Tag Archives: growth

Mapping Future Growth

IF every acre of unprotected open space on Long Island were developed with single-family homes, the landscape could hold another 90,000 homes. On the other hand, if erected as town houses, garden apartments and apartment buildings, the same 90,000 units could be built in downtown areas, utilizing about half of the 8,300 acres — or 13 square miles — of available parking lots, vacant land or open space on the Island. How the area can grow, what it will take to be economically viable going forward, as well as how much and what type of new development is possible and preferable, is the focus of the 2010 Long Island Index released last week. The study and an accompanying interactive map (www.longislandindexmaps.org) examined 156 places, including 111 classified as downtowns.
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Beauty Kills—A Self-Rebuttal: Or, Why Joel Kotkin isn’t Always Wrong

In my recent post, Universal Beauty and the Responsibility of Cities, I argued that beauty is an essential element of urbanism. Forget all of that for a moment; here’s the other side of the coin: beauty kills. It can turn cities into lifeless museums animated only by tourists, inhibiting creativity and innovation while exacerbating segregation and homogenization. Look at any interior design magazine spread; room upon room of artful still-life orchestration. These are rooms that pose, not rooms that are lived in. Look at fashion models, their faces inscrutable and eyes vacant. True, this is not the sort of beauty I was advocating, but an emphasis on beauty can quickly lead one astray if untempered. Beauty is essential, yes, but it can be as intoxicating as drugs, and potentially as destructive.
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Posted in Culture, Josh Grigsby, Livability, Placemaking, Rants, Response Pieces, Sustainability, Uncategorized, What if? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment