The Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,1936011,00.html

...in a revolutionary act of ecological restoration that is now being examined around the world, the city of Seoul, under the leadership of the then mayor, Lee Myung Bak, pledged in 2002 to restore the river, tear down the motorway and create a five-mile long, 800-yard wide, 1,000-acre lateral park snaking through the city where the river once ran...
The city had beefed up its bus service and given people options to avoid the motorway, and the effect on the environment was remarkable. Hwang says: "We found that surface temperatures in summer along the restored river were an average 3.6 degrees Centigrade lower than places 400 metres away. The river is now a natural air conditioner, cooling the capital during its long hot summers. Average wind speeds in June this year were 50% higher than the same period last year. It was extraordinary. Also, many birds came back, plus fish, insects and plants. The variety of wildlife has vastly increased since we tore up the road."

http://www.metro.seoul.kr/kor2000/chungaehome/en/seoul/main.htm

Why I am not an Environmentalist

"...For communities like mine, environmentalism has seemed to be about preserving places most of us will never see. Even when environmentalism has focused on problems that affect urban communities, such as air pollution or lead poisoning, it has pointedly avoided addressing my community's desperate need for economic development. Environmentalists do not talk about the importance of a living wage or affordable housing because, we are told, those are not environmental problems. Foundations feed this problem by failing to recognize minorities and urban city residents as prominent stakeholders in the environmental arena.

While many leaders of the environmental movement have a deep and abiding interest in social and economic equity, that concern is largely absent from their work because it is "not their job." The same mistake is made by every other progressive movement, including the civil rights movement. We have become trapped in narrow categorical definitions of ourselves rather than a comprehensive understanding of what values we stand for in the world..."

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/22002/

Urban Planning Activism...

"New urbanism also derives an elite demand that any reformulation of urban patterns mandates the creation of expensive, elite zones through the use of redevelopment and/or other states subsidies. Numerous new urbanist developments are in reality re-creating the class and exclusionary policies of failed suburbia. Affordable housing for the working class is too advanced for a perspective that translates into an economic fear of ethnic minorities in the neighborhood. Sound familiar? It should. Without exclusionary home pricing, new urbanists are also repeating the cultural failure of suburbia, the re-establishment of a system of residential apartheid. in the guise of an enlightened, "post" modern urbanism. There is nothing "postmodern" about ethnic and class exclusion, tactically, theoretically, or practically. Yet, when proponents of this perspective fail to criticize new developments and transit centers as nothing more than another formulation of privelaged economic development zones due to an acute lack and/or no affordable housing, they inherently support urban economic apartheid" (Diaz, 2005).

This is David Diaz-- he is an Assoc. Prof. at California State U at Northridge. His book on the barrios of the southwestern urban cities of the US is amazing, and especially important now at a time when interest in development in urban centers is being taken up by those in all fields, even environmentalism with a inadequate class and racial understanding.

In looking at Agraria

"The current energy crisis in the world, and the high probability of it worsening, has generated a sense of urgency in developing alternatives. Thus there is a great need for low-energy-use agrarian models.
This agrarian development will be closely integrated with Yellow Springs, Ohio, taking its needs into consideration. Having it be part of a small town is based on a belief that Peak Oil will lead to a large migration from cities to rural areas (large meaning 10s of millions of people).
Probably the three most significant aspects of the current American, consumer-oriented, high-energy-use lifestyle are, large homes; large, low-mileage automobiles; and fossil-fuel-based, long-distance food supplies. Agraria addresses these directly. Agraria homes will be clustered with paths replacing roads, leaving over half of the land for gardens, orchards and recreation. The Agraria neighborhood will not be completely "car-free" – that does not appear possible at this time. However, it will not be "car-focused"."

Yellow Springs, also known as the home of Antioch Unversity, and Dave Chappelle.

Agraria's Website
http://www.communitysolution.org/agraria.html

If anyone has any information on this ... do tell.

This New Thing I found

This new thing I found is fine. A substitute for my journal. A little more ephemeral. We will see if it sticks. If you are reading this I have disclosed to you that I have one of these things!
I usually don't read others' because i feel like it is a breech of their privacy.; and that they probably talk to themselves too much or talk to their computers too much.
Primarily this site will be a journal for all online activity. For new things to check out and to get recent updates on worldly activity.
Good luck.

testies testies... one... two... three..?