Thursday, June 03, 2004 Thursday, June 03, 2004The thing that struck me about these pictures of Baghdad was how very much alike Baghdad is to any sprawling city in America.
9:20:41 PM # Google It!
Just received a spam that asked, "How would a deg#ree look on your resume?"
It would look like I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to spell degree.
1:17:20 PM # Google It!
Apparently there's a proposal to move Route 6 as it passes through Brewster [via Topix.net]. 
Flip open a road atlas to New York state and Brewster is a black dot on Route 6, a thin red line meandering from coast to coast.
Some village leaders want that red line moved from Main Street to just south of the village. By following Railroad Avenue to Route 22, Route 6 would then carry large trucks and other vehicles away from the business district — making Main Street more pedestrian-friendly, village trustees maintain.
I think this would be a bad idea. When you move roads away from the business district, the business district loses business. And the mayor of Brewster knows this:
"What's wrong with them coming through the village?" Cesar said. "A major highway going through, it helps the village."
I haven't found that section of the street to be unfriendly to pedestrians. What I have found is that I see places that I might like to visit, but I'm on my way someplace else. I need more incentive to stop and leave my car.
12:14:39 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
Wednesday, June 02, 2004PLANetizen points out a Guardian article on an amusing Chinese recreation of the Green and Pleasant Land. It seems that central planning can do things like
rehouse 500,000 people in nine new satellite towns, each with a separate theme.
10:22:21 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
Novarese, like me, has been thinking about the question, how do you beat Wal-Mart?
It's almost accepted as common wisdom that Wal-Mart is an evil entity, putting moms and pops all out of business all over the country. The more I think about it, though, the more I think this is really a good thing, not a bad one. Retail is an economic black hole. There's no direct creation or innovation there. It's all overhead. Ultimately, the only innovation possible in retail is minimization of that overhead, which Wal-Mart has nearly perfected.
I was thinking of the problem from the perspective of the competing retailer, whether Food Lion or Billy Bob's Shoes, who sees his business being lost to more optimal enterprises. Why should he fail? Local government is usually responsive to the chamber of commerce, but a political solution is more defensive than competitive. Why not adapt? What would better meet the customer's needs?
K-Mart, neither a friend of the local retailer or of domestic manufacturing, loses sales to Wal-Mart for the simple reason that Wal-Mart is better. Wal-Mart's operations are more efficient, the stores are more convenient, and the help is helpful. K-Mart's employees tend to be rude slobs. Yet I shop there because it is closer.
Stephen Malanga wrote a positive article on Wal-Mart which describes the political maneuverings of the grocery unions against the company. Good Jobs First examines the results of subsidies on local economies, and has concentrated on Wal-Mart. Governments influence the market whether we like it or not. If we're to invest in businesses through public subsidy, we should expect a return on that investment.
The big-box retailer may be economically optimal under the current circumstances, but circumstances shift. Can the same retailer optimally fit a small space without a sea of parking, one closer to the customer? Is the box size a competitive advantage, or simply the easiest to build?
4:29:26 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
We lost our working film camera sometime on Sunday. I'm not too concerned about the missing camera, but film did have some pictures from my brother-in-law's wedding. I suppose I'll replace it with a digital camera this time.
The last time I tried a digital camera, I never got comfortable, and so returned it. It's hard to get comfortable with a $500 Nikon that feels fragile. And digital doesn't seem as permanent as film. Though if this rumor about Pentax discontinuing film cameras comes true, I'll have to adjust soon enough.
12:22:23 PM # Google It!
Harper's Index for May 2004 includes these choice tidbits:
Harper's cites the National Home Education Research Institute (Salem, Oregon), in an undisplayed < span /> element.
10:01:03 AM # Google It!
categories: Learning, Politics
Tuesday, June 01, 2004Via kottke comes this Kuro5hin article on city planning and supercomputer design. Kottke also points to Manhattan Timeformations, a historical atlas in Flash, and the taxicab metric, or Manhattan distance, which is further optimized by jaywalking — and is incidentally why New Yorkers are the quickest pedestrians.
4:28:40 PM # Google It!
categories: Place
Otis White, via Larry Felton Johnson, points out a Rutgers report that sprawl in the Northeast is slowing, mainly because
[t]he freeways and toll roads built after World War II were the enablers of suburban growth, and by the mid-1990s road construction was, for all intents and purposes, finished in the New York area. "This already is constraining further suburban growth," they write, "and it is making areas served by public transit more desirable as workplace locations."
The arteries are clogged.
New York is one of the few older cities whose population increased in the last census. Brookings characterizes this trend as population loss among pedestrian-oriented cities, though I think it is more accurate to identify the trend as movement from older places to newer: There is no newer, pedestrian city to compare to older, pedestrian cities. The newer cities just happen to be built for cars.
Anyway, Rutgers may be observing an oddity, or New York may be a trendsetter. Personally, I'd prefer that my work move closer to my bedroom, rather than move my bedroom closer to my work.
4:10:23 PM # Google It!
categories: Place