Longitudinal Slum

People In Lincoln NE Don't Deserve Nice Things

Well it's hardly worth being compared to Central Park; Clark Enersen Partners and Olsson Associates hardly compare to Olmsted and Vaux. And an open space located at the confluence of a university campus, a residential neighborhood, and the tired outskirts of a struggling downtown will hardly have the same impact and importance Central Park plays for its dense urban surroundings. But a token amount of greenspace is still greenspace. Important probably more so as a piece of urban infrastructure (flood control), than a park (Lincolnites don't know what to do with parks), it is nevertheless a significant step toward making Lincoln a better place to live. The hokey touches such as "walls may be imprinted with quotes from Nebraska authors. Walking paths may be imprinted with raccoon footprints" are a bit much, as are the elements from the park designer kit-of-parts (amphitheater, a fountain jet, water slide, a signature fountain, and children holding balloons...), but if it works to coax Lincolnites out of their homes so be it. The project is one of the 2015 Vision Group's 'pillars' to a better future.

The 2015 Vision Group should consider adding an 11th pillar: Get the rest of the city to pull its head out of its ultra-conservative ass. Based on the comments to this story in the Journal Star, you would get the impression that the majority of Lincolnites are primarily concerned with protecting their tax money from a Liberal conspiracy to improve the city:

"How 'bout some tax relief not tax increase? "

" I consider myself somewhat liberal but this this is just another white elephant for the taxpayers to pay for... I for one don't want to give another penny to the pipe dreams of developers who will get filty rich on these projects. "

" whats the crime rate in this neighborhood, what happens after the day people leave and night falls I question the money and location"

" maybe we could do some whitewater rafting and snowsking on the slopes..........cmon, it's a slo flo creek and is not a feasible recreational site.......is this a dream and vision by a delusionary corn-fed group of wanna-be's?....take a deep breath and wake up from your fantasy land ramblings........just makes me shake my head and wonder what the heck they are drinking........creek water would be my guess, and it is not from the fountain of youth........ "

" This boondoggle should be renamed "Transient Heaven", because that's who will ifest it. We'll need lots of vounteers to clean Transient Heaven, just like all the other parks."

" Sounds like a good idea but I don't know if I'd want to walk in that area alone. I hope it doesn't end up nasty because of the nasty area around there. "

Lincolnites also fear minorities and the poor. Regardless, a step in the right direction. If handled properly it has the potential, as implied by 2015 Vision member Rich Bailey, to be a catalyst for development surrounding the park. Which it needs, otherwise the park will be underused (except by the poor and transients), as Lincolnites aren't accustomed to going to the park and feeling at ease in their own skin.

Plans unveiled for 'Lincoln's central park' [Lincoln Journal Star]

Where The Megachurches At?

The reach of the Megachurch expands to include the development of shopping malls, residential development, and sport facilities.

Megachurches Add Local Economy to Their Mission [NY Times]

Buy Nothing Day

Adbusters recent public service spot.

Railyard Proposals "tired, generic"

Nicolai is spot on with his take on the five West Side Railyard proposals:

...the proposals embody the kind of tired, generic planning formulas that appear wherever big development money is at stake. When thoughtful architecture surfaces at all, it is mostly a superficial gloss of culture, rather than a sincere effort to come to terms with the complex social and economic changes the city has been undergoing for the last decade or so.

If anything was to be learned from the debacle at Ground Zero, its that these large scale developments have the potential to really suck if not handled carefully. Nicolai reserves some praise for the Extell / Holl scheme, which begins to display some smarts and innovative problem solving specific to this site in particular, and the architectural treatment of these projects in general, but at the end of the day you are still left with a secluded plot of open space surrounded by glass towers all of which are cut off from the surrounding context. Which is all we can expect from this type of development, especially with the constraints imposed by the working rail yards. Jane Jacobs version / vision of New York doesn't apply here, but there is an untapped potential of how these mega-projects impact the city. Currently there is too much focus on the architecture - as Ground Zero clearly showed, the smarts of a master plan shouldn't rely so much on the design of the towers framing the plan, as it's likely David Childs will end up being responsible for the architecture at the end of the day. Unless the towers are going to push the limits of skyscaper design that will have a more operational impact on the use of the site (OMA's CCTV, or some of the original Ground Zero proposals) then what the towers look like can be limited to simple massing that express FAR ratios and square footage calculations.

In Plans for Railyards, a Mix of Towers and Parks [NY Times]

The Image Is Everything...

In what otherwise appears to be a well thought through master plan for Hudson Yards (pdf here), a series of cold and gloomy renderings manage to set the tone for the early public reaction to Extell's proposal.

Degentrification in Red Hook

Red Hook degentrifying? Likely a gentrification slow-down. Or a less rapid gentrification than what New Yorkers are used to. It is still a shit-hole, isolated from the rest of Brooklyn due to lack of conventional means of public transportation. But the IKEA has yet to open, and that is likely to bring big change, for better or worse. Public speculation about the next hot-neighborhood is ill-founded and only propagates disappointments such as these. Give it time and let it come naturally. Red Hook will get there; it may not look or smell like Williamsburg or Greenpoint (two other big shit-holes), but it'll evolve in its own special way. Remember the urban kit-of-parts is different. Naturally it will evolve differently from the rest of Brooklyn's neighborhoods.

The Embers of Gentrification [New York]

Homes Building Continues In High Rish Areas

Despite the recent wildfires in Southern California, over 60,000 homes are being planned in high risk areas surrounding the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Southern California's new homes lining up in fires' path [LA Times]