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Making Cities


What Makes a City?

1. The ability to have a foreign source of agriculture that mediates the interactions of a civil state.

2. Having Public Service and Infrastructures to support them. (EG: Hospitals, School Districts, Police and Public Transit.]

3. A Governing body such as the Senate state in Greek Times, a body of elected or Ruling officials that look over the well being of the denizens.

4. A center of population, commerce, and culture; a town of significant size and importance.

5. A highly populated center exchanging, beyond monetary goods, the cultural products and ideologies of a society that are perpetuated by its people. A New York state of mind.


Green Architecture

It use to be that Green Architecture was a negative asset to a building that would suffer from uninspired design and create a kind of eco-banality. In a city where appearances come first it might be hard to break the mold and create a new kind of design methodology. LA’s cutting-edge architectural designs use less energy, generate their own power and look good all at the same time. <http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/home/la-hm-chexcerpt30jun30,0,730483.story>

Alternative Eating

The indie trends of Los Angeles and New York City are always sweeping the country and maybe roof top eating might be the next thing. Alex Rochas, here with his SynthE Green Roof project, explains that this is a system that is being prototyped in hopes that other buildings might come to embrace the unused harvesting potential of roofs. <http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/eco-architecture-la-restaurant-serves-organic-roof-grown-veggies>

Caltrans District 7

Headquarters is a LEED-certified building with an exterior skin of photovoltaics capable of producing a significant percentage of the building’s electricity. At the Los Angeles Audubon Center at Debs Park, the building is entirely off the grid, earning the highest possible rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Green Public Transit in LA

Using the Bus, and light rails are a good eco-friendly way to get around. Maybe even saner. However, their both limited in there ability to cut across the giant metropolitan in any kind of coherent fashion. Leading many people to use it only as a last resort. The Metro System could definitely use a re-design campaign to get more public support. LA’s Metro public transit system continues to be at the forefront of developing a more environmentally friendly transportation network. They also have one of the largest fleets of natural gas buses in North America, and eliminated diesel buses entirely by the end of 2008. <http://www.discoverlosangeles.com/visitors/transportation/public-transit>

Eco-Urbanism is the Future of Sustainability..

"The future of sustainability is in our cities and towns. Urban neighborhoods are ideal for the promise and potentials of permaculture design. Our cities embody the greatest concentration of the social, intellectual and physical resources needed to create a sustainable system." ---L. Santoyo <http://www.earthflow.com/LAPDC7-1.php> L.Santoyo Designs(C) 2009, accessed 4/28/09>


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