I have to admit that I’m not a dog owner and that I’ve never had a pet (save for a fish that I “rescued” — yes, Virginia, there’s a VERY long story to that one). I did support the first iteration of a downtown Phoenix dog park when it was proposed to be built on the site of the former Sahara/Ramada Inn at 1st St and Polk. I was supportive of a dog park when it was considered to be built at Hance Park, although with growing reservations.

But this latest iteration, put forth by Sean Sweat, the urbanist and downtown Phoenix resident, seems to fall short on a few different levels.

One of my qualms is that this location is not located in any current residential areas. The major buildings near this proposed location are the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS in the former KPNX building, the 1001 N Central Ave office building, and the Firehouse art space.   The Post Roosevelt Square apartments and condominiums as well as Portland Place are on the west side of Central Avenue and the heart of the historic Roosevelt neighborhood also falls to the west of Central. For those living in Post Roosevelt Square, the Portland Parkway is leaps and bounds more suitable. For residents of the Roosevelt neighborhood, there is Roosevelt Park on 3rd Avenue. To access this location, residents and their dogs would have to cross (at least) Central Avenue. I don’t see this happening.

Another major qualm that I have is that it creates inconsistency in 1st Street. 1st Street is a very wide street all the way from Washington to Hance Park, and then north of Hance Park to McDowell. Although some blocks of 1st St have been altered with new car parking facilities, this would be a great opportunity to have some sort of a grand linear mall that extends over a mile. I remember that when I visited Boston last May, I was so impressed with the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, a grand linear park that runs from the Boston Public Garden to the Back Bay neighborhood. Although 1st Ave isn’t as wide as “Comm Ave,” it could be a grand statement for Phoenix. In fact, an idea put forth for the redesign of Hance Park is making 1st St from Roosevelt to McDowell a linear park that includes the existing Cancer Survivors’ Park.

My biggest qualm, and one that I have expressed repeatedly and continually about Phoenix’s construction habits, is that this project spurns existing infrastructure in favor of building new infrastructure. We have great park spaces in downtown Phoenix that could be absolutely grand for this. Instead of building a new facility, how about taking a part of the Portland Parkway and making that a dog park? Or what about Roosevelt Park? Or even Hance Park? Why must we not look to our existing stock of infrastructure and see what we already have? As a preservationist, we are taught that “the greenest building is the one already there.” So, too, the greenest park is the one that’s already there. Or, if we have our hearts set on building a dog park east of Central, let’s use one of the dirt lots that are a scar on the community.

There is a lot more to urban vitality than dog parks. I think that any urbanist or student of urban design and urban policy knows that. We must look at different ideas and not pin downtown Phoenix’s salvation du jour to be a dog park.

PHOENIX, Arizona – A panel of local experts and Andrew Ross, author of “Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City,” will discuss the current state of sustainability in metropolitan Phoenix at a public forum on Tuesday, January 17, 2012.  The event, free to the public, will be held at the George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center at 415 E. Grant Street. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., panel discussion 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., audience Q&A 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., and reception with complimentary refreshments 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

RSVP on Facebook / Join DVC on Facebook

Panel moderator will be Charles Redman, Arizona State University (ASU) Virginia M. Ullmann professor of Natural History and the Environment and founding director of the ASU School of Sustainability. The current slate of panelists (with two to be added soon) includes:

• Steve Betts, former president/CEO of SunCor Development and current Arizona District Council Chair of the Urban Land Institute;
• Terry Goddard, former Phoenix mayor and former Arizona attorney general who now teaches a course at the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus: “Phoenix and the Art of Public Decision Making;”
• Taz Loomans, architect and writer/blogger on sustainability issues;
• Eva Olivas, executive director, Phoenix Revitalization Core
• Andrew Ross, professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University.
• Silvia Urrutia, director of Housing and Healthcare Finance, Raza Development Fund

According to Susan Copeland, steering committee chair of Downtown Voices Coalition, “Issues of sustainability are paramount to the future of Phoenix. Ross’ book is a great springboard from which to begin, or continue, discussion.”

The Downtown Voices Coalition is sponsoring the event with in-kind support from the Lexington Hotel in downtown Phoenix, Four Peaks Brewery of Tempe and the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center.

“Bird on Fire” is available at Made Art Boutique, 922 North 5^th Street in downtown Phoenix and at Changing Hands Bookstore at 6428 South McClintock Drive in Tempe. It is also available at Burton Barr, Cesar Chavez and Mesquite Branch libraries in Phoenix.

