Photo by Flickr user chibi_ro

One point I make in passing in today’s column about CPS Energy’s solar deal is that the value of solar power is relative to the cost of other sources of electricity, primarily coal, natural gas, and wind. And as more of the environmental costs of the fossil fuel sources are factored into their market prices, solar becomes more attractive.

For instance, CPS opted to close an old coal plant 15 years ahead of schedule shortly before EPA regulations mandating new scrubbers were announced. These scrubbers, which remove mercury and other pollutants from power plant emissions, had been required for new facilities, but a large number of coal plants built in the 1970s had been grandfathered in. So the cost of bringing these aging facilities up to code has pushed some utilities to think seriously about retiring them in favor of cleaner sources of power.

As regulations have made coal more costly, natural gas has become much more affordable, due to the surge in fracking. Right now, fracking is almost totally unregulated. Texas is actually one of the first states to require energy companies to even disclose what they are putting into their fracking compounds. But this situation is likely untenable. Most of the concerns about fracking related to contamination of water supplies as millions of gallons of water and chemicals are forced underground to break apart rock and release natural gas. The EPA recently released a report linking fracking to contamination of water supplies, and recommended that the State of New York tighten its proposed fracking rules.

There are also concerns about the sheer quantity of water being used in these operations. As the Texas Tribune reports, the new Texas law, which will go into effect February 1, requires not just disclosure of the chemicals used but also the amount of water consumed by fracking operations. Although the amount of water used in fracking is a tiny fraction of what a big city consumes, in some regions it can be quite significant. From the Texas Tribune article:

Dan Hardin, the water board’s resource planning director, said fracking is not expected to exceed 2 percent of Texas water use.

But drilling can send the water numbers much higher in rural areas, Hardin said. For example, he projects that in 2020, more than 40 percent of water demand in La Salle County, in the Eagle Ford, will go toward “mining,” a technical term that in this case means almost entirely fracking. Until recently, no water went toward mining there.

As these natural gas operations come under closer scrutiny, and eventually actual regulation, the cost of natural gas will naturally rise. Cities like San Antonio, with ambitious solar and wind projects underway, will see the benefit of a diverse energy portfolio with a high level of renewable sources.

The Compound behind Sala Diaz. Photo by Thomas Cummins.

This article was originally published in Plaza de Armas.

On a recent drive through the Government Hill neighborhood, along the edge of Ft Sam Houston, urban developer Peter French noticed something curious: a cluster of eight small homes with a private parking court. The cottages debuted in April 1929 on a lot that stretches one block, from Grayson to Quitman, with a typical width of about 65 feet. All the homes face inward, and are connected by a walkway that bisects the lot.

A small but growing group of urbanists, French among them, see this design as a key to building healthier communities.

These “pocket neighborhoods” simply turn houses away from the street, toward a semi-public space, which often takes the form of a landscaped courtyard. Residents give up their private yards in exchange for a larger communal area where children can play safely and adults can forge stronger relationships as they garden, barbecue, or have a drink with their neighbors after work. Proponents of this style of development claim that it has far-reaching implications for safety and social well-being. Ross Chapin, author of Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small Scale Community in a Large Scale World, argues that this layer of small-scale shared space helps “mend [the] broken web of belonging, care and support” that is missing from many suburban communities.

I can’t speak for the relationships forged at the Whippoorwill Cottages (a name for this development that French’s research turned up; they were originally named Grayson Courts), but I do know quite a few people who have lived in a cluster of homes with a shared courtyard off St. Mary’s Street, just south-west of King William. Often referred to simply as “The Compound,” this group of homes was not originally designed as a courtyard neighborhood: all the houses face outward toward either St Mary’s or Stieren Street. Real-estate lawyer and art enthusiast Michael Casey was approached about buying a group of four adjacent duplexes on this corner around 1990. He decided to purchase a vacant house with a large, fenced-in back yard behind the duplexes at the same time.

As the old tenants moved out, Casey began renting the apartments to his friends in the art community. He slowly assembled a group of tenants with common interests, connected through landlord’s own passion for contemporary art and urban revitalization. In addition to building a like-minded community, Casey says he wanted to feel that “if someone called with a problem in the middle of the night, I’d be happy to hear from them.”

Soon after this shift, a tenant named Alejandro Diaz asked Casey if he could move his bed into the kitchen, and turn the front room into an art gallery. Luckily the lot was zoned for commercial use [1], and Sala Diaz was founded — a gallery that is still running today and is central to the identity of this little community.

