|re|design cleveland query 2 up and running

|re|design cleveland has launced the second query based upon rethinking and reusing a "public" space.

This particular site for intervention is located at West 54th North of Detroit Avenue in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood and runs from June 4th to August 4th.

You can find more information here.

|re|design cleveland is part of the LAUNCH family.

Kick the Carbon Habit - World Environment Day 2008

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

About World Environment Day 2008

World Environment Day, commemorated each year on 5 June, is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action.

The World Environment Day slogan for 2008 is Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy. Recognising that climate change is becoming the defining issue of our era, UNEP is asking countries, companies and communities to focus on greenhouse gas emissions and how to reduce them. The World Environment Day will highlight resources and initiatives that promote low carbon economies and life-styles, such as improved energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, forest conservation and eco-friendly consumption.

The main international celebrations of World Environment Day 2008 will be held in New Zealand. UNEP is honoured that the city of Wellington will be hosting this United Nations day (read the press release).

The day's agenda is to give a human face to environmental issues; empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development; promote an understanding that communities are pivotal to changing attitudes towards environmental issues; and advocate partnership, which will ensure all nations and peoples enjoy a safer and more prosperous future.

What are you going to do?

Get some ideas here or more North American ideas here.

Doing something with nothing, while waiting

Rust belt cities suffer from the heavy mantle of industrial exodus. The loss of jobs is reflected in the loss of tax revenue which decreases the city's ability to maintain its infrastructure, pay for basic services such as education and protection and maintain amenities such as entertainment or arts.

While lands are left vacant waiting for the local economy to turn there exists the potential to use the extended lag periods to passively increase the viability of polluted city sites in order to take advantage of passing opportunity. Many phytoremediation or phytoextraction strategies could be utilized to remove or decrease toxins from the polluted soils of vacated manufacturing plants. Phytostabilization or phytotransformation are strategies for stabilizing/containing a pollutant and for breaking down organic pollutants such as pesticides.

Passing over the Cuyahoga this morning I wondered how difficult or expensive it would be to begin a phytoremediation program to clean up selected sites in The Flats that are not currently slated for any development or where development is many years off.

Would it make sense to begin natural clean up solutions to decrease the toxicity? Would it increase the inherent land value for resale? Could brownfield clean up grants be available for such a project and if so could educational institutions become involved as part of biology or environmental study groups to monitor progress and attempt various techniques?

Could Cleveland become the case study for phytoremediation techniques, utilizing the massive amounts of undeveloped, post-industrial, poisoned land and turning these sites into amenities such as public parks, nature reserves, community gardens while they sit unused waiting to be developed?

Would a program such as this take too long to have an affect? Are we waiting for something worthwhile or amazing to happen instead?

1/3 Movie Night - Battleship Potemkin

1/3 Movie Night presents: Battleship Potemkin
Bela Dubby
Thursday, June 5th
7.30pm

Free movie at a glorious cafe/gallery that also has beer.
MMMMMMMMMM.

Greening Bays Competition

Sure, way back in 2006 we did celebrate Park(ing) Day in Cleveland. I was even able to capture some of the lawn-tivities on camera. For some reason we skipped 2007.

Now as we gear up for 2008 (September 19th this year)it is becoming apparent that people are realizing just how much space their car takes up in the city. As part of an urban exercise and London's Festival of Architecture (which will now be my war cry when someone asks me why I think "other" cities may actually celebrate design and Cleveland doesn't quite yet) the LFoA is holding a competition to locate 14 teams to design and construct these interventions.

While I am actually quite excited about the event I feel I cannot enter simply because I would not be able to fly to London to build the thing.

HOWEVER...

there is no reason we couldn't make 2008 a banner year in Cleveland. Not one at all.

The public use of public land, reap what you sow

I remember years ago reading about folks in the UK who would drive around in the dark of night, find some despot of a site, overgrown, forgotten, filled with trash, and then lovingly clean, replant and care for the little oasis. I always found the occurrence scary in a wondrous way. There are so many residual spaces, little areas that are surrounded by public way, confused as to whom has ownership, so they lapse into becoming forgotten hardened dirt, adding nothing to the identity of the area and offering no respite from the hardened facade of the urban jungle.

I was debating with some of the LAUNCHies about the act of Guerrilla Gardening. Surprisingly the few that I talked to about it got all excited and bothered. Some quick research went into the beginning nuances. How best to distribute seeds or plants, what areas would be most beneficial to plant, were we going for a statement, for aesthetics or for balancing the natural order?

We quickly found some rather helpful links, tips and ideas (hint: Google "Guerrilla Gardening").

Then, as some get ready to begin our due diligence I stumble across an article about an LA area Guerrilla Gardener whom has been planting medians with Agave for 10 years, a succulent that has low moisture needs and thrives in the local climate. The best part of the article was that the Superintendent of Grounds Maintenance for the city of Long Beach is rather impressed by the gardeners use of drought tolerant plants and notes that "there is no law against planting on city landscaping, except for ficus tress, who's roots wreck roads and sidewalks".

Not that I want to take the subversive fun out of the act but perhaps this may be a good time for local activists who would like to beautify their cities to start cooperating with local officials to create gardens and local parks (Cleveland already has many programs already with this aim, I will make note of them as I get more information from the various groups - WCPN Sound of Ideas recently discussed how urban gardening may be used to battle the foreclosure crisis). As a renter I do miss digging in the yard. I suppose now I can treat my whole city as, well, mine.

See you on the side of the road with a shovel.

Guerrilla Gardening homepage