4/30/04
4/28/04
The partial reports filtering out of Damascus indicate that the large-scale terrorist attack carried out Tuesday night, April 27, in the al Maza diplomatic quarter of the Syrian capital - a simultaneous car bomb, machine gun, grenade, rocket assault on several targets that set UN offices on fire and singled out the Canadian embassy – has brought the encroaching global terror warfront dangerously close to Israel. www.debka.com
4/26/04
What I'm reading today...
The Core Services system (aka mediator) receives, rewrites, optimizes and distributes queries to multiple resources and integrates query results into a single file that is unified semantically, structurally and syntactically for both spatial and non-spatial aspects. Ontologies are used to capture and publicize the semantics and schematics of local sources and global standards, as well as their mappings. Potential resources include; OGC spatial data services, Z39.50 metadata services, integrated assessment modeling tools, and various remote data stores.
Scary thing is that it makes sense :-)
The Core Services system (aka mediator) receives, rewrites, optimizes and distributes queries to multiple resources and integrates query results into a single file that is unified semantically, structurally and syntactically for both spatial and non-spatial aspects. Ontologies are used to capture and publicize the semantics and schematics of local sources and global standards, as well as their mappings. Potential resources include; OGC spatial data services, Z39.50 metadata services, integrated assessment modeling tools, and various remote data stores.
Scary thing is that it makes sense :-)
4/23/04
From: Kevin McNaney [SMTP:kevin@smartgrowth.bc.ca]
To: Smart Growth BC Livable Communities Listserv
Cc:
Subject: [SGBC]Developers told to target Gastown, Chinatown
Sent: 4/23/2004 6:29 AM
Importance: Normal
Developers told to target Gastown, Chinatown
Planners aim to halt conversion of commercial space to condominiums
Frances Bula
Vancouver Sun
Friday, April 23, 2004
VANCOUVER - Vancouver is poised to clamp down on the impending rush to convert downtown office space into condos in an effort to prevent the central city from turning into a residential resort, the city's planning co-director warned developers Thursday.
Facing a dilemma that no other city planner in North America has, in which residential space sells for about twice as much as office space, Larry Beasley told 350 people at an Urban Development Institute lunch that "we simply cannot afford to lose our capacity for commercial growth no matter how attractive the alternatives look in the short run."
Only one office building, the former Westcoast Transmission building on West Georgia, has been converted outright in the last couple of years, but Beasley said he has had half a dozen other inquiries, and just the possibility of more conversions will start to destabilize the commercial real-estate market.
Beasley advised developers to start looking at Chinatown, Gastown and the Downtown Eastside as possible building sites.
But he warned they can't just import the current Vancouver design favourite of pointe towers and podiums to those areas.
They'll have to find something that fits with those communities and that those communities will endorse, especially in the Downtown Eastside, he said.
"Since this is a much trickier form of development to build and market, some very creative thinking will be in order for Hastings Street projects and for any project that grows out of the unique DNA of the Downtown Eastside."
Beasley, who labelled his talk "The Shift East," emphasized that developers need to look east because the land shortage in western and central downtown will only get worse after the city puts in place its new policies on office-space conversion, as well as a new policy that will affect density in the Downtown South.
He said he'll be recommending to council shortly that the city not allow extra density on any more of the remaining small building sites in Downtown South.
In the past few years, the city has allowed several developers to build towers higher than the zoning allows in exchange for community spaces, like art galleries or film centres, or if those developers "bought" space from heritage buildings.
"It's simply too tough with the neighbours and too tight in the setting to put towers on these very small sites where no one has expected them."
Regarding office-space conversions, Beasley said there will be two policies to slow down the conversion of existing buildings in the central business district and to limit the production of residential buildings in the areas just outside the business district.
In order to discourage the conversion of existing office buildings, city staff will look at a process in which any conversion is reviewed to see what the long-term impact on commercial space will be.
"It won't be a moratorium," he said.
