Perhaps millions of us are flocking to online communities since the real ones are so lacking.

My Grandfather used to fix and maintain his cars by himself. “Why pay someone to do something I can do?” he used to say, beaming with pride. Oil changes, tune ups, transmission work…he did it all. Today, I fix and maintain my computers. We were both responding to the prevailing technology of our time, but both unaware of how fully it will transform society. My Grandfather, who passed away in the 1960’s, probably never considered how the automobile eventually shaped US cities, culture and economic policy. Can we ever fully understand the impact the current technology will have until it is too late?

(Incidentally, my Grandfather, whose name was Frank, was how I was first told about Frank Lloyd Wright.)

IMAGE: Courtesy of 60 Minutes

This week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed on 60 Minutes, discussing the future of his company, which has 500 million of us online an average of 7 hours a month. Zuckerberg presented his new paradigms for social interactivity and how Facebook was helping to facilitate that. The interview also included a tour of the Facebook offices in Palo Alto.

IMAGE: Courtesy of 60 Minutes

But the irony was not lost on the reporters after touring the Facebook offices. The company that has redefined social interaction has none in its own office. Long rows of anonymous desks and computers are manned by people not speaking. The room is nearly silent save the clickety-clack of the fingers on all of those keyboards.

IMAGE: Courtesy of 60 Minutes

It looks as if it were designed by the computer engineers themselves (which it probably was). Any discussions with others are done through instant messaging, even if the other person is seated right next to them. The line between person and machine gets blurred.

IMAGE: Courtesy of 60 Minutes

This is a missed design opportunity. As designers, we should be designing spaces for social interaction that complements the types of interactions we find so appealing online. In short, we should be designing reality to be more appealing that virtual reality. Online community is our competition, and we should be rising up to meet the challenge of designing livable, joyful and connected environments.

Perhaps millions of us are flocking to online communities since the real ones are so lacking.

In the 1980s, as computer use began to surge, many raised concerns to the pending isolation in the modern world. Instead, computers connected us together in ways most never imagined while our built communities languished and remained relatively the same for decades.

There is even a new film about this surge in online community. Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology is a new film by filmmaker Tiffany Shlain that explores these ideas.

You can watch the trailer for Connected here:

We cannot fully realize the long-term effects of such digital interconnectedness. Today’s kids will be working in careers that do no yet exist. The top 10 in-demand careers of 2010 did not even exist back in 2004. Which means we are preparing today’s students for careers that do not yet exist and they will probably use technologies that have not yet been invented, in order to solve things we don’t even know are problems yet.

Pathways to Success (PTS) is a career mentoring program in a Southern California desert area called the Coachella Valley. (The Valley is home to the famous Palm Springs.) PTS brings experts into classrooms to connect the kids with the people in whose footsteps they may want to follow. Part mentoring program, part scholarship, PTS has helped thousands of high school students prepare and attend college.

So last week, I was asked to visit a high school in Palm Desert, California for its annual Career Day. On a Saturday morning I spoke with about a hundred students about Sustainability and Design and the potential that awaits them in those areas.

When I polled the room with, “Who is planning on going to college?” everyone in the room raised their hand. I continued, “Who knows what they want to do?” I was shocked to see only five hands remaining. College is now the place you go expecting to find yourself and your dream job (I hope they are not too disappointed).

Many of the students were asking sweetly hopeful questions, such as, “What is the real story with Global Warming? My science teacher says one thing, but my dad said it is a hoax.” (This, by the way, is a typical comment I get from students.) Sadly, none of the news I had for them was good as I explained the bitter reality of pumping 5.8 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, the 1.1 billion people without access to clean drinking water and how we stalled and dragged our feet for decades over doing something about it.

It was just announced that once again we broke the record and this past 10 years was the warmest decade on record.

Their tiny faces fell as I explained how the construction and operation of buildings was the biggest culprit for this damage. I also encouraged them to view the data for themselves. These students need to get to work on redesigning everything. We need to change our built environments, and we need to do it quickly. If not, perhaps the online communities will be all we have left.

You can watch the 60 Minutes interview here:

When I first began speaking publicly ten years ago, I eschewed anything to do with politics. The sustainability movement should be nonpartisan, nonpolitical in order to appeal to everyone, I thought. My talks and articles were designed to appeal to everyone, but in developing solutions for helping municipalities develop green buildings, I kept confronting the limitations of government and the game of politics that acts as a block to real progress.