At some point, the couple who had rented the house with the large backyard asked if they could tear down their fence to create a commons between the house and the duplexes. Casey agreed to this as well. This central courtyard became a vital social space, hosting outdoor dinner parties, informal discussions following openings at the gallery, and the occasional concert or fundraiser.

Whenever someone moves out of the compound, all the remaining tenants come to an agreement on the new resident before the space is rented. There are of course arguments about the use and upkeep of the commons, but for the people who choose to live here, the regular vital social interactions and caring neighbors are worth the inevitable friction.

The history of the compound at Sala Diaz points both to the potential of the pocket neighborhood concept and to the real difficulties in implementing it effectively. The New Urbanist developers are making tangible progress toward building more livable neighborhoods. But they are still often large developers who almost never have the time or the connection to the place to build strong communities. Many of these planners and developers have too much faith in the transformative power of design.

Certainly the way we build our transit systems and our neighborhoods creates barriers to healthy social interaction. But those aren’t the only barriers, not even the most substantial ones. When there are stable, trusting communities built around common values, people will find ways to share their spaces regardless of the street configuration or the orientation of the front door. As long as developers keep building huge communities in one fell swoop, and try to attract residents only through physical design — whether it is large yards in the front and tall fences in the back, or open public space and bike lanes — there will be a disconnect in the community.

That’s not to say that design isn’t important. To the extent that urbanists design places that get people to talk about what our built environment says about the strength of our communities, and how to build stronger communities, they can be agents of change. But for strong communities to develop, each neighborhood should be a little subculture, built around common values as well as aesthetic choices.

Unique businesses like Sala Diaz are fundamental to the development of these subcultures. The only other development of this nature that I know of in San Antonio is the Clay Street Compound (aka Tunaville), near the popular neighborhood bar La Tuna (and developed by one of the bar’s owners). This bar is a hub that draws like-minded people together, and the Clay Street Compound is an extension of this community.

On the scale that most developers work, they cannot be a part of of the process of nurturing a subculture, building ties between residents and businesses, and making places that reflect shared values. The developer needs to know the community, and be responsive to its actual needs, not to simply impose a design that should theoretically bring people together. The problem resides more with the scale of the developer than the scale of the neighborhood; and ultimately, with the sense of agency that each resident has.

[1] A quick note here about zoning. Had this lot been zoned residential, this unique space likely would not have developed in the way it did. The importance of Sala Diaz in attracting creative, intelligent people to this compound — both as guests and residents — is key to the project’s success. In San Antonio’s current Uniform Development Code, a design pattern for “Cottage Homes” follows the basic idea of the pocket neighborhood, but does not allow for mixed-use development, if I’m reading the code correctly (admittedly a big “if”).

This column was updated and corrected January 2, 2011. It originally identified the cottages’ construction date as 1950. Thanks to Beth Standifird at the San Antonio Conservation Society, who forwarded this information, as well as the development’s original name, Grayson Courts, “which featured 8 beautiful Normandy cottages.”

But several experimental projects have shown that solar also has potential to replace coal plants. A Spanish solar power plant was recently able to generate power for 24 hours straight, demonstrating the possibility meeting base-load requirements, at least during the summer months. The plant is small compared to a typical coal or natural gas facility — just under 20 MW, compared with something on the order of 700 MW produced by fossil fuel stations.

But the technology is fascinating, and shows real potential for an approach that has not been pursued very aggressively in the US. The project, called Gemasolar, consists of a tall, narrow central tower that collects energy at the top. Around the central receiver, a huge array of heliostats (basically moveable mirrors) reflect sunlight onto the receiver. The energy is stored in molten salt, which maintains a temperature of nearly 1,000° F. The salt is then used to heat water to power a steam turbine. Because the energy is stored in this way, it can produce electricity continuously throughout the day (at least on sunny days).

Of course many questions remain, most importantly how well this approach can scale. But when we look at the collapse of companies like Solyndra, it’s important to realize that the solar industry will require a lot of risky investment before we hit on the truly viable technologies. And those technologies could come in many different forms — from large, centralized solar arrays to distributed public-private hybrids like CPS Energy’s Solartricity.

Discovery Green in Houston, TX

Project for Public Spaces has a new article up about the placemaking renaissance going on in Texas right now. Some may be surprised to learn that Houston (declared the “North America’s placemaking capital”) is the focus of the piece, and Austin isn’t mentioned once. Things are changing rapidly in Texas, and every city has plenty to learn from its neighbors.