Downtown Voices Coalition is a coalition of stakeholder organizations that embrace growth in downtown Phoenix, but is mindful that healthy growth should be based upon existing downtown resources — the vibrancy of neighborhoods, the strength of the arts community, the uniqueness of historic properties, and the wonderful small businesses that dot downtown. For more information, visit downtownvoices.org.

# # #

Facebook’s revamped profiles to be timelines. The idea is that the Facebook timeline is an annotated biography of your life complete with links to people, pictures, and more information than should be shared.

There’s one big issue with Facebook’s new timeline feature that I see that I don’t think has been explored too much: no matter what your existing privacy settings are for other content, your privacy settings for adding in your life events (e.g. jobs, relationships, where you live, etc.) is set to “public.”

Here’s a screen capture of the prompt to add a life event:

If you can’t read the annotation on the screen capture, this is what I said: “Here’s where you change things. Bear in mind that there is no Facebook global setting to limit the privacy/visibility of your life events. If you want to restrict who can see what, you’ll have to change it ON EACH ITEM.”

This is my big beef with Facebook. The default privacy setting for new content, it seems, is “public.” People don’t necessarily check permissions settings (in a rush to share things) and so stuff that might be intended to be seen only by a handful of individuals ends up  being shared with the whole world. I don’t know if this is an oversight or something that Facebook’s doing by design. Whatever it is, it’s annoying.

That leads me to my First Axiom of The Internet: Anything you post online (be it on a social media site, a forum posting, or a site that requires a login) will end up being shared with more people than you originally intended.

Just keep that in mind the next time you’re going to post something.

Viewers also will be able to meet one of the filmmakers of the Olmsted documentary, Rebecca Messner, and participate in a short presentation and discussion on local and national Red Field to Green Fields initiative to convert economically depressed “red” private property (residential, commercial and industrial) into public park property “green.”

The screening is a presentation of No Festival Required’s Building Community Cinema series with the support of the Speedwell Foundation, the City Parks Alliance, Arizona State University, Butler Housing Company, Phoenix Community Alliance, Phoenix Parks Foundation and the City of Phoenix.

Panel moderator will be Charles Redman, Arizona State University (ASU) Virginia M. Ullmann professor of Natural History and the Environment and founding director of the ASU School of Sustainability. The current slate of panelists (with two to be added soon) includes:

• Maria Baier, state land commissioner, Arizona;
• Steve Betts, former president/CEO of SunCor Development and current Arizona District Council Chair of the Urban Land Institute;
• Terry Goddard, former Phoenix mayor and former Arizona attorney general who now teaches a course at the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus: “Phoenix and the Art of Public Decision Making;”
• Taz Loomans, architect and writer/blogger on sustainability issues;
• Kris Mayes, former commissioner of the Arizona Corporation Commission and current director of the ASU Law and Sustainability Program and professor at the ASU Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law;
• Andrew Ross, professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University.
• Silvia Urrutia, director of Housing and Healthcare Finance, Raza Development Fund

According to Susan Copeland, steering committee chair of Downtown Voices Coalition, “Issues of sustainability are paramount to the future of Phoenix. Ross’ book is a great springboard from which to begin, or continue, discussion.”

The Downtown Voices Coalition is sponsoring the event with in-kind support from the Lexington Hotel in downtown Phoenix, Four Peaks Brewery of Tempe and the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center.

“Bird on Fire” is available at Made Art Boutique, 922 North 5^th Street in downtown Phoenix and at Changing Hands Bookstore at 6428 South McClintock Drive in Tempe. It is also available at Burton Barr, Cesar Chavez and Mesquite Branch libraries in Phoenix.

Downtown Voices Coalition is a coalition of stakeholder organizations that embrace growth in downtown Phoenix, but is mindful that healthy growth should be based upon existing downtown resources — the vibrancy of neighborhoods, the strength of the arts community, the uniqueness of historic properties, and the wonderful small businesses that dot downtown. For more information, visit downtownvoices.org

If you’ve been following my tweets on Twitter or my occasional update on Facebook, you’ll note that I have been emphasizing the importance of getting involved in local issues. Much has been made about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that have spawned regional events around the globe, including in our own city. I’m an ardent believer in the belief that true, honest, and sustainable change begins at home.

We want change to happen. We crave change. Other than a very few people, nobody is content with how things are going. And rather than look at things from the big picture and agonize over how we’ll change things (ultimately settling with the status quo), let’s look here. Let’s look at our own Phoenix.

