Banishing buses to L'Enfant

DDOT is planning to force all low-cost bus carriers, like Bolt Bus, DC2NY, and the Chinatown buses to stop loading in Chinatown and at various other spots around the city (a few pick up in Dupont Circle), reports the Examiner (via DCist). Instead, all buses will have to load and unload at a special zone at 10th and D Southwest, right by the L'Enfant Metro.

This seems like a terrible idea. It sounds like it came from the LOS-watchers within DDOT: "Hmm, these buses are causing a lot of pedestrian congestion and taking up some room on our streets which should be used to move commuters in and out of the city as fast as possible. OK, let's put the buses in an empty part of the city, but one that's near Metro."

Intercity trains are much more energy-efficient than buses, but one advantage of buses is their flexibility. It's good that buses can choose to pick up in areas where there are many customers. Also, the service brings more pedestrian activity to those neighborhoods. At L'Enfant, there's nothing, and people will all just hop on the Metro.

If traffic is a problem, take away some curb parking or a traffic lane. Each of those buses carries as many people as a few blocks full of single passenger vehicles. There are some underutilized streets - how about a loading zone on the very wide F Street by Gallery Place?

Our street network is for the use of all, including buses. Buses aren't something we should move out of the way to speed transportation: they are the transportation. Let's move cars out of the way to make room for the buses.

Bus Rules: Let's Call a Time OutThe number of cheap buses from DC to New York (like the Chinatown buses, DC2NY, Bolt Bus, Megabus, and others) has exploded recently. That's great for riders who want to get to New York cheaply, and to bring New Yorkers here to see what a great city we have (and spend money here).

It also causes noise in some neighborhoods. That's a problem, and one we should deal with. But after years and years of these buses operating, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) has suddenly imposed "emergency" rules to banish all of these buses to the barren sidewalks of L'Enfant Plaza.

With only one month's notice, suddenly all of the bus companies will have to apply for permits, and can't pick up in more convenient areas. Some will go out of business. Visitors to our city will only see bland, depressing L'Enfant Plaza instead of vibrant, exciting Chinatown, Metro Center, Farragut Square, or Dupont Circle. There won't be anything to eat while waiting for a bus. People will feel less safe. Our businesses will lose revenue. And while private cars can still park for free or almost free on most blocks, we're hurting an environmentally friendly mode of transportation.

What's the rush? Can't we take a moment for a public discussion of better alternatives? What about auctioning off a few loading areas around the city? Or creating a bus zone in the huge parking lot that used to be the old convention center, or on one of the wide but mostly empty streets around Gallery Place or Judiciary Square?

Let's find a solution that keeps lively competition among our intercity buses while also fixing the problems. The buses have been operating for years. Let's take a time out on these rules until we can all work out a better solution.

DDOT is accepting comments for a few more days. Please send them a letter below asking them to call a time out on the new bus rules. Feel free to also weigh in with your opinion on what should be done.
Make Your Voice Heard

Issue in Spotlight:  Intercity Bus Loading & Unloading in Public Space

In response to various complaints with regard to intercity buses using public space for loading and unloading passengers, DDOT has instituted new regulations* that will now require intercity bus operators to obtain a permit as well as use newly identified, designated area(s) for pickups and drop offs. Existing intercity bus service operators, who utilize public space for loading and unloading passengers, should submit their application* for permits by July 3rd.

Limited space is available. Applications filed by July 3rd will be processed together. Any of these applications that include requests for use of the space at the same time will be resolved by the District Department of Transportation. All applications received after July 3rd will be given space as available on a first come first served basis.

Applications must be submitted in person at 941 North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 2300 along with a check made out to the DC Treasurer for the $100 application fee. The hours for submission are from 8:30 am and 4:15 pm, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. The new regulations are part of a one-year pilot program to provide safer pedestrian environments in public space for visitors and residents.

Low-cost, regional bus companies forced to load in designated zone

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Say goodbye to the Chinatown Bus and hello to L’Enfant Coach.

Responding to the exploding popularity of inexpensive bus rides between Washington, New York and other destinations, the District plans to funnel all buses that load and unload passengers on city streets into a single “intercity bus zone” in Southwest. The myriad bus services, a staple of the downtown for years, will face fines up to $1,500 for loading

outside of that zone, which can accommodate only two buses at a time.

