Baltimore, Md.
Seattle, Wash.
Houston, Texas
Dallas, Texas

Full Story: Forbes

As part of the documentary Ants! Nature’s Secret Power, cement was poured into an ant colony, allowed to harden, and then excavated to reveal an amazing metropolis:

Design by Superorganism

Check out the end of the video for to reveal an ant project equivalent to the Great Wall of China.   Could this be a model for producing emergent structures with nanotechnology?

I’ve got to admit, though, as more than one person has commented on various blogs, what they did in this video really sucks for the ants.Sorta like if giant aliens filled all the buildings in Manhattan with super alien epoxy and made a mold while recording the whole thing…which could make a great movie!! Mutual of Alpha Centauri’s Wild Kingdom. “Now, as you can see when we move in among these structures, these small creatures begin moving in all directions, probably as a strategy to confuse predators. My assistant, Snrblxx, will now start pumping in the quick setting polymer gel.”

I asked Naveh why Deleuze and Guattari were so popular with the Israeli military. He replied that ‘several of the concepts in A Thousand Plateaux became instrumental for us […] allowing us to explain contemporary situations in a way that we could not have otherwise. It problematized our own paradigms. Most important was the distinction they have pointed out between the concepts of “smooth” and “striated” space [which accordingly reflect] the organizational concepts of the “war machine” and the “state apparatus”. In the IDF we now often use the term “to smooth out space” when we want to refer to operation in a space as if it had no borders. […] Palestinian areas could indeed be thought of as “striated” in the sense that they are enclosed by fences, walls, ditches, roads blocks and so on.’5 When I asked him if moving through walls was part of it, he explained that, ‘In Nablus the IDF understood urban fighting as a spatial problem. [...] Travelling through walls is a simple mechanical solution that connects theory and practice.’6

Full Story: The Art of War

(via Blustr)

structure built out of usaid food bags

My presentation from CyborgCamp:

Compared to many parts of the world, in the west we’re already living in the singularity.

We can help people in the developing world with technology, and we can learn new things from the problems of the developing world.

Left Behind: the Singularity and the Developing World

Just in time for the holidays, I’m joining the ailing retail business with my online store, the Swift Fox. The Swift Fox sells accessories for urban mobility – laptop bags, iPod cases, etc. We’re just getting started, expect more soon.

The Swift Fox (featured above: Axio Tekno hardshell backpack)

And if you’d prefer to buy hand made items, be sure to check out my girlfriend’s business, surrealestate crafts – knitted cats, hats, iPod socks, and wallets.

My old friend Abe Burmeister and his business partner Tyler lauched their line of high tech bikewear this month. Outlier: Tailored Performance Clothing for Cycling in the City. Their first product is the OG Pant 4Season Black Lotus What makes them special?

The base 4Season fabric is a blend made in Switzerland by Schoeller Textiles. A durable tech fabric with a great handfeel worthy of our old school New York garment district construction. It stretches with you as you ride your bike, but drapes like a pro as you walk indoors. It’s abrasion resistant and wicks moisture away from your body. In light rain, it’s water resistant and raindrops bead up and roll away. In a downpour? Well… nothings perfect. It’ll saturate eventually. But once you are in the clear, it’ll dry out in no time (10-20, usually.)

As for the Lotus, that’s our name for what the Schoeller people call “nanosphere” or “self-cleaning”. It’s a nano tech fabric treatment modeled after the surface of a lotus leaf, no lie. What that means is that the surface is a fractal with no repeating surface structure upon which oil or stains can bond. We’ve been known to pour coffee and red wine straight onto our pants. Usually it just rolls off. Occasionally a bit might actually dry down, but it too will roll right off if you splash some water over it.

We aren’t too comfortable with that phrase “self-cleaning” but this is some pretty nice fabric. It wears harder and needs way less cleaning than your average fabric. It’s extremely comfortable, resists wrinkles, fading and odors too (just a bonus). In other words, a seriously versatile fabric for all 4 seasons.

To top it off, it’s made to the bluesign environmental standards of Switzerland. The fabric is woven and dyed in a manner which minimizes waste, reduces emissions and avoids the toxic chemicals common in much of the textile industry. In other words, it’s a start, and we at Outlier are committed to pushing our suppliers to do even more and rewarding those that follow through.

Steve Chapman has a piece in Reason looking at the reverse-snobbery of rural dwellers, and provides some uncomfortable facts about small town life to suggest that small town folks are in no sense “morally superior” to their urban and suburban counterparts.

You can read it here.

Towards the end he acknowledges that crime rates are higher in denser populations than in the country, and cites some reasons that may be.

I have another question though: what about unreported crime? How much assault and domestic abuse occurs in small towns that never gets reported? My personal experience of small town life is that bar fights occur frequently and without warning, and sometimes the people involved are neither thrown out or even cutoff at the bar. In my experience drinking in bars in big cities, bar fights are rare and when they occur the offending patrons are thrown out and sometimes the police are called.

And I have the feeling that in places where licensed counselors tell women that they should accept domestic abuse because the bible says so, there will be considerably fewer reports of violence than in an area dense with apartments with neighbors calling in domestic abuse calls whenever someone raises their voice.

More pics: Pink Tentacle