Dallas is one of the few cities in the United States with a comprehensive light rail system, which runs all the way out to Fort Worth. It is also the home of a potentially game-changing DIY planning project called Build a Better Block. Houston opened Discovery Green a few years ago, which has already seen more than 2 million visitors. It has also seen unique projects like Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center, a public-private partnership that mixes park and community center with commercial spaces.

San Antonio also gets a mention, near the end of the article. Project for Public Spaces is leading a placemaking process here to expand on the successes we have seen at the Pearl Brewery and in Main Plaza. You can contribute ideas at this website, and join the discussion on August 18.

As San Antonio moves forward with major redevelopment projects like HemisFair Park and Midtown Brakenridge, we should not overlook the planning successes and failures of Houston, Austin, and Dallas, as well as those closer to home. As city-dwellers, we are also city-makers, whether or not we intend to be. We should look closely at the paths other cities have taken, so that we can better understand our own opportunities.

They say that the murder ballad Banks of the Ohio has been recorded by dozens of artists, but to my knowledge I’ve only heard two versions: one, recorded in the 1950s by a pair of Greenwich Village twins known as the Kossoy Sisters; another, recorded in 2003 by Scottish artist Susan Philipsz, and temporarily installed at Chrispark down the street from my house.

I just came from there.

I read that before there were public parks, people living in the cities used to go to graveyards do to all the things that parks came to be used for. In some places the graveyards would be overrun with people on the weekends. Chrispark is not a graveyard, but it is, in its way, a place of mourning.

Watching the light fade while listening to Philipsz’ “Sunset Song” feels like a distant echo of William Basinski’s “Disintegration Loops” video. The sense of loss begins to seep up from the grass. It makes me think, too, of Old Man Hill.

There’s a little creek that runs behind Chrispark, or rather it was a creek, now it is more of a drainage ditch. If you follow it down, under a highway, and past the old stock yards, and under another highway, you’ll end up on the San Antonio River. You start to wonder whether anyone ever drowned his girlfriend in this creek, or played a banjo on its banks.

One day, rode my bike past the old Lone Star Brewery by the river, and saw a circle of people praying in front of this sign. The next day, I took this photo.

The old CPS power plant is across the river from the brewery. It used water from the river for cooling. Later, in the 1950s and 60s, CPS was one of the first municipal power companies to use grey water for this purpose.

I’ve been seeing a lot of these along the river. The birds must be enjoying themselves.

Behind the office where I now work, across the highway from the airport, in the midst of a light-industrial, well I don’t want to say ‘wasteland,’ is this flood-plain area where no one can develop (that is, make buildings or parking lots). Sometimes I walk around back there on my lunch break.

This discussion of scaling in biology, cities, and companies is quite remarkable. Geoffrey West (of the Santa Fe Institute) explains what network theory can tell us about how cities and companies grow. It’s almost an hour long, but very much worth the time.

[hat tip Andrew Sullivan]

This morning Facebook selected for my news feed a link from my girlfriend, who has been 12 times zones away for far too long, to a Jonathan Franzen piece making the argument that love and consumer culture are antithetical to one another. There’s a line in it that may be more true than Mr Franzen realizes. This line was referenced by my girlfriend in a bit of irony as she posted the link: “To friend a person is merely to include the person in our private hall of flattering mirrors.”

Yesterday I wrote my column for Plaza de Armas on a topic closely related to this. Although I’ve realized for a while that Facebook and Google (and many other information portals) have been filtering search results and news feeds based on their algorithmic interpretation of personal preferences (search history, click history, etc), I’ve only in the last couple of weeks started to think about how truly radical this idea is.

The thing that got me thinking more critically about the implications of personalized information filtering was this TED talk by Eli Pariser on what he calls the “filter bubble.” The idea is simply that if Facebook chooses to show you only what it has calculated that you already like, you won’t be exposed to new ideas. This has been a problem that tech companies like Amazon and Netflix have wrestled with for a while: how do you make “suggestions” that actually expose people to something new?

So, this isn’t particularly revelatory, but important to think about as the problem extends from “you might also like…” to actually, in effect, hiding ideas and information from people. And it becomes particularly acute as we start to move real communities online. So, in the case of Facebook, the authority that deems a particular piece of news relevant is not a newspaper editor, or the collective opinion of my peers, but simply the links that I have clicked on, or liked, in the past.

The media echo chamber idea has been codified to create implicitly closed communities. But what exists on Facebook could hardly be called community, because it is based to a significant extent on what Franzen rightly refers to as a narcissistic hall of mirrors. And so many of the vital functions of natural, face-to-face social networking actually cease to function in this environment.