The D.C. Department of Transportation claims that the various Chinatown buses, DC2NY and BoltBus, among others, are congesting streets, disrupting transit and causing a safety hazard for pedestrians. With fares as low as $15 each way and modern amenities such as wireless Internet, the buses have proliferated as gas prices have skyrocketed.

“In some instances, this activity poses safety concerns to the general public and to the bus customers themselves,” Karyn LeBlanc, DDOT spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Under a soon-to-debut one-year pilot program, intercity buses will be routed to a curb lane on northbound 10th Street Southwest, just south of D Street beneath the L’Enfant Promenade. The regulations require that all buses obtain a DDOT permit to load there — the application for which must include a proposed schedule, plan for queuing passengers and a $100 fee.

Migration A turning tide? Jun 26th 2008 | NOGALES From The Economist print edition Many of the past decade’s migrants to Europe and America are beginning to go home again

...For years a flow of migrants has waxed when the American economy is in rude health, waning only slightly during recessions; it flows north in the spring when agricultural and construction jobs need filling and goes south for Christmas. Where illicit traffic has been heaviest, the migrants’ many footfalls have worn narrow, winding paths into the rocks. But now a big change is visible: the flow of migrants from Latin America to the United States appears to be slumping.

For the third successive year, America’s Border Patrol reports a sharp drop in arrests on and near the frontier. In 2006 the figure dropped 8% to around 1m. Last year it dropped by a full fifth. The six months to March showed a year-on-year drop of 17%. In short (and by the imperfect measure of border arrests) the migrant flow today is roughly half the torrent seen in 2000, when 1.64m arrests were made.

Such figures miss those who cross successfully and recount those detained several times, but they show a clear trend. So does evidence from remittances. Mexico’s central bank reports that, after years of eye-popping growth, the amount of cash sent home by migrants inside America is falling. Last year such flows were worth $24 billion—more valuable than tourism. But in the first quarter of this year the year-on-year figure was down 2.9%, according to a new report by Goldman Sachs.

...

Two factors, each as ugly as the other, probably explain the double downturn in flows of people and money: hostility to migrants, especially illegal ones, and America’s deepening economic gloom. The impact of the former is plain: state-level laws that make it illegal to employ migrants without documents, ever more aggressive raids on businesses that hire such workers, and better technology to share information that will lead to catching them.

...

Hostility and fences would matter less if the economic draw remained strong. Instead America’s economy appears to be in the dumps, even if it avoids a recession. Jobs figures in May showed unemployment had risen to 5.5%. The slump in housing and construction—where many migrants, especially newer arrivals, work—has been especially painful. The Pew Hispanic Centre published a study in June showing a 7.5% jobless rate among immigrants, rising to 8.4% among Mexicans and to 9.3% for those who came to the country after 2000. Over 220,000 migrants lost construction jobs last year. And those in work are earning less: wages of Latino construction workers tumbled in 2007.

Professor Jan Gehl

Tuesday 11 September 2007

Jan Gehl

For over 40 years internationally renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl's career has focused on improving the quality of urban life, especially for pedestrians.

Jan discusses how his research on public spaces and public life has been applied successfully in cities across Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia. He will also share his observations on the ways we can make Sydney a truly great pedestrian city.

U.S. copyright renewal records available for download

Monday, June 23, 2008 at 9:45 AM

Posted by Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager, Google Book Search

If I handed you a book and asked whether it was in copyright or in the public domain, you'd probably turn to the copyright page first. Unfortunately, a copyright page can't answer that question definitively -- at best, it could tell you when the book in your hands was published, and who owned the rights to it at that time. Ownership can change, though: rights revert back to authors, and after enough time has passed, the book enters into the public domain, letting people copy and adapt it as they wish.

So how much time is "enough"? It varies, often depending on the country, on when the book was published, and whether the author is living. For U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963, the rights holder needed to submit a form to the U.S. Copyright Office renewing the copyright 28 years after publication. In most cases, books that were never renewed are now in the public domain. Estimates of how many books were renewed vary, but everyone agrees that most books weren't renewed. If true, that means that the majority of U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963 are freely usable.

How do you find out whether a book was renewed? You have to check the U.S. Copyright Office records. Records from 1978 onward are online (see http://www.copyright.gov/records) but not downloadable in bulk. The Copyright Office hasn't digitized their earlier records, but Carnegie Mellon scanned them as part of their Universal Library Project, and the tireless folks at Project Gutenberg and the Distributed Proofreaders painstakingly typed in every word.