To limit production of residential buildings in areas zoned to be either residential or commercial, the city is looking at not automatically approving housing projects in what's called Area C -- the land between the central business district and Beatty, and south of Victory Square.
Beasley's message was taken to heart by his audience.
David Negrin, second in command at Concord Pacific, joked that CEO Terry Hui would instantly abandon his plan to build a pointe tower on Hastings Street -- something Beasley specifically referred to in his speech as a project that wouldn't be acceptable.
Urban Development Institute president Ward McAllister said developers might not be thrilled about the limitations on building projects downtown, but Beasley's direct message is better than a "slow no."
He also agreed with Beasley's assessment of the dangers of current trends. "I share his concern about the conversion of commercial space," he said.
Beasley also advised developers to look at ways of broadening their targeted market downtown.
The current boom could easily come to a crashing halt as immigration and migration from the suburbs slows down, or as interest rates increase, he said, adding developers should look at how to make housing more attractive to families.
There are more children in the downtown now than there are in Point Grey, he pointed out. If developers could market even more to that family contingent, "the market potential could be expanded dramatically."
4/22/04
Koolio
I can see this being a big hit at law firms across the nation.
Recently a University of Florida engineering student named Brian Pietrodangelo built a mini fridge named Koolio that when you place an order through the website, will deliver a cold soda, beer, or various candy to you. Right now it's only available in one building at University of Florida but soon it could catch on in office buildings and other places."
I can see this being a big hit at law firms across the nation.
Recently a University of Florida engineering student named Brian Pietrodangelo built a mini fridge named Koolio that when you place an order through the website, will deliver a cold soda, beer, or various candy to you. Right now it's only available in one building at University of Florida but soon it could catch on in office buildings and other places."
4/21/04
O'Reilly Network: Googling Your Email [Oct. 07, 2002]
Massive amounts of email and poor search capabilities - check this out
Massive amounts of email and poor search capabilities - check this out
4/18/04
Jay Maynard's TRON costume
Disturbing. Falls into the same vein as dog shows. you can't make this up. this was posted on slashdot. site that gets a couple million hits a day. 15 minutes of fame
Disturbing. Falls into the same vein as dog shows. you can't make this up. this was posted on slashdot. site that gets a couple million hits a day. 15 minutes of fame
Yet another Sunday has arrived and I'm spending quiet time with wife and baby. While semi-quiet time...:-) It has been a busy weekend. I went out to Maple Ridge yesterday to visit family that was in town and introduce them to my daughter. Spent some time talking and sketching pictures with Dad and wife for an extension to the deck for the new house. Lots of fun. Appreciated dad's new trellises around his pond. A couple years for the plants to grow up and that will be a great little pond. Spent the evening at a weiner bbq in surrey for a friends birthday. Wife got to visit with friends and I spent the time trying to get baby to sleep and watching the hockey game. Everybody gets what they want.
Working on reviewing my to do lists today and putting together a job application due tomorrow. Looks like its going to be a nice day. Hope to get out for a walk along the beach.
Working on reviewing my to do lists today and putting together a job application due tomorrow. Looks like its going to be a nice day. Hope to get out for a walk along the beach.
4/15/04
4/14/04
4/13/04
Baby's first tooth came through today :-) She's starting to laugh as well. It's really neat when she first wakes up. You stick your head over the crib and she processes and then comes up with a beaming smile and a whole body shake of excitement that daddy's here to play with her again. Do remember when mornings were that much fun?
4/10/04
4/6/04
For richer, for poorer, the new shape of a city
'Burbs now where you find poverty
The city of neighbourhoods is increasingly becoming a city of growing poverty, marked by a creeping ring of social decline around a richer inner core.
The normal segments of society that make up traditional ghettoes are so spread across the city, from Scarborough through North York to Etobicoke, that it is the affluent areas that are segregated — isolated communities cut off, not by gates and barbed wire, but by economic circumstance.
That's one lesson from the United Way's report on poverty in Toronto, released yesterday.