This frustrated me to no end, and I found political opinion creeping back into my slides and writings. Some in the audience felt alienated, some even walked out, but most thoughtfully listened…and I got through.

This November, California voters will vote on a measure called Proposition 23. Prop 23 officially calls for a “suspension” of California’s landmark global warming law (called AB32) “until unemployment drops to 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters.” The proposal positions itself as a “jobs initiative” and tries to pass itself off as merely a temporary measure until the economy gets back on track.

Passed in 2006, Assembly Bill 32 (AB32) is referred to as the California Global Warming Solutions Act. It was the first legislation in the world to comprehensively regulate and reduce greenhouse gases. Under AB32, emissions from vehicles (oil) and energy generation (coal) are required to be cut about 15 percent by 2020 and an additional 20 percent by 2050. AB32 would push California to the forefront of the clean energy revolution, produce green jobs and stave off the threat of global warming.

Although this would only immediately affect California, it would, in reality, have an impact on the entire country. The eyes of the nation are watching California and our wonderfully progressive policies. When they succeed, other states will follow suit.

But here is why Prop 23’s call to suspend AB32 is so particularly sinister: It was placed on the ballot by Assembly Member Dan Logue, who calls it a “jobs initiative” to hide the real backers behind the bill. The bill is supported by two Texas oil companies, Valero and Tesoro and a coal company, Koch Industries. Valero alone has pumped over $4 million and counting into Prop 23. Valero and Tesoro are among the nation’s biggest polluters, and their California refineries are among the top 10 polluters in the state.

The proposed suspension may take a while. The state’s current unemployment is around 12.3 percent and hasn’t dropped to 5.5 percent for an entire year since 1976 (34 years ago). The cleverly crafted language was designed to ensure AB32 never sees the light of day.

You may be asking, “If AB32 was passed back in 2006, why the rush to stop it now?” Simple: The requirements set forth in AB32 are set to take effect this January. The November election gives the polluters just enough time to try and stop it.

This battle will play out as you’d expect: Conservatives will claim this will destroy jobs, raise taxes and increase your energy costs (using fear); while environmentalists will unsuccessfully provide the facts, only to be ignored by the middle class voters susceptible to the fear play.

Some in California worry that by regulating carbon emissions we’ll be putting our economy on the back burner. But nothing in our recent history has indicated that California must choose between economic stability and environmental responsibility.

Innovative energy policies established in the 1970s have saved California consumers $56 billion and created 1.5 million full-time jobs with a payroll of $45 billion. From 1995 to 2008, clean, safe energy-generation jobs grew by 85 percent with the highest concentration in solar and wind. In 2008, energy efficiency jobs grew by 91 percent, according to Next 10, a nonpartisan think tank.

If new, better-paying jobs, healthier air, driving money into the local economy and saving money are attractive, then AB32 is a breath of fresh clean air and worth keeping.

LINKS:

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/19/antienvironment-californi_n_687719.html

Stopping Prop 23:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/22/five-things-you-can-do-to-fight-global-warming-and-advance-clean-energy-proposition-23-ab32/

Campaign to stop Proposition 23:
http://www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com/

California Bright Spot:
http://www.CABrightSpot.com

California Air Resources Board AB 32 Information:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/cc.htm

My editorial in Desert Sun:
http://www.mydesert.com/article/20100730/COLUMNS26/7290387/AB-32-a-breath-of-fresh-air-that-saves-money-and-adds-jobs

Where is the future?
Originally posted here

I turned 40 last week. As friends were asking, “How does it feel?” I was reminded of a drawing I did when I was 10 years old. The year was 1980 and I was living in a dense urban block of Philadelphia. I had already been obsessed with Architecture since I was eight, but now at 10, I had asked my parents for some real drawing tools, and they obliged with a set of pens, pencils and paper. I spent hours dreaming up a future of curvy, organic buildings that defied gravity. Ink smudges covered my fingers from sketching visions of the future.

My mother was 40 when I was 10, and I clearly remember thinking how I would turn 40 in the oh-so-distant year 2010. What kind of buildings would we be building in 2010? Surely the world would be unrecognizable. The boxy, lifeless and grey blocks of my neighborhood would be replaced with things I couldn’t even imagine.

Little did I know that we would still be building with skinny sticks of wood, held together by nails and with punched openings for windows. My younger self never would believe how I now spend my time having to convince clients not to put toxic materials in their home or fighting to get a building inspector to approve the use of recycled water.