Thanks to the efforts of Google software engineer Jarkko Hietaniemi, we've gathered the records from both sources, massaged them a bit for easier parsing, and combined them into a single XML file available for download here.

There are undoubtedly errors in these records, but we believe this is the best and most comprehensive set of renewal records available today. These records are free and in the public domain, and we hope you're able to use them to determine the copyright status of books that interest you.

At Google, we're committed to making as many books available online to users as possible while respecting copyright, and this is one example of that commitment. Watch this space for more to come.

Public Transport Needs of Minority, Ethnic and Faith Communities Guidance Pack

and

A review of existing research of relevance to Transport Direct

CHINATOWN (WABC) -- A private bus crashed into a building in Chinatown -- killing one person and injuring three others.

A dump truck appeared to rear-end the Fung Wah Bus, sending it careening into a building at the intersection of Bowery and Canal Street.

Eyewitness News is told as many as three people were on the bus. One person, apparently a female pedestrian, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The victims were taken to NYU Downtown Hospital, Bellevue Medical Center and St. Vincent's Hospital. One person in the dump truck, registered to a New Jersey company, was also injured.

Police say the building the bus crashed into was damaged, but it did not appear to be structurally unsound. The crash occurred at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, a treacherous multi-directional intersection.

Fung Wah, a low-cost carrier that takes passengers between Boston and New York City, has experienced problems in the past with drivers and accidents.

• In September 2006, 34 people were injured when a Fung Wah rolled over in Auburn on an off-ramp from Interstate 290 to Route 12.

 

• In August 2005, a Fung Wah bus traveling from Boston to New York caught fire on Interstate 91 in Meriden, Conn. The passengers all got out safely, but within minutes the bus was entirely engulfed in flames. State police said the driver was driving too fast.

After that crash, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration fined Fug Wah more than $31,000, in part, for letting non-English speaking drivers carry its passengers.

Truck Hits Bus; Bus Crashes Into Bank

NEW YORK (WCBS 880)  -- One person is dead and four people are injured after an out-of-control dump truck coming off the Manhattan Bridge slammed into a waiting bus that was loading people for a trip to Boston.

The dead was a 57-year-old pedestrian.

Photo Gallery - Chinatown Bus Crash

That Fung Wah bus that is now jammed into the side of the United Commercial Bank at Canal and The Bowery
 
An entire traffic light has been brought down by this accident. Police are still on the scene investigating.

The impact of the collision caused the bus to go into the plate glass window of the bank, so that's smashed, and so is the bus's front window.

September 10, 2003
COLUMN ONE
Busman Stops at Nothing
* After 9/11, Kazuhiro Nakagawa's business was reduced from $10,000 luxury tours to $40 trips up and down the coast, but he doesn't give up.

By Ronald D. White, Times Staff Writer

It was almost departure time, but Kazuhiro Nakagawa's 55-seat tour bus still had that "Not in Service" look as it sat outside the Wilshire Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Slowly, a handful of passengers assembled: two teenagers from Altadena, a frugal twentysomething couple just back from Israel and a 19-year-old German woman touring the country.

A few years ago, Japanese tourists paid Nakagawa $10,000 each for whirlwind tours of the Western United States on his luxury bus. With that market ruined by the sour Japanese economy and the lingering effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Nakagawa sought a new niche running a nonstop luxury bus service from Los Angeles to San Francisco, $40 one way.
...

Community Transport in Sydney: A Response to Inequity and Disadvantage in Public Transport

Published in: Urban Policy and Research, Volume 5, Issue 4 December 1987 , pages 147 - 155

Authors: NGUYEN T-H.; KING B.; TURNER L.

Source: Tourism Culture & Communication, Volume 4, Number 2, 2003 , pp. 95-107(13)

Publisher: Cognizant Communication Corporation

Abstract: This article examines the influence of cultural factors on the travel behavior of Vietnamese migrants (Viet kieu) resident in Australia, with particular reference to return visits to Vietnam. A conceptual framework of cultural influence on migrant travel behavior is proposed to explain the relationships between migrant adapted culture and travel behavior. The findings suggest that the Viet kieu maintain certain traditional Vietnamese cultural values and Confucian ideals, while actively adopting behavioral characteristics from mainstream culture during their gradual integration into the adopted society. Significant differences in cultural and travel behavioral characteristics are evident between the Viet kieu, their relatives in Vietnam, and mainstream Australians. Such differences appear to have some connection with the individualism of the West and the collectivism of the East. Issues of identity, rootlessness, belonging, and the relationship between past and present are associated with the decision to travel and subsequent experience of travel to the homeland. The article concludes by discussing implications for future studies.