For if there are "ghettoes" in Toronto you may find them exactly where you're not looking — along the desirable paths of high-priced Rosedale and North Toronto, The Kingsway and Guildwood.
The term "ghetto" conjures images of bombed-out buildings, boarded-up businesses, abandoned homes turned into crack houses, a broken, desolate landscape, a slum, a no-go zone, particularly at night.
We are not there — yet.
In truth, our ghetto might just be the pockets of privilege — small islands of prosperity in a city-wide span of poverty. Here, you find the white and the wealthy. The 'burbs are where, increasingly, you find the city's poor, its newcomers. And a disproportionate number of the poor are people of colour.
Called Poverty by Postal Code, the report reveals the growth of poor neighbourhoods, away from the downtown core and into suburbia — a sort of reverse migration, the antithesis of the hole-in-the-doughnut effect that sees a hollowed-out downtown surrounded by a prosperous suburb.
Toronto's reality might present a problem that's deeper, more extensive and, therefore, more difficult to fix.
Between 1981 and 2001, the number of Toronto families jumped 15 per cent while the number of "poor" families increased 69 per cent. This means poor families are increasing at a rate more than four times their numbers in the population.
Of 522 recognized Toronto neighbourhoods, according to postal code, 23 of them are super-poor by any measure. Here, between 26 per cent and 40 per cent of families meet the country's definition of poverty.
In another 97 neighbourhoods, up to a quarter of the families are poor.
Only 177 neighbourhoods are ones of low poverty.
Then the numbers get interesting.
Neighbourhoods where at least a quarter of the families are listed as poor is strictly an old City of Toronto phenomenon, virtually unknown in the rest of the Toronto region.
Toronto has 120 such neighbourhoods. Only one exists in the rest of the Toronto region.
In 1981, more than half (228 of 428) the Toronto neighbourhoods were performing better than the Canadian average for poverty among families. Twenty years later, it's dropped to one-third of the total.
In the amalgamated city of Toronto, the number of poor neighbourhoods in North York and Scarborough and Etobicoke are increasing at startling speed, while the downtown area, in comparison, remains virtually unchanged over the last decade — at least in terms of the percentage growth of poor families.
The traditional "poverty U" stretching from northern Etobicoke, through downtown Toronto and out to north Scarborough has been replaced by a ring around the city.
This means the poor areas are closing in on an increasingly smaller, more affluent city.
As long-time residents and newcomers seek affordable housing options they are moving to the suburbs. So much so that the city of Toronto has seen a concentration of poverty in the suburbs.
Not only are they migrating there, but the normal mix of incomes that has made the city avoid the stigmatization and problems associated with subsidized housing projects is slowly eroding.
Not only is poverty increasing among families, but more and more of these families are grouped together in the same area, often the only areas where they can find a semblance of affordable housing.
Forty-three per cent of poor families live in high-poverty neighbourhoods today, compared to 18 per cent two decades ago.
Add the layer of immigrants and the picture becomes more grim. The size of the poor immigrant family in Toronto jumped 125 per cent between 1981 and 2001 compared to a 13 per cent rise in the number of Canadian-born family persons in poverty.
Then, add race and colour to the mix and the numbers are startling.
The study says visible minority families make up 46 per cent of the Toronto population, but 68 per cent of all poor families.
Some of them do live in average or even upscale neighbourhoods. But of all poor families living in the poorest neighbourhoods, visible minorities make up almost eight in 10.
That should be enough to send off alarm signals, especially when black youths have been turning to gang and gun activity in several of these distressed neighbourhoods.
Those quick to dismiss the poor families identified here as layabouts who are poor because they don't work, consider this:
Of the poor families in the very poor neighbourhoods, 87 per cent are working and 90 per cent of people in the high poverty areas work. The rate of employment across the city is 93 per cent.
People are running to the suburbs in search of cheaper housing. They are doubling and tripling up in single-family homes. They are working but can't make ends meet because too much of their salary is going toward food and shelter.
