[Sarah McCandliss]

Hi Jay, this doesn’t exactly speak to your point but I think it is a related issue: unsustainable communities and how to manage them. I’d be interested to hear others’ thoughts on this idea for dealing with Michigan’s economic crash.

I was pretty shocked by this article in today’s (4/22/09 Earth Day!) New York Times: An Effort to Save Flint, Michigan By Shrinking It

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/22flint.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

It made me think of
-the community redevelopment bulldozing of the Victorians in the Western Addition of San Francisco in the 1960’s and how it was preceived to be a horrible thing by the late 70’s – just a few years later;
-The wastefulness of bulldozing homes in the face of homelessness in the US and abroad
-The loss of community and material history
-The social impact of determining what/who stays and what/who goes – potential for political gerymandering of a sort – who is wise enough to make these decisions?
-The wastefullness of the resources/materials that make a house and neighborhood: wood, glass, concrete…could it be recycled/repurposed?
-Excitement about the idea of returning broad swaths of urban land to its native condition – what a project!!
– Are there precedents for dismanteling a community in this way?
-Who will pay?
Thanks,
Sarah

[Sarah McCandliss]

Hi Ricardo,
I attended Ohio State for my MLA program and felt it was generally very good. However, once I got into my thesis subject I learned that really noone on the faculty there was an expert in my area of interest and that I really should have been at U of Illinios Champaign-Urbana. (Sorry, OSU!!) So, what I suggest is for you to do a little research to find out where the leaders are in your area of interest. You can do this by contacting authors of journal articles that you find exciting, reading faculty bios, googling faculty names, etc. Once you’ve narrowed it down, I’d contact the professors who are doing what you want to do and ask them about their grad program and grad research they are sponsoring. Also ask them to hook you up with recent grads of their programs to see what kind of work they are doing. Back in the day, U of Wisconson at Madison had a good program that really studied what they called the 3 legs of the stool (as in milking stool – cheese, Wisconson, get it?) of landscape architecture: economic, social and design. But things have changed so I’d just start looking. As for cost, I was able to find a GRA Graduate Research Appointment on campus that paid my tuition, fees and a living stipend of $1000 per month for 20 hours of work per week – basically a half time job but what is referred to as a “full appointment.” It added a year to my studies but I ended up with very little college debt. So, when you’re asking your favorite professor about their program, ask what kind of grad appointments are typically available on their campus or in their programs. Good luck!

[Sarah McCandliss]

Here is a link to a great company that finds sustainably grown herbs and such used by different kinds of practitioners: Auyerveda, Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, etc.: http://www.floracopeia.com. Maybe they could hook you up with some of their products and sources for this kind of thing.

[Sarah McCandliss]

Yes, I worked for a while at an LA firm in Monterey, CA that was looking into this for the Safeway rennovation in Santa Cruz. I believe the lead was the architect, not our company. It was getting to be a complicated and expensive idea: water retention under the parking lot, pumps – a lot of effort to go to just for parking lot landscape irrigation.

Not sure if they would have been allowed to use the non-potable (grey) water inside. Do we have ordinances that allow this yet? I know they’re on the drawing boards.

I think they switched to all natives as a cheaper/lower water option. Maybe Oona could ask her colleague about this for you as I was not in on the guts of the discussion, just asked to revise the planting plan a couple of times. I remember wondering if using distilled water – which is essentially what condensate is, would be ok on the plants or if they would need to add fertigation as well. A good debate on sustainable design.

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