Would my 10-year-old self be disappointed in how ordinary and un-revolutionary the majority of todays’ buildings really are? Where is the future we expected?

In the 1985 hit film, Back to the Future, the character Marty McFly travels back in time 30 years to find striking differences in fashion, automobiles and music. The buildings, however, were relatively unchanged. If Marty were to go back in time today, he would return to 1980. He would be confused by our skinny ties, long cars and the sounds of Devo, but the buildings would go by unnoticed.

In the sequel, Marty travels ahead 30 years to 2015 to a world full of imagination. The future they present is exciting and very different from the present. But as intriguing as some of their predictions are, they clearly overestimated certain developments.

Is it safe to expect the next five years will bring us hoverboards, self-drying jackets or Mr. Fusion? Not likely. But you aren’t expecting those things. However, the buildings they showed (which don’t seem so far-fetched) are out of reach to us. What slows the innovation in our built environment?

In order to move forward, we must embrace our own long-term economic success. We need to rebuild our aging infrastructure, update those outdated systems and stop clinging to a romantic vision of old Architecture that embodies wasted resources, energy inefficiency and poor quality environments. Let’s rebuild our buildings and save ourselves in the process.

And this is the reason I am so excited about the upcoming West Coast Green Conference. Of the 40 or so conferences I attend each year, it is my favorite if only because of their focus on innovation. (Disclosure: I am on the Advisory Board). Hundreds of the top thinkers in architecture, planning and sustainability join together for three days to share ideas and develop solutions on how to design our future. You can hear more of my thoughts on this here.

Incidentally, the entire Back to the Future Trilogy is available in a special 25th Anniversary Edition on Blu-Ray on October 26th.

—-
MORE INFORMATION:
West Coast Green Conference
September 30 – October 1, 2010
http://www.westcoastgreen.com

——–

—Eric Corey Freed is an architect and author of four books, including Green$ense for the Home.

Originally posted at: KBB Collective

How our dependence on oil has negatively affected our built environment

As the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig nears its three-month anniversary (on July 20th), the public is still waiting to see how the story will end. More importantly, the world is waiting to see how the worst environmental catastrophe in history is going to change America’s self-admitted addiction to oil.

SOURCE: NASA

The date July 20th shares the day with another anniversary. Just 41 years earlier, Man first set foot on the Moon in an impressive display of how technology can propel humanity to reach our highest achievements. The exploded rig, located just 41 miles off the coast, reminds us how technology can demonstrate the limits of humanity.

In light of the facts that have emerged over the last few months, it’s almost surprising an accident of this scale hadn’t occurred sooner. You’ve no doubt heard about the corrupt regulators at the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the horrific and shocking safety track record of BP, and the cost-cutting risks taken in the construction of the well itself.

The disaster at the Deepwater Horizon that left 11 men dead and continues to pour millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is the final act in the story of our adolescence. This could be the ultimate sign that our way of life has to change if we are to survive. If any good can come out of the irreparable damage done to the water, the Gulf Coast economy, or the wildlife itself, we must change our relationship with oil.

SOURCE: Things Are Fine

In January 1969, a similar blowout occurred on a Union Oil platform six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara. For 11 days, oil leaked into the sea, affecting some 800 square miles of ocean and 35 miles of precious coastline. Prompted to action, then President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency, which in turn led to the first Earth Day in 1970. In addition, Nixon issued a moratorium on offshore drilling in California. At the time, Nixon said, “It is sad that it was necessary that Santa Barbara should be the example that had to bring it to the attention of the American people…The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.”

How did we get to a place like this? It could be the control corporations have over our policymakers. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, oil & gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates of both parties since 1990 (though 75% of that goes to Republicans). During this same period, the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy Act of 2005 ushered in an unprecedented era of deregulation and sheer disregard for the environment. Deepwater Horizon is a testament to what happens when corporate malfeasance meets regulatory failure.

The drive for cheaper and larger amounts of oil have led to some questionable decisions. These factors have added up to have an adverse effect on our built environment for the past century.




SOURCE: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Our national energy system is divided into two camps: combustion (oil and gas) or electricity. The chart above shows how oil is used in this country, with the majority going to transportation (52% for cars, trucks and planes). The rest is broken into heating (30% from various sources) and materials (15% for plastics & 3% for asphalt). You’ll notice that virtually no oil is used to produce electricity, but oil is a necessary evil to maintain our current lifestyle.

