Thursday, June 03, 2010

For traffic geeks, policy wonks and more

Sharing tidbits and links:

- Lew Powell shared this article about a math whiz in Manhattan who is devising an intricate Excel program to show the cost to everyone from each car, truck, taxi or bus that enters Manhattan daily. It's in Wired magazine. For congestion-policy geeks and others.

[Lew, for you who don't know him, is now retired from his long-time role as Observer Forum editor, Buzz editor and office "wag" – as when people would write, "an office wag quipped ... " and recount a pithy and witty observation.]

- A sad, ironic note. The Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department recently learned it's one of three finalists for the 2010 NRPA Gold Medal Award. It's an annual award from the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) honoring excellence in management and planning of parks and recreation agencies. Of course, the county park department's budget is being cut almost in half. It's losing dozens of staff to layoffs, and some of its programs will have to be eliminated.

- Want to see a new promotional video for the city, done by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority (CRVA)? It's at the bottom of this page. Cameos by Michael Jordon,
Winston Kelly, Anthony Foxx, a tray full of homemade biscuits and more. I note one shot early on is from – gasp! – the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens in Belmont (not Gastonia, as I wrote in haste Thurday night). That's legit if you think of "Charlotte" as the region. Not sure about that Childress Vineyard clip, though. It's up the road rather a ways, outside Lexington. Pick you up some Lexington BBQ on your way ...

- Here's a link to the piece in the Atlantic magazine about Andres Duany - a piece I referenced in my May 21 op-ed, "Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses and NIMBYs." If you missed them, here are a couple of earlier posts on related topics, here and here. Both were written at a conference where Duany spoke, sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Nieman Foundation and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Anthony Flint of Lincoln Institute sure wished I'd have mentioned that sponsorship in the print oped. I should have, he's right.

- ‘Bright flight’ changes the face of cities, suburbs/Younger, educated whites moving to urban areas for homes, jobs - It's a link to an Associated Press story on the msnbc.com web site. It refers to a Brookings Institution study released in May, but the link to the study on Brookings site is temporarily broken. This link takes you to the main Metropolitan Policy Program site at Brookings.

6 comments:

Sam said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

What a nice article, but what else could we expect from Mary

Mary Newsom said...

Dear Sam:
The Harvard taunts are getting old, and they've always been hostile. That is why I delete them routinely. You seem far more hung up on the place than I am.

Molly Hedrick said...

Mary, thank you for the note on our new Charlotte regional video - as you know, we do market Charlotte as a region(up to 16 counties)as is our mission and was the goal of our brand process a few years ago...and Daniel Stowe and others in the region have been tremendous partners in bringing visitors, meetings and conventions to our area. We’re having great success bringing in travel writers who love to talk wine (re: Childress). Yours was a fun blog; I hope we have many who would like to view the video and even use it to help bring their friends and family to the Charlotte region!!Thanks again Mary! Molly

Display Name said...

I wonder if gerrymandering will keep up with the reversal in demographics. Could be a some interesting elections in the coming years as districts need to be redrawn.

For the record, I think gerrymandering is absurd. One thing Governor Schwarzenegger in California had right was trying to change congressional districts to follow county lines.

consultant said...

Oil or the lack thereof is going to do more to change the face of our lived in environment than anything else.

Cheap oil fueled our post WWII boom and built sprawl (suburbia). Now expensive oil is going to transform how and where we live.

Mary, do you know how to operate an old fashion printing press?