Friday Night Links

Friday Night Lights/P.J.'s Picks:

I swear to you I'm going to put up actual blog posts, but for now you'll have to suffer through another round of links. This week's theme is loosely based around architecture, as seems to be the case quite often around here. These links are slightly more focused in that they deal with architecture and urban design within the scope of environmentalism.

Detractors of environmentally friendly urban planning projects often say that all this environmentalism talk is all attempt to stop global warming which, in their minds, doesn't exist. That, and the government is regulating business and manufacturing in ways it has no right to do. The way I see it, environmentalism is not an ethos or way of life dependent upon a belief in global warming. To me, it's just about common sense. In essence, environmentalists want to keep the world as clean as possible. We have seen that dumping trash into the ocean is not a good idea. Toxins get spread through ocean tides and fish ingest mercury and we ingest the fish and then we ingest mercury. We've seen that if air pollution is not relegated to one place and that wind patterns can carry smog across countries and continents. Dirty one part of the world and, chances are, that dirt will spread elsewhere. What environmentalism tries to do is avoid the spills and messes of the world. It is trying to keep humanity from pissing in the well from which we drink. It's a simple concept and one that promotes a hearty sense of self-preservation. We want to keep the Earth as habitable for as long as possible. As kids, our parents always told us to clean our rooms, doesn't it makes sense that we also clean our planet?

In an effort to jump on this environmental bandwagon and increase long-term sustainability, the city of Los Angeles is embarking on a series of public transportation projects, many of which have been rumored and argued about for years. Plans include more light-rail train routes or extensions of pre-existing routes, trolley service in downtown, bike rentals, and the legendary subway to the sea. All these projects are in their planning stages and require lots of money from a city going broke. While these projects might not even get started into 2011 or 2012, at least there are city planners and leaders who are trying to do something about the traffic problems in L.A. The infrastructure definitely needs some work and I'm glad freeways are being pushed aside for more environmentally feasible options.

"The New York Times" has a two part article about what to do with the inflexible infrastructure of the suburbs and how some economically downtrodden communities are dealing with the closure of "big box" stories. There is also a look at sustainable design for the future including a new phase of pre-fab homes that are vaguely reminiscent of the Case Study Project.

Slightly related and a little more hip is the promotion of chalk and white board paint. What are these marvelous products you ask? Glad you did. They are wall paints that, once dried, double as either a chalk or white board surface. For once it's permissible and encouraged to write on the walls.

And just to keep my literary peeps happy, a link to a pretty comprehensive and fairly well-known site on literature that includes interviews and book reviews.

Lastly, an in-depth article about language and how, more than just a communication tool, it also dictates your perception of the world and overall cognitive processes.