One example I bring up in the Plaza de Armas piece is related to Iran’s ‘Green Revolution,’ and the current wave of ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings. Stratfor released an interested report on the role of social media in contemporary political uprisings. Contrary to some uncritical discussions, they found that social media presents a real liability for these protest groups. Part of the reason is that these information networks are relatively easy for authoritarian governments to monitor. But the report also notes that on networks like Facebook, the protestors have a hard time coming into contact with potential allies that may have different values, but shared strategic goals. The social network then fails to serve the needs of the oppressed, because of an over-reliance on a social media that actually separates people into small, homogeneous groups.

The “openness” that Mark Zuckerberg loves to tout comes with some significant caveats. And this is where I come back to Franzen. If this social media is built on likeability rather than love, superficial openness rather than real honesty, then it does not serve a social good, but is merely narcissism dressed up to look like community.

Now, streets and parking lots are thought of in terms of infrastructure, so they are designed strictly to handle the amount of traffic that developers would like to have. As with water pipes or electrical grid, engineers figure it’s better to overbuild than to go back and have to rebuild, so the spaces between buildings are dominated by asphalt and concrete, with a few token trees.

But if instead developers and planners placed buildings with enough public space between them, and then built the streets and parking lots as needed to accommodate traffic, in effect subtracting from open space to add more streets or stores, we’d have places as opposed to developments. Mr Helie offers plenty of examples, from both Europe and America, to illustrate the difference.

In most American cities today, we’d have to start by removing lanes from streets and spaces from parking lots. And there are plenty of spots where it would be completely appropriate to do that. We should certainly take it further and see which streets could be closed off entirely to create pedestrian areas. As Christopher Alexander discusses in A Pattern Language (see image above), a network of walking paths can be slowly built within a street grid, so that we’re not merely providing a ribbon of concrete on which to stroll next to traffic, but we’re creating places for walking.

San Antonio has places for walking, known as the Riverwalk and the various greenway trails. I’d like to see this expanded slowly into more of a network. The rivers and creeks offer an obvious place to do this: they create natural, meandering paths, and people like walking by water.

But there are possibilities other than using waterways and closing down streets. For instance, in my neighborhood there is a large, empty field that used to be a train yard. You’ll see it in the upper left hand corner of this map. If you look closely, there’s a line that runs from this unused field across Nogalitos and South Flores to the intersection of Lone Star and Probandt. That line is empty space that used to hold train tracks. The city could potentially turn that field into a park, with a promenade running almost all the way to the Lone Star Brewery. From there, a pedestrian can easily walk up Probandt to Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, or continue down Lone Star to the brewery, the Riverwalk, or Roosevelt Park.

This is just one idea. But when we start thinking of pathways that aren’t primarily for cars, lots of ideas like this start presenting themselves, and we can begin to see a city that operates on a different scale, and with a stronger sense of place.

Another key recommendation of the framework plan is to make both South Alamo and Durango streets more pedestrian friendly, by narrowing them, expanding on-street parking, widening sidewalks, and bringing in landscaping. The team hopes that by making these thoroughfares less daunting to cross, and opening up more portals to the park along them, HemisFair will become a more cohesive part of the city.

The planners at Johnson Fain aren’t the only people hankering to reconfigure San Antonio’s streets. The Midtown Brackenridge Master Plan, released in February, also puts a strong focus on turning streets into usable public spaces. Although the Midtown Brackenridge plan looks only at the streets and neighborhoods around Brackenridge Park, while the HemisFair plan is mostly focused on the park site itself, the two projects have much in common. The former proposes to remake Broadway as “the ‘extended living room’ of the City,” using the same structural changes Johnson Fain recommends for Durango. It aims to make Avenue B (which runs parallel to Broadway) into a woonerf, a type of anarchic road found primarily in the Netherlands on which pedestrians, bikes, and cars all have an equal right to the street.

Underlying both these plans is the idea that streets are public spaces, not just big pipes for moving cars from one parking lot to another. Where streets have become barriers — as Broadway is between the Mahncke Park neighborhood and Brackenridge, or as Durango is between Lavaca and HemisFair — these proposals hope to heal the divisions the streets have created, and knit the city back together.

And more broadly, the Metropolitan Planning Organization has adopted a Complete Streets policy, which I hope to look into in more depth soon. As Mr Fain told me, San Antonio’s biggest asset from a planning perspective is its neighborhoods. But the roads, which should serve as a connective tissue, too often divide the neighborhoods from each other as well as from other cultural assets.