It’s probably redundant to say that Phoenix has fallen behind in many things over the last decade. We have let side conversations drive our political conversations instead of looking at the major issues. If you read The Arizona Republic‘s endorsement of whom they want to be Phoenix’s next mayor, they identified changing the city’s pension system and revising its employees’ benefits package as the two big issues that will face Phoenix in this decade. And while these are important issues, as you and I know, there are far more important issues that need to be not only addressed but tackled by Phoenix’s next mayor.

In its next decade, Phoenix has to address many issues that are far more important than how the city compensates its employees. Our local leaders have to look at how we can move forward far more sustainably. And I mean absolutely more than just installing solar panels on parking shades: I mean looking at supporting things that can and ought to be sustained. We need to look at expanding and enhancing the region’s public transportation, we need to look at making historic preservation a top priority because “the greenest building is the one already standing,” we need to encourage people-friendly pedestrian development, and we need to develop networks for alternative modes of transportation. My list could go on and on.

These issues aren’t conservative issues nor are they liberal issues. Nor is this race about garbage collection, water rates, or permitting processes. The race is about advancing LOCAL issues like thoughtful investments in our local economy, including education, quality jobs, and smart economic development. We want a leader who will advocate for Phoenix first and use the bully pulpit afforded to the Mayor to challenge and to change this state’s regrettable education policies, missed action on advancing clean energy, and reputation in the nation and around the world.

By the City of Phoenix’s own laws, this election is a nonpartisan race. One can argue how the election has turned extremely partisan. One sees signs about whom “taxpayers support” and what sides the public safety employees support. Or one sees which candidates are being supported by political parties and by political action committees.

For me, although endorsements are nice, it’s not about that. At the end of the day, it is about two things: it’s about the candidate who dreams outside of our community’s collective comfort zone and it’s about the candidate who works with all sides and builds consensus.

If our civic leaders didn’t dream outside of our own collective comfort zone, we would never have seen a strong bioscience presence in downtown or not one but three vibrant colleges and universities in the heart of our city (four of the constituent colleges of Arizona State University, the University of Arizona College of Medicine, and the Phoenix School of Law). If we just looked at numbers, Phoenix would never have blossomed into the city that it is. If we just looked at numbers, there would be no reason to save this city’s history or to build a strong downtown and midtown core. And certainly, if we just looked at numbers, we would never have seen METRO light rail, whose ridership numbers continue setting records.

Also, it is about supporting the candidate who will build consensus and support in the community. It’s about the candidate who will bring all sides to the table in issues like the city budget or how to deal with unions, not just attack them and disenfranchise them because it’s politically expedient to do so.

The candidate that will build consensus in Phoenix, bring all sides to the discussion, and lead Phoenix forward by dreaming outside of our collective comfort zone is Greg Stanton. I encourage you to join me for voting for Mr. Stanton and making Phoenix’s next decade its best decade. Mail-in ballots have been mailed out and voting ends on November 8. For more information, check the City of Phoenix’s Elections website.

But I think that the problem lies within ourselves. We live in a society of consumption that has, unfortunately, dictated that unless you have the latest and greatest of anything, you’re looked at with a bit of disdain.

(And yes, in writing this, I’m know that I’m a bit of a hypocrite in saying what I’m going to say. I’ve got a new Macintosh notebook and an iPad. Plus I have the requisite accessories for these various devices, like printers, headphones, trackpads, and mice.)

Anyway, I believe it’s a cause-and-effect thing here. We (society as a whole) have purchased so many things from big corporations that these big corporations have gained so much influence in national politics and in the national economy. This is why I’m prepared to argue that we, the people, have only ourselves to blame. In exchange for cheap prices on basic goods and services or the latest and greatest in technology, we’ve purchased from national chains or multi-national technology firms, who in turn have co-opted our interests into their own.

I’m prepared to argue that the best way to occupy Wall Street (or whatever region you so choose to occupy) is to change your habits and not buy everything. And when you buy, buy locally.

Instead of purchasing food from a mega supermarket, there are many great local alternatives. Instead of getting the newest, latest, and greatest iPad or Kindle, use the current one you have. Or, if you must, purchase a refurbished model (which not only is cheaper but better for the environment!). With the December holidays coming up, consider getting your gifts from a local store.

In addition to helping the LOCAL economy, it helps LOCAL interests as well. These businesses are here for the same reasons why you are.

I’m sure I’ve probably lost some of my progressive liberal credit here. I sympathize with the movement and I believe that people rallying around a cause is noble because the First Amendment to the Constitution gives the “right of the people peaceably to assemble.” I also believe that we need to consider some Constitutional amendments to limit the amount of corporate influence in government and politics and overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case.

And the last thing: VOTE. In Phoenix, we have a mayoral election coming up in November. Mail-in ballots have been mailed out and voting ends on November 8. If you’re not informed, get informed. Your vote is your voice, so VOTE!