Newcomers are disproportionately affected. People of colour are at the bottom of the ladder.
The next time you hear about trouble in a particular area of the city, look at the maps in today's paper and you can make a lot of money betting that the trouble emanates from the areas of high poverty.
"We must act right now," says United Way head Frances Lankin.
Or watch the trend line move in the same direction — with destructive certainty — when the 2011 census data is released.
America and Britain waited too long and now it's costing them billions of dollars in urban renewal costs.
'Burbs now where you find poverty
The city of neighbourhoods is increasingly becoming a city of growing poverty, marked by a creeping ring of social decline around a richer inner core.
The normal segments of society that make up traditional ghettoes are so spread across the city, from Scarborough through North York to Etobicoke, that it is the affluent areas that are segregated — isolated communities cut off, not by gates and barbed wire, but by economic circumstance.
That's one lesson from the United Way's report on poverty in Toronto, released yesterday.
For if there are "ghettoes" in Toronto you may find them exactly where you're not looking — along the desirable paths of high-priced Rosedale and North Toronto, The Kingsway and Guildwood.
The term "ghetto" conjures images of bombed-out buildings, boarded-up businesses, abandoned homes turned into crack houses, a broken, desolate landscape, a slum, a no-go zone, particularly at night.
We are not there — yet.
In truth, our ghetto might just be the pockets of privilege — small islands of prosperity in a city-wide span of poverty. Here, you find the white and the wealthy. The 'burbs are where, increasingly, you find the city's poor, its newcomers. And a disproportionate number of the poor are people of colour.
Called Poverty by Postal Code, the report reveals the growth of poor neighbourhoods, away from the downtown core and into suburbia — a sort of reverse migration, the antithesis of the hole-in-the-doughnut effect that sees a hollowed-out downtown surrounded by a prosperous suburb.
Toronto's reality might present a problem that's deeper, more extensive and, therefore, more difficult to fix.
Between 1981 and 2001, the number of Toronto families jumped 15 per cent while the number of "poor" families increased 69 per cent. This means poor families are increasing at a rate more than four times their numbers in the population.
Of 522 recognized Toronto neighbourhoods, according to postal code, 23 of them are super-poor by any measure. Here, between 26 per cent and 40 per cent of families meet the country's definition of poverty.
In another 97 neighbourhoods, up to a quarter of the families are poor.
Only 177 neighbourhoods are ones of low poverty.
Then the numbers get interesting.
Neighbourhoods where at least a quarter of the families are listed as poor is strictly an old City of Toronto phenomenon, virtually unknown in the rest of the Toronto region.
Toronto has 120 such neighbourhoods. Only one exists in the rest of the Toronto region.
In 1981, more than half (228 of 428) the Toronto neighbourhoods were performing better than the Canadian average for poverty among families. Twenty years later, it's dropped to one-third of the total.
In the amalgamated city of Toronto, the number of poor neighbourhoods in North York and Scarborough and Etobicoke are increasing at startling speed, while the downtown area, in comparison, remains virtually unchanged over the last decade — at least in terms of the percentage growth of poor families.
The traditional "poverty U" stretching from northern Etobicoke, through downtown Toronto and out to north Scarborough has been replaced by a ring around the city.
This means the poor areas are closing in on an increasingly smaller, more affluent city.
As long-time residents and newcomers seek affordable housing options they are moving to the suburbs. So much so that the city of Toronto has seen a concentration of poverty in the suburbs.
Not only are they migrating there, but the normal mix of incomes that has made the city avoid the stigmatization and problems associated with subsidized housing projects is slowly eroding.
Not only is poverty increasing among families, but more and more of these families are grouped together in the same area, often the only areas where they can find a semblance of affordable housing.
Forty-three per cent of poor families live in high-poverty neighbourhoods today, compared to 18 per cent two decades ago.
