milenio urbano (the urban millenium)

It might not be apparent from most planning discussions in the United States which tend to inevitably focus on sprawl, the suburbs, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of this type of metropolitan form. However, in most of the rest of the world the trend is the opposite. More and more of the world is becoming urban. An op-ed piece entitled Milenio Urbano in the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre pointed me in the direction of a new study by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) which is the State of the World's Population for 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth.

In 2007 for the first time in the history of the world more people will live in urban areas than in world areas. The most rapid urban growh is occuring in developing nations. For the planners and others who care about cities and the people who reside in them there is no shortage of work to be undertaken in the coming years.

maritime songs: calm

if the band Maritime wrote more songs about shipping, then they would probably be the official band of phg. as it is, they are still really good. this is from the song calm

shortened by the blasphemy
when the sun would warm the sea
and the Canary Islands are chasing me
we are powerful despite our injuries

the starting 5

if my favorite bands were a basketball team, this would be the starting lineup:

pg: the clash
g: the weakerthans
sf: steve earle
pf: the lawrence arms
c: johnny cash

coach: mike park

John Grisham addresses the field of planning

At the 2007 UVA graduation, mega-selling author John Grisham had some pointed words regarding the discipline of planning.

Dreaming is a worthy pastime. Planning is a waste.

Pretty harsh, John. You must not have liked it when we refused to widen the highway on the way to your country estate. Or when we installed parking meters downtown.

Here's the headline from the Charlottesville Daily Progress: Author John Grisham to UVa grads: 'Planning is a waste'

on hiatus

we here at PHG are going on hiatus for a few weeks. Upon return we'll be ready to go with (hopefully) more frequent and more pertinent posts. Take care!

poems: bratislava (untitled)

here's another poem I found stashed under my bed. It's also from 2001, but a little earlier in the year. This one's certainly not as successful as the last, and it's full of the melodrama of the early 20s. Not that melodrama fades all that much, but it does change in distinct ways.

Bratislava is where I saw you
or them or whatever I wanted to see
for years there's no other explanation
to account for premonitions
suddenly sprung like Slovakia
after decades of communism I too
need a new plaza or a faltering fountain
proclaiming independence of course
I make mistakes but the rows
of workers' housing are yours
I'll return to live here for months
traverse the bridge daily
the moment the square
the incessant glare
and I'm there in the courtyard
monumentally alone
I remember december

poems: the apology

moving is funny because you find all of these things that you've stuffed under your bed or pushed to the back of your closet. Today as I was looking through an old box of political stickers I found a poem I had written in 2001 just before starting my final year of college. Time is a trickster. It's called 'the apology' and looking back I can't remember to whom I was apologizing.

the apology

there might be an end
there might be a pause
or flicker or something I don't understand
on days when you feel so lucky
you could cry well I do but
I've always been sensitive I can
apologize for the rest of my life
never buy anything remain
in Virginia till the movie reel
runs out of film but I doubt you'll
even notice the difference in the distance
I feel the approach of Chicago
and there's one more year
and what else can I fear
I'm sorry I'm leaving
I'm sorry I'm sorry
the empty canister slid under the cabinet
collecting dust I wish everything could be
different but solutions erode with age

water transportation songs: big river

there aren't many songs (at least that I know of) that provide nautical directions. The Johnny Cash song Big River is one of them. This is truly a classic, documenting a trip south along the great Mississippi

big river - johnny cash

i met her accidentally in st. paul (minnesota)
and it tore me up every time I heard her drawl, southern drawl
then I heard my dream was back downstream cavortin' in davenport,
and I followed you, big river, when you called

then you took me to st. louis later on (down the river)
a freighter said she's been here but she's gone, boy, she's gone
i found her trail in memphis, but she just walked up the bluff
she raised a few eyebrows and then she went on down alone

now, won't you batter down by baton rouge, river queen, roll it on
take that woman on down to new orleans, new orleans
go on, i've had enough; dump my blues down in the gulf
she loves you, big river, more than me

segways on patrol!

who thought this was a good idea? The Washington Post is reporting that the DC police force will be introducing cops on segways!! They have some reasons why this might be a good idea but I can't think of any. It's one thing to patrol an airport or a shopping mall on a segway (I've seen both), but being in DC it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

One officer offerred this rationale: "People will come up to you and say, 'It's kinda silly,' But you know what they're doing? They're talking to the police on a human level. That's what we want."

hmmm... At a cost of $5,000 per segway I would think that mountain bikes would be much more cost effective and not to mention versatile.

Now, segways as a means of transportation for planning professors in the exurban southwest - that's a great idea!

re-branding

if there's one thing that MTV's Total Request Live or TRL taught us is that three letter acronyms rule! I axed the idea out of the title of this blog and so we are left with: port halifax gateway or PHG for short. Further re-branding might be in order as we move further on in the summer.