Cite as:Rowley G, Wilson S, 1975, "The analysis of housing and travel preferences: a gaming approach" Environment and Planning A 7(2) 171 - 177

The analysis of housing and travel preferences: a gaming approach

G Rowley, Susan Wilson

Received 20 November 1974

Abstract. This paper represents a report on the study of housing and travel preferences both of coloured immigrants and of native British within the city of Sheffield, England. The investigation uses gaming procedures to facilitate the recording of raw data which reflects the preference patterns of the respondents. Certain hypotheses are proposed and the statistical analysis of the gaming procedures is developed. Simple chi2 goodness-of-fit tests are used to assess the allocation of preferences over the various elements for the two populations considered. The general approach can be quite readily extended to more complex situations. With hindsight, improvements to the initial game format are suggested.

Fear and strange arithmetics: when powerful states confront powerless immigrants

Migration policy: from control to governance

A universal harm: making criminals of migrants

The "Highway to Nowhere"

This week, Mayor Bloomberg announced a revitalization program for the Bronx. Deemed the "South Bronx Initiative," the plan does not include the area around the Sheridan Expressway. Miquela Craytor, deputy director of Sustainble South Bronx, talks about the disconnect between city planning and community activism.

Census Atlas of the United States

* Census 2000 Reports

We are pleased to present the complete content, in PDF format, of the recently published Census Atlas of the United States, the first comprehensive atlas of population and housing produced by the Census Bureau since the 1920s. The Census Atlas is a large-format publication about 300 pages long and containing almost 800 maps. Data from decennial censuses prior to 2000 support nearly 150 maps and figures, providing context and an historical perspective for many of the topics presented. A variety of topics are covered in the Census Atlas, ranging from language and ancestry characteristics to housing patterns and the geographic distribution of the population. A majority of the maps in the Census Atlas present data at the county level, but data also are sometimes mapped by state, census tract (for largest cities and metropolitan areas), and for selected American Indian reservations. The book is modern, colorful, and includes a variety of map styles and data symbolization techniques.

Seeing The Numbers: NYC

We continue our series with Marc Perry, Chief of the Population Distribution Branch at the U.S. Census, on the new Census Atlas of the United States. This week, we look at some of the NYC-specific maps:

Also, Andrew Beveridge, Professor of Sociology for Social Explorer and chair of the Sociology department at Queens College, helps us flesh out what those maps tell us about New York.

Seeing The Numbers: Origins and Diversity

Each Thursday in June, we are taking a look inside the new Census Atlas of the United States, the first of its kind in almost 100 years. Marc Perry, Chief of the Population Distribution Branch at the Census, helps guide us through some of the maps and trends. Today we look at the changing face of America and an interesting definition of "ancestry."

Seeing The Numbers Each Thursday in June, we take a look inside the new Census Atlas of the United States, the first of its kind in almost 100 years. Marc Perry, Chief of the Population Distribution Branch at the Census, helps guide us through some of the maps and trends.

Judge Approves Deal to Settle Suit Over Wage Violations

Megabus.com Introduces Double-Decker Buses for Northeast City-to-City Travel New York and Washington first cities to receive 79-passenger closed top-buses

New Jersey

Turbans Make Targets, Some Sikhs Find

The Price of Delivery (The Brian Lehrer Show: Friday, 06 June 2008

Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker , co-directors of Take Out , talk about their film which chronicles a day in the life of an illegal immigrant struggling to pay off his smuggling debt.

Seeing The Numbers

Each Thursday in June, we take a look inside the new Census Atlas of the United States, the first of its kind in almost 100 years. Marc Perry, Chief of the Population Distribution Branch at the Census, helps guide us through some of the maps and trends.

Politics & Society

Bicycle Activists Take to the Freeways in L.A.

The Bryant Park Project, June 12, 2008 · People tend to think of Los Angeles as the natural habitat of the automobile, a land where giant on ramps and multilane freeways determine the course of life.