Add the layer of immigrants and the picture becomes more grim. The size of the poor immigrant family in Toronto jumped 125 per cent between 1981 and 2001 compared to a 13 per cent rise in the number of Canadian-born family persons in poverty.
Then, add race and colour to the mix and the numbers are startling.
The study says visible minority families make up 46 per cent of the Toronto population, but 68 per cent of all poor families.
Some of them do live in average or even upscale neighbourhoods. But of all poor families living in the poorest neighbourhoods, visible minorities make up almost eight in 10.
That should be enough to send off alarm signals, especially when black youths have been turning to gang and gun activity in several of these distressed neighbourhoods.
Those quick to dismiss the poor families identified here as layabouts who are poor because they don't work, consider this:
Of the poor families in the very poor neighbourhoods, 87 per cent are working and 90 per cent of people in the high poverty areas work. The rate of employment across the city is 93 per cent.
People are running to the suburbs in search of cheaper housing. They are doubling and tripling up in single-family homes. They are working but can't make ends meet because too much of their salary is going toward food and shelter.
Newcomers are disproportionately affected. People of colour are at the bottom of the ladder.
The next time you hear about trouble in a particular area of the city, look at the maps in today's paper and you can make a lot of money betting that the trouble emanates from the areas of high poverty.
"We must act right now," says United Way head Frances Lankin.
Or watch the trend line move in the same direction — with destructive certainty — when the 2011 census data is released.
America and Britain waited too long and now it's costing them billions of dollars in urban renewal costs.
4/5/04
Parking rules choke growth of apartments
CHRISTOPHER HUME
Toronto Star
There are many ways cars destroy cities. Some are obvious, others less so.
In Toronto, one of the subtlest ways the automobile has inflicted major
damage to the city is through parking bylaws. Though these otherwise obscure
provisions are usually overlooked, if not ignored, by municipal politicians,
they have had a profound effect on the built form of the city.
One result is that the low-rise main-street development the city has sought
for the last 20 years has never happened — and never will unless changes
occur.
As it stands, there are different parking requirements in different areas.
They dictate the number of parking spots that must be included in new
buildings. These figures vary roughly from .75 to 1.0 parking spot per
residential unit, but are usually closer to 1.0.
That's fine for larger projects, when excavating underground garages makes
economic sense, but not for smaller buildings of, say, three to six storeys.
In these cases, the parking would have to be provided at ground level, which
typically means one whole floor of the building, the most financially
significant floor, must be left open, undeveloped, to make room for cars.
The irony, of course, is that the streets where intensification is
proposed — Yonge, Queen, Bloor, St. Clair, the Danforth, for example — are
already well served by public transit. In other words, these are the very
arteries where cars are least necessary.
"The parking issue is a red herring," insists Toronto architect David
Oleson, author of a main street housing feasibility report for the city.
"We haven't dealt with the automobile very creatively in Toronto. We don't
need to be able to park cars in our backyards, just in the neighbourhood.
The city has reduced parking requirements in some areas, but even so on
small sites they are prohibitive. City policies don't lead; they follow."
But as city Councillor Joe Pantalone points out, at a time when Toronto is
fighting for its fiscal life, issues such as parking aren't part of
political consciousness.
"Changing parking bylaws requires strong political will," Pantalone says.
"And it's not high on the priority list these days.
"But the existing requirements make it impossible to build low- and
medium-rise development. If we deal with it on a case-by-case basis, it
becomes a NIMBY issue and nothing happens."
Developers will tell you that demand for parking downtown is declining; some
suggest that .5 would be adequate. That means the number of parking spots
would be half the number of apartments.
Other cities take a more inventive approach. In Vancouver, some condo
builders now include a fleet of cars that owners can rent hourly or daily.
In New York, where real estate is too expensive to be wasted on parking
lots, you find stacked parking, which allows one spot to accommodate two or
three cars.