Today was just a great day to be alive and in downtown Phoenix. The weather was finally beautiful after an endless summer in the desert!

And this morning was also Park(ing) Day 2011, an annual event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public places. It forces us to consider public policy and what type of parking is more appropriate in an urban environment: car parking or people parking?

This year, my friend Donna Reiner and I set up and played some piano duets, ranging from absolute beginner to Clementi, Mozart, Diabelli, and Fauré. Even at sight-reading, I thought we were pretty good.

Anyway, some pictures and videos (with more being uploaded throughout the day…check back tonight for more):

Edit, 9:45pm: All of my photos from the day are on my Park(ing) Day 2011 set on Flickr.

It’s the morning of 11 September 2011 as I’m writing this and having read through the Sunday edition of The New York Times (as well as the local Arizona Republic) and watching very tiny bits of the cable news channels, it’s obvious that this is a big thing. And rightfully so: 9/11 is our generation’s most pivotal day. So much changed (for better and for worse) in the decade since then.

But what is the most appropriate way to reflect, to observe, and to remember the events of that day and those who died–not just on that day but in the wars waged since then in Afghanistan and Iraq?

The title of this post borrows from a Christian hymn (and also from a recent entry on the Episcopalian author Diana Butler Bass‘s blog). And it’s from that post that I have found the words to observe the day:

Silence makes room for remembering. I don’t want to hear patriotic songs, jingoistic speeches, or even well-considered rehearsals of “what happened on that day.” I want to see no pictures of burning towers or flags waving. I wish for empty public space, a communal practice of quiet, to reflect on not only what happened on 9/11 but in the long, sad decade since. For just a brief time, I long for, in the words of an ancient hymn, “all mortal flesh keep silence,” in the face of the fear and trembling that gripped us one September day ten years ago.

This is a cool video from London called, aptly, a “London Bus Tour.” Enjoy!

It's not me, Google+, it's you.

I had such high hopes for Google+ when it came out a couple of months ago and when I got my invite to the service. “Finally,” I thought, “a service that’s sort-of like Facebook but completely not evil.” As a technophile, I am completely fine with this. The idea of circles to share content with specific people is absolutely genius. Or hangouts, which are live in-the-browser video chats with our friends. Or editing posts after I’ve posted them (as I’ve done with this post…three times!). There is so much potential here.

But there are times when the point of social media is that social aspect; more specifically, I want to create a conversation and dialogue here. (Ideally, I’d like to take that conversation and move it offline into a face-to-face setting. But that’s just me.) Of those in my circles, the last person posted something here over 36 hours ago. The last person to comment on one of my posts was three days ago. And it’s not that I care or that I demand comments to what I post. But sometimes, it’s nice to know that people are reading, internalizing, reflecting, and acting on what they’ve read.

And it’s that lack of communication here that have caused me to break up with Google+ for the time being. It has such great potential to be something absolutely so amazing but it seems like Google is hampering its development. Where’s our API so we can update G+ or see others’ posts from other applications? Why are you still playing around with Buzz? Where is integration of the “+1″ buttons that are starting to dot the Internet? What is your compelling reason to use G+? Are you seeing it as a profile page? Or as a new way in which people can share content with each other?

Anyway, I’m not going away. I’ve started a tumblr blog, “#dtphx musings,” in which I post photos and share content that my friends have posted to their own tumblr blogs. It’s at downtownmusings.com — and I still tweet with great regularity at @edwardjensen.

Thank goodness that IBM’s Watson, the Jeopardy!-playing computer, had a much nicer disposition. And credit to Crave, CNET’s gadgets blog, for first posting this video.

All of the programs I had running under Snow Leopard still work well, including MS Office 2011, Firefox, Thunderbird, Spotify, Picasa, Skype, VirtualBox, and Sibelius 6. Connections with my network drive seem to be a touch faster in Lion than in Snow Leopard. I did try the revamped Mail, iCal, and Address Book apps and I still don’t like them. I’ll stick with Thunderbird since that has true Gmail integration. Also, battery life seems to be a hair better, but that’s just based on my gut feeling, not actual science.

If you have a trackpad, you’ll find that the scrolling gesture is different. It’s like that on iOS devices, not traditional trackpad gestures. The default Lion scrolling gesture is counter-intuitive, in my opinion: to scroll down, for instance, you move your two fingers from the bottom to the top of the trackpad. If you don’t like it, it is an easy change in System Preferences but it’s just a bit annoying at first. Also, there are a few new gestures that are enabled by default that take place of some gestures from Snow Leopard. Again, an easy change in System Preferences.