But for three cyclists in Santa Monica, Los Angeles is a bikers' world. Morgan Strauss grew up riding bikes around L.A. Alex Cantarero grew up riding local buses, even celebrating childhood birthdays aboard, before making the move to pedal power. Rich Totheie moved from New York City a few years back, having never much used a bike for transportation.

In November, the three bicycle activists began dreaming up ways to make their point — that two-wheelers deserve a place in the transportation network. They say they'd grown tired of playing cat-and-mouse with Santa Monica police at monthly Critical Mass rides. Instead, their group, the Crimanimalz, began protests like bottling intersections with endless, lawful rounds of Crosswalk Craps.

Immigrants Turn to Farm Work Amid Building Bust

Growers Regain A Source of Labor; Wage Gap Narrows

By MIRIAM JORDAN

June 13, 2008; Page A4

The building bust is turning out to be an unexpected boon for another industry, agriculture, as many Hispanic immigrants who lost construction jobs return to the fields in search of work.

In recent years, the ranks of farm workers had been thinned by a crackdown on illegal immigration coupled with the lure of better-paying construction jobs. That left farmers scrambling to find workers to harvest labor-intensive crops. Now, growers and labor contractors from Florida to California are reporting that former carpenters, dry wallers and painters are returning.

"We had seen the labor supply dwindling year after year," said Richard Quandt, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. This year, "we are surprised to have a lot of workers." The area grows strawberries, greens, broccoli, grapes and other vegetables and fruits.

June 13, 2008

The Working Poor in Mexico No Rest for the Working Poor

By Laura Carlsen

Globalization continues to break down its own myths, especially in developing countries.

In Mexico, the promise of more jobs withered shortly after NAFTA went into effect, when it became clear that displacement outpaced job generation. Now, its twin promise—that globalization would create better jobs and improve standards of living—has finally committed public suicide as well.

Ford and General Motors change their operations in Mexico. Ford announced a major investment in Mexico of over $2 billion this week. Alongside the self-congratulatory remarks of industry representatives and government officials, was an interesting tidbit of information. According to an AP report, at the Ford plant to be expanded in Cuautitlan—on the outskirts of Mexico City where the cost of living has been going up sharply—workers' wages would be cut in half from their current level of $4.50 an hour. Mexican union leaders stated that this was necessary to compete with China.

The same week, General Motors announced a $1.3 billion investment in its Coahuila, Mexico plant and the creation some 875 jobs (note the low job-to-investment ratio). It also announced the eventual closure of plants in Janesville, Wisconsin and Morraine, Ohio. The Mexican press noted that the company first hinted at the closure of its plant in Toluca, which elicited an immediate promise from the union leadership to accept wage reductions. It soon after announced it will remain open but cut back on operations and lay off some of the workers. Although the new contract terms were unavailable at the time of this writing, the trend is written on the wall.

June 12, 2008 Koreans use Laser Tag for FTA protests.

smart use of GRL's laser tag for protest purposes

Why You Should Be In New York July 1st

ctivists estimate that half the billboards in New York City are illegal. Between fudged permits, lack of enforcement, and millions in profit, outdoor advertising has become a corporate black market that wont flinch at breaking laws to get your attention. On July 1st, the Anti-Advertising Agency and Rami Tabello of IllegalSigns.ca will give a free workshop teaching you how to identify illegal advertising and get it taken down. You will leave this workshop equipped to have illegal signs removed in your neighborhood.

Working Paper

Immigrants and Suburbs: Growth and Distribution in Greater Philadelphia, 1970-2000: A Tract-Level Analysis

The late twentieth century witnessed a dramatic shift in the historic pattern of immigrant settlement within the United States. Since the nineteenth century, most European immigrants - with the important exception of farmers - had settled first in a small number of gateway cities where many rearticleed while a sizeable number fanned out to smaller cities along the coasts or to cities and large towns in the interior. After World War II, with the opening of suburbs huge numbers of these first generation European immigrants and their children, fresh with new prosperity, moved out of central cities. Following the 1965 lifting of nationality-based quotas, immigrants entered the United States in numbers that matched the great immigrant wave of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries... READ COMPLETE PAPER

In Toronto, cyclists form a first-of-its-kind union

Believed to be the first of its kind, the Toronto Cyclists Union plans to offer insurance, roadside assistance, advocacy, and even an online dating service.
By Susan Bourette | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor / June 6, 2008 edition

From Undocumented Camionetas (Mini-Vans) To Federally Regulated Motor Carriers: Hispanic Transportation In Dallas, Texas, and Beyond