For us in Toronto, the challenge is to take maximum advantage of the
existing infrastructure, much of which is now woefully underused. Even our
much-vaunted subway, especially the Bloor-Danforth line, rarely operates at
full capacity. But because of our absurd and deeply anti-urban parking
policies, we're nowhere near that yet.
"You could get more density on the Danforth and Bloor St. W. than even on
King or Queen, the standard main streets," Oleson argues.
"These should be the primary focus for mixed-use intensification, because
they are the subway routes. The city's still thinking about this, but so far
our land-use patterns and transit planning aren't in sync. The two must be
more closely connected.
"The parking requirements are a good example of how dysfunctional city
policy has become. It's pretty fundamental. It's the other side of the
infrastructure, the invented infrastructure, that has started to get in the
way.
"The city, to its credit, has begun to talk about it, but it still hasn't
managed to come to grips with the issue."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca
CHRISTOPHER HUME
Toronto Star
There are many ways cars destroy cities. Some are obvious, others less so.
In Toronto, one of the subtlest ways the automobile has inflicted major
damage to the city is through parking bylaws. Though these otherwise obscure
provisions are usually overlooked, if not ignored, by municipal politicians,
they have had a profound effect on the built form of the city.
One result is that the low-rise main-street development the city has sought
for the last 20 years has never happened — and never will unless changes
occur.
As it stands, there are different parking requirements in different areas.
They dictate the number of parking spots that must be included in new
buildings. These figures vary roughly from .75 to 1.0 parking spot per
residential unit, but are usually closer to 1.0.
That's fine for larger projects, when excavating underground garages makes
economic sense, but not for smaller buildings of, say, three to six storeys.
In these cases, the parking would have to be provided at ground level, which
typically means one whole floor of the building, the most financially
significant floor, must be left open, undeveloped, to make room for cars.
The irony, of course, is that the streets where intensification is
proposed — Yonge, Queen, Bloor, St. Clair, the Danforth, for example — are
already well served by public transit. In other words, these are the very
arteries where cars are least necessary.
"The parking issue is a red herring," insists Toronto architect David
Oleson, author of a main street housing feasibility report for the city.
"We haven't dealt with the automobile very creatively in Toronto. We don't
need to be able to park cars in our backyards, just in the neighbourhood.
The city has reduced parking requirements in some areas, but even so on
small sites they are prohibitive. City policies don't lead; they follow."
But as city Councillor Joe Pantalone points out, at a time when Toronto is
fighting for its fiscal life, issues such as parking aren't part of
political consciousness.
"Changing parking bylaws requires strong political will," Pantalone says.
"And it's not high on the priority list these days.
"But the existing requirements make it impossible to build low- and
medium-rise development. If we deal with it on a case-by-case basis, it
becomes a NIMBY issue and nothing happens."
Developers will tell you that demand for parking downtown is declining; some
suggest that .5 would be adequate. That means the number of parking spots
would be half the number of apartments.
Other cities take a more inventive approach. In Vancouver, some condo
builders now include a fleet of cars that owners can rent hourly or daily.
In New York, where real estate is too expensive to be wasted on parking
lots, you find stacked parking, which allows one spot to accommodate two or
three cars.
For us in Toronto, the challenge is to take maximum advantage of the
existing infrastructure, much of which is now woefully underused. Even our
much-vaunted subway, especially the Bloor-Danforth line, rarely operates at
full capacity. But because of our absurd and deeply anti-urban parking
policies, we're nowhere near that yet.
"You could get more density on the Danforth and Bloor St. W. than even on
King or Queen, the standard main streets," Oleson argues.
"These should be the primary focus for mixed-use intensification, because
they are the subway routes. The city's still thinking about this, but so far
our land-use patterns and transit planning aren't in sync. The two must be
more closely connected.
"The parking requirements are a good example of how dysfunctional city
policy has become. It's pretty fundamental. It's the other side of the
infrastructure, the invented infrastructure, that has started to get in the
way.
"The city, to its credit, has begun to talk about it, but it still hasn't
managed to come to grips with the issue."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca
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