Unseen Calgary Posted by Chris DeWolf on 26
March, 2000 - Back to the top
That is, unseen through the lens
of UPP. Yeah, I've decided to show you guys the "dark underbelly" of Calgary,
though it barely compared to the skid rows of most other big cities. Thanks to the photos
of View Calgary, this is Victoria Park, once the
most beautiful neighbourhood in Calgary, most of it built from 1890 to 1910. In recent
years it has declined into a drug-ridden slumlike area. Starting off, There's the nice
(but vacant and dilapidated) Enoch Sales House. I
swear, once the yuppies find this neighbourhood, they'll have a field day! Some more
unfortunately decaying buildings are seen here. In this aerial
photo, you can see most of eastern Victoria Park.
See those big redbrick
warehouses? Last time I walked past them, they were undergoing extensive restoration
and turned into lofts and retail. I suspect that within ten years Vic Park will be the
hippest place to live and shop in the city, just like Inglewood, another former
"slum" is now. Now, look at this: Olympic Way is a monumental
avenue lined by vacant lots and slum housing. Ah, the irony!
A few more before I finish
my tour. This aerial of
the residential southeast side of Victoria Park shows just how much the neighbourhood has
devolved. All those vacant lots used to be filled with nice buildings and houses; now
they're littered with used needles. The Victoria Community School
is the poorest in the city and it's been rumoured that some junkies use its washrooms to
shoot up. Here's a ground shot
of the warehouse district, most of which were built between 1905 and 1915. That's all
folks. It's always a terrible thing to see a dying neighbourhood like that. Also, by the
way, I'll be moving all these posts to an archive on Monday.
New articles on display Posted by Chris DeWolf on 25
March, 2000 - Back to the top
Three new articles are on
display in the Articles section. Sean Breazeal gives lets
us in on what GIS - Geographic Information System - is all about with his article GIS. In The Public
Realm and Suburbia, Payton Chung, a student in Chicago, writes an editorial about the
US's loss of the public realm in many places and how he thinks suburbia is to blame.
Finally, Wayne Hurley, a previous contributor and transportation planning specialist for
the central Minnesota region, has written about the effects of sprawl on transportation in
The Effects of Sprawl on the Environment. I hope you
all enjoy these articles, and don't be afraid to write in to tell us your own opinions.
Transit phobia hits
Calgary Posted by Chris DeWolf on 23
March, 2000 - Back to the top
An article in the Calgary
Herald brought light to the fight by the residents of Canyon Meadows - a suburban
neighbourhood in the south of Calgary - to prevent the construction of a new light rail
transit station in their subdivision. Apparently, the president of the CM community
association, Paul Kowalenko, believes that a C-Train station will decrease property
values, raise crime and increase traffic. In an poll conducted, 87% of Canyon Meadows
residents are against a train station in their district, leaving city officials, the
police and other community associations baffled.
Who's been feeding the
residents of Canyon Meadows false information? LRT stations do not lower property value
(they increase it!), raise crime or increase traffic. The more-traffic theory can be
disproved simply because this particular LRT station won't have a parking lot. As for the
community association's other two beliefs, one simply has to look at Calgary
neighbourhoods with existing train stations to see that crime is no higher since their
construction and property values have in fact gone up. The apparent transit phobia of
Canyon Meadowers is hindering the connection of the deep southern suburbs to the rest of
the city by train, something I'm sure we'd all like to see.
Coming this weekend Posted by Chris DeWolf on 22
March, 2000 - Back to the top
Towards the end of this week I'm
planning on posting a couple new articles to the Articles
section: the informational essay on G.I.S. that was featured in last month's Urbanite, as well as the two articles featured in
March's Sprawl Issue. Otherwise, it won't be too busy around here. Don't forget, the April
issue of Urbanite is coming up, so be sure to subscribe, and if you have any ideas for our
feature article, don't hesitate to give me a shout.
Adding to the editorial I
posted about Venice yesterday, here are some interesting Venezia links. I couldn't find
any about the problem tourism poses to the city, but I'll be sure to tell you when 60
Minutes posts an overview of their story on their website. That shouldn't be for
another few weeks, though. For now, you'll have to settle for this interesting article
from National Geographic about Venice's unfortunate sinking. Another article,
from the Environental News Service, details the pollution of the Grand Lagoon. Saving Venice (not related to savevenice.org) is a site that covers the all-around
problems of one of the most beautiful cities on Earth.