Robert V. Kemper
Julie Adkins
Marco Flores
and
José Leonardo Santos

URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY  VOL. 36(4), 2007

ABSTRACT: Only recently have anthropologists and other social
scientists begun to study the emerging Hispanic-oriented trans-
portation industry in the United States. During the past 20 years,
camionetas (15-passenger mini-vans) have largely been replaced
by luxurious buses, and family o,
rms have been forced to compete
in an increasingly transnational marketplace with large American
and Mexican corporations. In this article, we examine the Hispanic
transportation system in the Dallas, Texas region, which serves as
a major hub for travelers to and from central Mexico and destina-
tions throughout the United States. More than 50 o,
rms compete
for customers in this rapidly changing marketplace. To date, these
o,
rms have gone through a process of "incorporation" driven by
local, state, and federal regulators. As the industry continues to be
more regulated and more competitive, we predict that the number
of o,
rms will decline as "consolidation" is forced on the entrepre-
neurs whose innovations were responsible for the creating
Hispanic transportation system in Dallas and beyond.

April 15, 2007
Chinatown
Casino-Bound, Complaints in Their Wake

By CASSI FELDMAN

Around 8:30 p.m., a fat gray bus bound for Atlantic City pulls up on Division Street in Chinatown. Its doors wheeze open, and a line of riders shuffle into formation, clutching pink tickets and plastic shopping bags, and sucking a few final drags from their cigarettes before flicking them away.

The ritual takes no more than 15 minutes, but it happens dozens of times a day as buses headed to Trump Plaza, Foxwoods or other casinos load and unload passengers in the V formed by the Bowery and Division Street.

Now, citing pollution and noise, neighbors say they want the buses to find a new home.

"You can feel a toxic film in our yard," said Justin Yu, vice president of the co-op board at Confucius Plaza, a 44-story complex that overlooks the site. "It's very unhealthy."

While numerous bus companies operate out of Chinatown, Mr. Yu and his neighbors are particularly concerned about casino buses because their informal hub is a block shared by hundreds of senior citizens, an elementary school, a kindergarten and a day care center.

tour titled South Asian on City of Memory

City of Memory

City of Memory is brought to you by City Lore; a not-for-profit organization, founded in 1986 which produces programs and publications that convey the richness of New York City\'s cultural heritage. To find out more information about City Lore and our projects go to citylore.org

Man With a Plan

Q: As a former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who won wide praise for making the city a model of enlightened planning, you have lately been hired by officials intent on building world-class cities, especially in Asia and the developing world. What is the first thing you tell them? In developing-world cities, the majority of people don’t have cars, so I will say, when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality.

I wouldn’t think that sidewalks are a top priority in developing countries. The last priority. Because the priority is to make highways and roads. We are designing cities for cars, cars, cars, cars, cars. Not for people. Cars are a very recent invention. The 20th century was a horrible detour in the evolution of the human habitat. We were building much more for cars’ mobility than children’s happiness.

Even in countries where most people can’t afford to own cars? The upper-income people in developing countries never walk. They see the city as a threatening space, and they can go for months without walking one block.

Dreams and Desperation on Forsyth Street

Massey, Douglas. 1985. "Ethnic Residential Segregation: A Theoretical Synthesis and Empirical Review." Sociology and Social Research 69:315-50.

Abstract:

"This review examines research on ethnic residential segregation in the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, Europe, and Israel. It evaluates a theory based on principles of classic human ecology, social area analysis, and factorial ecology. The theory contains six core hypotheses conditioned on four structural characteristics, and was developed to take account of recent research findings. Empirical results from the six countries support the theory. The similarity of segregation patterns suggests the operation of common processes of ethnic concentration and dispersal, which are well-summarized by the ecological model." (EXCERPT)

June 1, 2008
In the Region | New Jersey
A Rail Line Generates New Life
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN

HERE is what light rail has delivered to five formerly down-at-heels neighborhoods along the 20.6-mile system in northern New Jersey: more than 10,000 units of new housing, with a total property value surpassing $5 billion.

The opening and continued expansion of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system from 2000 to 2006 have greatly affected all 23 stops on the north-south line running through seven municipalities.

According to a new study from the Voorhees Transportation Center of Rutgers University, some station sites have already been reshaped by development; others are poised for the same treatment.