If nearly a third of our oil is used to heat our buildings, we can easily cut that figure in half by retrofitting them to be more energy-efficient. If you’re interested, there are a number of wonderful sources for information, such as Green$ense for the Home, GreenHomeGuide and EERE. We can’t afford not to do this. But for this discussion, let’s focus on transportation.

For most of my career as an architect, educator and lecturer, I avoided talking about cars. I felt it wasn’t my place to talk about transportation. I feared some heckler in the audience might yell out, “Stick to buildings, Architect!” So I eschewed any true, in-depth discussions about cars, trucks or transportation. But over the last decade of lecturing around the world, I found the topic of cars creeping back in.

The design of our cities and suburbs is dictated by the automobile. From the width of the street, location of driveways, distance between buildings and the drop-off location for the front door, the automobile has irrevocably changed our cities from human scale to vehicle scale. Often the entire structure of the building is based on the spacing of the column locations in the parking garage, spaced to allow enough space to fit three parked cars. People are corralled onto narrow sidewalks to make room for the car. Elevated freeways slice through neighborhoods, disconnecting the pedestrians from the other side.

For most cities, there is no alternative to the car. It is a requirement of daily life. Unless you live in a place like New York or San Francisco, it is nearly impossible to survive without one. Last year, National Geographic‘s “Consumer Greendex” found that Americans had the lowest percentage of people who use public transit on a daily basis and the highest percentage of people who never take it. A third of all of the public transit users in the entire U.S. are in New York City, which explains why more than half of the households don’t need to own a car. But other cities weren’t so lucky.

Public transit was not always seen as the last resort to getting around. Back in the 1920s, nearly every city had a convenient and cheap trolley system. At the time, most of these were privately owned companies that generated their own electricity. Soon the trolly companies became small, local utility providers, until the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 forced them to sell off their less lucrative trolley businesses.

In order to expand their burgeoning car business, General Motors (GM), Firestone Tire, Phillips Petroleum and Standard Oil banded together to form a company to buy up these trolley companies. Their new entity, National City Lines, purchased the streetcar systems in 45 major cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis and Los Angeles. Between 1936 and 1950, they systematically dismantled the trolley lines to increase the demand for the automobile. They removed the tracks to make room for cars and ensure no new systems could return easily. Known as the “Great Streetcar Scandal,” it hobbled our public transit systems. In the 1920s, only one in 10 Americans owned a car. By the end of their efforts in 1955, that figure jumped to eight in 10.

Pro-car lobbyists worked side-by-side with lawmakers to draft legislation to further change our cities. In 1953, GM President Charles Wilson was appointed Secretary of Defense under President Eisenhower and created the Interstate Highway Act of 1956. The cost was sold to the American people for reasons of National Defense. The new roads would be designed to carry our tanks to fend off an invasion by the Russians. The systematic dependency on the car was now complete.

Since the 1950s, practically every planning decision has been centered around access by private cars. The unintended consequences of this network of roads was never really considered. Faster roads enabled people to move from the cities and into the newly created suburbs. Having less city residents put more strain on the remaining public transit systems and city businesses became to close. With more driving came more air pollution, and the vicious cycle of our oil dependency was created.

Throughout all of this, we have been told that driving is less costly that public transportation. Planners argue the cost of creating new roads and parking spaces as “investments in our infrastructure.” But public transit is perceived as being “subsidized.” You’ll hear people say that public transit “loses money” while roads are “free.” But the true cost is anything but free.

The annual cost to maintain our network of 26 million roads is over $131 billion dollars a year. That translates to about $1100 per household and enough to buy everyone a really nice bike to use instead. While the trolley and rail companies had to pay to install and maintain their tracks, the car and oil companies managed to get the taxpayers to cover the costs and maintenance of their roads. Roads are not free, and we cannot afford to keep viewing them as such.

SOURCE: Hats in the Garment District by Margaret Bourke-White, Time Life

Local planning codes will require a certain number of parking spaces to build a new building. What if they instead required the business to be within walking distance of public transit?

Some companies provide free parking in their office buildings as a perk to their employees. What if they instead used the cost to build the parking structure to subsidize bikes or bus passes for every employee?

Most cities provide cheap parking along sidewalks at meters. What if they instead allowed hybrid and electric vehicles to park for free and charged more for gas guzzling SUVs?

Our addiction to oil is more than the gasoline we put into our car. It permeates into countless design decisions that prevent us from building truly sustainable cities.