Sad, ain't it?
Venice is dying Posted by Chris DeWolf on 21
March, 2000 - Back to the top
If any of you watched 60
Minutes the night before last, the show had a feature on the slowly setting sun of
Venice. Not from the well-known sinking, however, but instead from the tremendous crowd of
irresponsible tourists. The majority of these offenders are one-day visitors who are
dropped off by bus, walk around for a few hours, and head back onto the bus destined for
another city to ruin. As a result, Venice has thousands upon thousands of tourists walking
it's streets each day, none of whom are putting any money into the city's economy. All
they leave behind is their garbage and pollution from their buses. Another damaging result
is that they, as a huge market of gullible, spend-thrifty people, attract international
chain stores (McDonald's, Disney) and a plethora of tacky souvenir shops selling plastic
gondolas made in Taiwan. These stores (and the pollution the daytrippers leave behind) is
incredibly damaging to the urban environment of Venice. Pigeons and rats are multiplying
like mad to feed off the junk the tourists leave behind, and the famous canals are now
horrendously polluted.
In a noble sweep to actually
repel tourists from coming to fair Venezia, the mayor of Venice established an
anti-tourism campaign, which included some striking photographs that bring light to
Venice's problems. Unfortunately, the city-destroyers (er, "daytripping
visitors"), kept flocking in, eating at McDonald's, and driving out. Some of the more
ignorant tourists believe that they are justified in doing so because, in their minds,
Venice is a dead city, simply a museum. Of course, in all their American-hamburger-eating,
kitsch-buying, Disney-loving fun, they failed to realise that Venice is a thriving little
city of 75,000 people. These residents don't shop at The Disney Store, Calvin Klein or
Tommy Hilfiger, they shop at little Italian corner stores and locally owned businesses.
Venetians need tourists - the city's economy depends on it - but they sure as hell don't
need a bunch of yokels who come, stare at the Campanile, play with the pigeons and leave.
These visitors should instead be spending their money on local glass-blowing musems, shops
and hotels, not on impersonal, global consumer institutions. Stay awhile, get a feel for
the city! It's due time that daytripping tourists, start realising that Venice is a
real city with real inhabitants, not a Las Vegas-style plastic replica.
It's photo time! Posted by Chris DeWolf on 20
March, 2000 - Back to the top
Yay, it's time for some photos!
To start off, there are some really nice Tokyo panoramas I'd like to show you. One thing
you hardly ever see is the "natural" beauty of the city, which is the feature of
this lovely picture
taken in the Marunouchi district. Another one of my favourites is this photo taken in
one of Tokyo's less harried suburbs, the Daikanyama. Yet another good one is this one taken from
the Chitose Bridge in the Mejiro suburb. Looks sort of European, doesn't it? Now this shot of Minami-Ikebukuro
just doesn't seem like Tokyo at all. It's almost countrylike in it's quietude. All of
these and more can be found at the excellent Panorama Tokyo site.
A couple other interesting
photos I found, thanks in no small part to the folks at the Skyscraper Forum, is this one of the
oft-overlooked Chinese city of Dalian, and yet another Dalian skyline shot. Moving into
misc mode, this is a nice
overview of the Kensington district in Calgary, taken by View Calgary. Here's a great photo of a
neo-Baroque church in Birmingham, Alabama, taken from the interesting Birmingham Design page.
Phoenix and SF get new rails Posted by Chris DeWolf on 19
March, 2000 - Back to the top
Finally, something good is happening, transit-wise, in the
desert city that doesn't even have Saturday or Sunday bus service. Earlier today, a bill
passed in Phoenix that approved a citywide expansion of bus services as well as the
construction of a new light rail system to be completed by 2006. Check out this article
for more details.
In related news, San Francisco is getting an extension to
it's popular light-rail MUNI services. A new line will be extended down the city's Third
Street, following historical streetcar routes. The initial phase of the LRT will be
completed by early 2004 and the second phase completed by 2008. MUNI has set up a handy
little site with lots of information: click
here to see it.
We're back! Posted by Chris DeWolf on 16
March, 2000 - Back to the top
After a long downtime, we're back! A lot of you have been in the dark as to what happened
to UPP. Well, it seems we exceeded the space Hypermart allotted us - by a huge amount -
and they kicked us off. Unfortunately, technical complications prevented us from
reestablishing a new, smaller Urban Photo Page account, so we had to look for
alternatives. That's when Karl Zimmerman of Nozone
came to the rescue and generously hosted us as well as provided our domain for us. Hence,
I present to you the new, improved Urban Photo Page! Hope you like it.