The detailed study focused especially on five of the station areas - those that researchers considered to have the most potential for development. They are Port Imperial in Weehawken; Ninth Street in Hoboken; the area between the Essex Street and Jersey Avenue stations in Jersey City; the Bergenline Avenue neighborhood of Union City and West New York; and the 34th Street area in Bayonne.

June 5, 2008
Film Spotlights City Life Often Overlooked
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

The directors of "Take Out," a feature film about a Chinese deliveryman who must pay off his debt to immigrant-smugglers, do not claim that their movie is based on a true story. But it has more than a passing resemblance to a documentary, so much so that after a screening, one of the audience members asked where the man was now, and whether he was doing all right.

June 05, 2008

The War on Photography

What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are? Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don't seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it's a movie-plot threat.

A movie-plot threat is a specific threat, vivid in our minds like the plot of a movie. You remember them from the months after the 9/11 attacks: anthrax spread from crop dusters, a contaminated milk supply, terrorist scuba divers armed with almanacs. Our imaginations run wild with detailed and specific threats, from the news, and from actual movies and television shows. These movie plots resonate in our minds and in the minds of others we talk to. And many of us get scared.

...

iSepta was created to make navigating the SEPTA schedules simple on your phone. It was designed by Jason Tremblay and developed by Chris Conley and Randy Schmidt of ümlatte.

MODERN LIFE Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area

BRIMMING with lime-hued succulents and a lush collection of agaves, one shooting spiky leaves 10 feet into the air, it's a head-turning garden smack in the middle of Long Beach's asphalt jungle. But the gardener who designed it doesn't want you to know his last name, since his handiwork isn't exactly legit. It's on a traffic island he commandeered.

"The city wasn't doing anything with it, and I had a bunch of extra plants," says Scott, as we tour the garden, cars whooshing by on both sides of Loynes Drive.

Scott is a guerrilla gardener, a member of a burgeoning movement of green enthusiasts who plant without approval on land that's not theirs. In London, Berlin, Miami, San Francisco and Southern California, these free-range tillers are sowing a new kind of flower power. In nighttime planting parties or solo "seed bombing" runs, they aim to turn neglected public space and vacant lots into floral or food outposts.

May 29, 2008
Portland Journal
Racial Shift in a Progressive City Spurs Talks
By WILLIAM YARDLEY

PORTLAND, Ore. - Not every neighborhood in this city is one of those Northwest destinations where passion for espresso, the environment and plenty of exercise define the cultural common ground. A few places are still described as frontiers, where pioneers move because prices are relatively reasonable, the location is convenient and, they say, they "want the diversity."

Yet one person's frontier, it turns out, is often another's front porch. It has been true across the country: gentrification, which increases housing prices and tension, sometimes has racial overtones and can seem like a dirty word. Now Portland is encouraging black and white residents to talk about it, but even here in Sincere City, the conversation has been difficult.

"I've been really upset by what I perceive to be Portland's blind spot in its progressivism," said Khaela Maricich, a local artist and musician. "They think they live in the best city in the country, but it's all about saving the environment and things like that. It's not really about social issues. It's upper-middle-class progressivism, really."

Ms. Maricich, 33, who is white, spoke after attending this month's meeting of Portland's Restorative Listening Project.

The goal of the project, which is sponsored by the city's Office of Neighborhood Involvement, is to have white people better understand the effect gentrification can have on the city's longtime black and other-minority neighborhoods by having minority residents tell what it is like to be on the receiving end.

For 10 years, South Bronx residents have been fighting to get the state to tear down an old expressway so that a greener and more sustainable mixed-use neighborhood can take its place. The community's vision fits nicely with the goals of the city's long-term sustainability plan, PlaNYC2030. But will the city embrace this precocious community-based effort?

By Robin Shulman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, May 25, 2008;

Page A02

NEW YORK -- The view from the lens of photographer Mark Weiss's camera is of a treacherous world of cab drivers weaving into bike lanes, of double-parked delivery vehicles, of car doors opening suddenly, of pedestrians wandering blindly and of narrow passageways between trucks. It is the world of the Manhattan bicycle commuter, which Weiss captures on a camera affixed to a bar on his single-gear bike.

City officials, hoping to make commutes like his less treacherous, have created a seven-block experiment of a bike lane on Ninth Avenue. Here, concrete dividers and a row of parked cars shield a bike lane from the street and its traffic. Low mini-traffic lights show when cyclists have the right of way. Bike commuters, messengers and delivery people peel down perfectly smooth paths.