While I wasn’t originally thrilled with the App Store-only delivery of Lion, I was thrilled that one could easily create a recovery DVD based on a disk image hidden within the installer app. To test it out, I actually formatted my Macintosh’s drive and installed Lion from the DVD I created. Also on the recovery DVD is Disk Utility so that’s great. The Lion installer creates a recovery partition on the local disk but I’m not a big fan of on-disk recovery partitions since I have had far too many hard drives fail on me.

The only issue I have discovered thus far is that I have to get Boot Camp to recognize that I have Windows 7 installed on the “BOOTCAMP” partition on my computer. I suspect that if I did an in-place installation of Lion, I wouldn’t be having this issue. If I run the Boot Camp Assistant, it would have me reformat the drive to reinstall Win7. I’ll have to do a bit more digging to see how to get Lion to recognize that partition. Also, because I did a clean install of Lion, I need to install the iLife suite from my Snow Leopard disks. But that’s a trifle since I don’t use iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand.

So there. From those who installed Lion in place over their Snow Leopard installation, the installation was very easy. I took the more difficult route because: 1. I’m Eddie and that’s just what I do, and B. I wanted to start my computer over from scratch just because it had gotten a bit slow.

The City of Phoenix is holding a forum to get citizen input on land use planning near light rail stations. For the Camelback/Central Ave light rail station, the forum is being held at the Days Inn at 502 W Camelback Rd on Thursday at 6:30pm.

State law requires cities, towns, and counties to update their general plan every 10 years and this is the first revision of Phoenix’s general plan after the development of METRO light rail.

Phoenix is amending the city’s general plan for land-use planning near light-rail stations and is asking residents for input.

A public meeting to discuss the station at Central Avenue and Camelback Road is at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Days Inn, 502 W. Camelback Road.

The general plan is a blueprint that outlines land-use and policy guidelines on how the city should grow and redevelop for decades into the future.

State law requires cities, towns and counties to update the plan every 10 years but legislation the state passed last year extended the deadline to 2015 to give budget-constricted local governments short on planning staff more time to update their general plans.

Attendees will discuss a general range of appropriate building heights for future real-estate redevelopment.

By having stakeholders identify what they want to preserve, promote and will accept in advance, the general plan can better guide future real-estate development.

The meetings are not about property ownership, existing zoning or uses, city officials have said.

Properties along the light-rail route are in a transit-overlay district, which means less space is dedicated for parking due to the proximity to the train.

Read more here.

If you go, the nearest light rail station is 7th Ave/Camelback Road (Melrose District). For more information, call 602.256.5648.

They have a name for it: Carmageddon.

They have a plan: Stick close to home, if at all possible.

And they have this: no idea what really will transpire when a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 405 in Los Angeles is shut down for 53 hours starting tonight for a road-improvement project in the ultra-busy Sepulveda Pass in the heart of one of the most car-centric cultures in the world.

“Allow me to be blunt: It’s going to be a mess out there,” Los Angeles Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky posted on his City Hall website.

“For those of you who think you can outsmart this potential mother of all traffic jams,” he added, “my advice is simple: save your gas.”

[via the San Francisco Chronicle]

It’s reasons like this why I’m reminded why it’s so nice not to own a car. I don’t have to worry about massive traffic snarls like this. I can just hop on Phoenix’s light rail or bus and get to where I need to go with relative ease. And when I add a bicycle to my transportation arsenal, then that range is extended considerably.

And even if my commute could be shorter by taking a car, there’s one big benefit to not be driving: I don’t have to worry about the driving. I can do things that everyone who’s driving a car shouldn’t to: talk on the phone, text, read a book, listen to music, check email, post something to Twitter, and so on. It’s quality time.

Some thoughts on this from the Vancouver, B.C., blog Price Tags:

My travel time is far too valuable to waste actually driving. Talk about distracting. I don’t know about you, but I find when driving that I actually have to pay attention to stuff. Like other vehicles. And stop signs. And even cyclists.

Given a choice between a faster trip driving and a slower trip on transit, I’ll take the latter, so long as (a) it’s not too much slower; and (b) I can read or listen. If I can plan the length of my commute with accuracy and dependability, then time spent moving productively is more valuable than time spent moving quickly.

[read more]

So you’ll be catching me on the light rail or even the bus. And if I move to a different city, the big criterion for a good city is its mass transportation system. Because my time is valuable.

Yay equality!

via www.pbs.org

This is why you save PBS.

via www.youtube.com

This Monday: IBM Watson on Jeopardy!