The Urban Photo Page is devoted to urbanity. With our
photos, for which we were orginally acclaimed, we express the joy of urban exploration
through images. In our urban affairs section, we bring awareness to you about sprawl,
cities and current development. The following two people have dedicated their time and
effort to maintaining this site:
The photo sections are designed for the armchair
traveller or "urban connoisseur" more than anyone else. Our articles are
designed not only to give the average person an insight on how cities work and what they
do, but also to express this Urban Photo Page's opinion on certain matters. For the
record, the editors here at UPP - that is to say, Chris Szabla, Chris DeWolf and Mark
Grotkiewicz - are both fans of the city or trained in urban design and sociology (in
Grotkiewicz's case). We hope you enjoy the Urban Photo Page and both it's photos and
articles.
Lonely
Planet - This TV series, made by the same people who publish the
acclaimed guidebooks, is worth watching not only for it's excellent urban episodes but
also it's adventurous treks into the wild. The filmography is top-notch. Plays on Outdoor Life Network in Canada, and the Travel Channel in the US.
Check local listings for times.
Be sure to check the links to
your right in "Other Sites of Interest". Here are a few other city-related,
non-photo page links: Back to the top.
City.net
- Excite Travel's page has over 5000 destinations in it's databanks. Type in
the name of the city you're looking for, and it'll spew out all sorts of information, as
well as links. This is a great starting point for the online urban explorer; be sure to
check it out.
Lonely Planet Online- The online
version of the great TV show (see above) and guidebooks, LP Online offers a full online
version of it's guides to world cities, as well as featured articles.
Carfree Cities - J.H. Crawford presents a
convincing argument on why our cities should be car-free and oriented towards the
pedestrian. In his comprehensive site, he draws up plans of what a car-free city might
look like, and he uses Venice and various other cities as an example that
pedestrian-oriented cities can work.
OTRF Urban Links -A page
chock-full of urban-related links. Some turn out to be duds, but others are golden. Worth
a look.
Sierra Club Sprawl Report - A
wonderful site dealing with the urban sprawl that affects our cities. Includes articles,
links, and a list of the American cities that have the worst sprawl.
Planning and Design Institute -A
comprehensive and wonderful site chock-full of interesting architectural and urban
designs. There are some great plans here. Thanks go out to markgro@csd.uwm.edu for recommending this site.
Rough
Guides Online - Uncompromising and honest-to-the-bone guides to hundreds
upon hundreds of cities around the globe. A great reference source.
Click on the title of each book
to go to it's Amazon.com
page. We are an Amazon.com Associate, so any book you buy via these links will help
support our site. Back to the top.
The Death and Life of Great American
Cities, by Jane
Jabobs. (1961). 451 pages. A classic that changed the way we see our cities.
Sometimes the writing can be long and redundant, but overall, it's a must-read for anyone
remotely interested in cities and how they work.
City Life, by Witold Rybczynski. (1996). Unknown pages. An engaging
and interesting book that explains why North American cities are the way they are. What
really got me about this book was how easy it was to read - it's made for the layman.
Cityscapes of
Boston: An American City Through Time, by Robert Campbell, photographs by
Peter Vanderwarker. (1992). 219 pages. Composed of "before and after"
photos of city scenes in Boston, with intelligent and often witty commentary by Robert
Campbell. A great book.
Central
Square,by George Packer. (1998). Unknown pages. Okay,
okay, so this is fiction - but I heartily recommend you all read it. It really gives you
an insight into the lives of the average urban dweller, in this case the ones in the
gritty but lively Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Mass.
The City
Reader, edited by Richard T. Legates and Frederic Stout. (1996). 532
pages. This is a collection of essays by various acclaimed urban writers, ranging
from Le Corbusier to Frank Lloyd Wright to Jane Jacobs. Each essay is prefaced by a
summary and an editor's introduction; in essence, this is a miniature library and a great
resource for all those interested in the city.
Home Town,
by Tracy Kidder. (1999). 349 pages. An interesting look into the life of a rather
unusual small town - Northampton, Massachusetts, with one of the largest gay populations
in the US - and it's two faces. One is the wild and liberal side, revolving around
yuppified Main Street, and the other is the traditional conservative town. Reads like a
fiction novel even though it's entirely factual.