"It would be nice if that were everywhere," said Weiss, 45.

The city is planning to create another protected lane on Eighth Avenue, part of an effort to encourage cycling in New York, where bike use has increased by 75 percent since 2000, to about 130,000 commuters a day. The city hopes to double current bicycle use by 2015 and to triple it by 2020.

"We've run out of room for driving in the city. We have to make it easier for people to get around by bikes," said Janette Sadik-Khan, the city's transportation commissioner, who herself bikes to work. She is installing covered bike racks that resemble bus shelters, distributing thousands of free helmets, and expanding a small network of bike lanes to 400 miles by next summer (out of 6,000 miles of city streets).

video of Indian Guest Workers from New Orleans who marched to DC

Bargain bus service Megabus, which touted fares as low as $1, said Friday that it would pull out of Los Angeles because of low ridership.

The decision to shut down the hub, which was expected, came less than a year after Megabus began service from Los Angeles to cities including San Francisco and Las Vegas.

"Our approach has been to go into different markets and give it a shot and see how they'll develop," said Megabus President Dale Moser. "If they develop quickly, we'll certainly sustain it. But in this case, the ridership trends aren't growing enough."

Megabus, a subsidiary of Coach USA, will end its service from Los Angeles to San Francisco and Oakland after June 22, and from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, San Jose and Millbrae, Calif., a few weeks earlier, Moser said.

Earlier this year, Megabus halted its service from Los Angeles to San Diego and Phoenix.

Despite spending "thousands of dollars" in advertising, Moser said, the 56-seat buses would sometimes pull out of Los Angeles with as few as 12 riders.

Meanwhile, the service is taking off in the Midwest, where Megabus serves 17 cities and has seen its business increase 137% during the last year, he said.

"We're disappointed too," Moser said. "It doesn't mean at a later date we won't revisit bringing the service back."

Fung Wah and easyBus

9 August 2004

Comparison of services

East Side A New Study Faults Plazas as Public in Name, Private in Look

MICHAEL KEANE is not sure if any New Yorker, however brash and ill-mannered, feels comfortable walking into a restaurant, past the host’s podium and into the outdoor seating area, sitting down at a table set with silverware and unwrapping a brown bag lunch.

The question, for Mr. Keane, an urban planner, has less to do with dining etiquette and more with the fact that the outdoor seating area of the restaurant in question, Caliente Cab Company, at East 33rd Street and Third Avenue in Murray Hill, is a designated public space.

There are more than 500 privately owned public spaces in the city, mainly concentrated in Midtown and downtown Manhattan, where, since 1961, developers have been allowed to build taller buildings if they, in turn, agreed to have such spaces open to all.

But in a recent eight-month study of 77 privately owned public spaces on the East Side, Mr. Keane concluded that 30 of them, including the one at Caliente Cab Company, had obstacles to public access that included padlocked gates, piles of garbage and spikes on supposed seats. Mr. Keane called the Caliente Cab situation an example of “commandeering,” with the cafe’s customers monopolizing that particular outdoor space.

“There are plenty to choose from,” Mr. Keane said of the neighborhood’s public plazas. “Whether or not you can use them when you get there is another story.”

MICHAEL KEANE is not sure if any New Yorker, however brash and ill-mannered, feels comfortable walking into a restaurant, past the host’s podium and into the outdoor seating area, sitting down at a table set with silverware and unwrapping a brown bag lunch.

The question, for Mr. Keane, an urban planner, has less to do with dining etiquette and more with the fact that the outdoor seating area of the restaurant in question, Caliente Cab Company, at East 33rd Street and Third Avenue in Murray Hill, is a designated public space.

There are more than 500 privately owned public spaces in the city, mainly concentrated in Midtown and downtown Manhattan, where, since 1961, developers have been allowed to build taller buildings if they, in turn, agreed to have such spaces open to all.

But in a recent eight-month study of 77 privately owned public spaces on the East Side, Mr. Keane concluded that 30 of them, including the one at Caliente Cab Company, had obstacles to public access that included padlocked gates, piles of garbage and spikes on supposed seats. Mr. Keane called the Caliente Cab situation an example of “commandeering,” with the cafe’s customers monopolizing that particular outdoor space.

“There are plenty to choose from,” Mr. Keane said of the neighborhood’s public plazas. “Whether or