If you wish to help correct the Oil Spill in the Gulf Coast, please make a donation to Healthy Gulf.

—Eric Corey Freed is an architect and author of four books, including Green$ense for the Home.

On April 14th, 2010, I gave the closing keynote at the Municipal Green Building Conference and Expo, help by the US Green Building Council’s LA Chapter, and SoCal Gas Company. You can watch the full hour-long video here. Continue Reading

Originally posted here.

After sharing my initial thoughts from watching the film, Food Inc., I received a flood of responses about the connection between interest in Green Building and Eating Healthy. While I am still convinced that you cannot design a great kitchen without an appreciation and understanding of how to cook, I have some additional thoughts to add.

Continue Reading

At the 2009 West Coast Green Conference, I was fortunate enough to get to meet and interview someone I have admired for a while. Martin Melaver is CEO of Melaver Inc., a sustainable real estate development company and author of the wonderful book, Living Above the Store.

At the conference, I put together a panel with Melaver and David Orr having a conversation. (The nice part of being part of the Conference Advisory Board is being able to make things that I really just want to see.)

Here in his interview, you’ll hear Melaver’s view to sustainability:

I spend a great deal of time traveling the country.  Before I visit a city, especially a new one, I make arrangements to meet with City Agencies, Sustainability Directors, heads of nonprofits…  people I expect to find interesting.  We meet and talk about their city and I listen to them discuss the problems facing their home.

And what have I learned?  That most American cities are facing the same core group of problems.  Sure, some are more severe or less pronounced in certain places.  But, in general, every large city (population over 500k) seems to confront similar challenges and obstacles.  To me, that means they are also presented with the same opportunities.

In no order, the top ten issues I have found in American cities are as follows:

Lack of affordable public housing: but also a lack of middle income housing.  Disparity of wealth divide continues.

Unfriendly to families: lack of quality schools, safe neighborhoods and appropriate housing stock (3-4 bedrooms).

Crime: a symptom of larger issues, but one that creates other problems for the city.

Clean streets: possible opportunities for green collar jobs clean up program, new recycling distribution channels or other measurable benefits.

Poorly executed and underused mass transit: chicken and egg situation between dependence on automobile and probable use of public transit.  The people that really benefit from successful mass transit (businesses) don’t pay for the upkeep of the system (riders).

Lack of industrial base: manufacturing industry left urban centers starting in the 60′s, but was never fully replaced with anything.  The abandoned factory infrastructure was not fully reused, and nothing appropriate has moved into its place.  While some hip, trendy, Yuppie lofts were made in some old factory buildings, the majority still sit vacant, creating other social issues (crime, blight).  New clean-tech industries could rise from these ashes.

Decaying infrastructure: nearly every American city West of the Appalachian Mountains is at the age where the original infrastructure is now badly in need of repair/replacement.  This is an opportunity to question and re-evaluate those systems, while also proving a financial argument for more sustainable methods.  (East Coast cities went through this in the 60′s already and there are lessons to be learned from their mistakes)

Dwindling economic base: a variety of poor choices (mostly in zoning laws, parking laws and business tax laws) have drive out the tax base of anyone who does HAVE to be in a city.  Residents will vote out anyone suggesting even a modest tax hike on housing, so the brunt of the tax increases have targeted businesses.  Those businesses have responded by seeking less expensive digs outside of the city and contributing to sprawl.  Already sprawling cities (such as Phoenix) sprawl more, compact cities (like San Francisco) just lose revenue.  Either way, it is a vicious cycle.  New ideas are needed for re-building an economic base.  Get people to work, live, shop and visit the City again.  According to National League of Cities (NLC) report”  Nearly 9 in 10 city finance officers surveyed had difficulties meeting fiscal needs in 2009.

Term Limits: create a system focused on short-term and immediate solutions and avoid exploring ideas with a long term and sustainable focus.  Except for the vision of a handful of Mayors (Daley in Chicago, Nickels in Seattle or Newsom in San Francisco), most mayors are simply trying to get re-elected or produce results in their one term.  Change this by embracing the “Legacy Project” ideas we used to see at the turn of the previous century (again, look at Chicago, San Francisco).

Antipathy: most believe (consciously or unconsciously) that the problems of their city cannot be solved by the same system that created them.  This opens a door for new solutions like the one Urban Re:Vision is providing.

By sharing these observations with these city agencies, we have found tehse discussions to be helpful.  Not only do the cities not feel so alone, but they get the chance to learn from the mistakes of other cities.