Art and Urbanism Link Roundup

Haven't been able to keep up weekly link posts.

Anyway, here are a bunch of recent Art and Urbanism links I found interesting.

Cleveland

The next must-live Cleveland neighborhood is... (Freshwater Cleveland)

One of Cleveland's critical, loved artist studio buildings to become office space (Freshwater Cleveland)

Mountain Bike Pump Track coming to South Euclid (Freshwater Cleveland)

Huffington Post names Cleveland number one "Beercation Destination". (Huffington Post)

Jetsetter names Cleveland one of the top 10 new food cities (Jettsetter.com) 

Cleveland Performance Art Festival archives moves to Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland.com)

Cleveland Warehouse District Festival brings acrobats, music, art, cute dogs to downtown (Cleveland.com)

Anish Kapoor's shiny C curve sculpture outside of The Cleveland Museum scorches grass (Cleveland.com)

Bike Sharing grows in Cleveland, with art museum, library, other new locations (Cleveland,com)

Stylish new Cleveland School of the Arts building opens in University Circle (Cleveland,com)

Pittsburgh

Want to turn Pittsburgh into a power player? Make flying to and from easier. (Pop City)

My response here

Time for a long overdue talk about Pittsburgh's waterfront stadiums (Diggingpitt)

With parking on North Shore in flux, developer gets extension on apartments  (Stadium owners have to allow apartments under deal that guarantees parking) (Pittsburgh Post Gazette_

Recent Penn Plaza evictions highlight East Liberty's severe lack of affordable housing. (Pittsburgh City Paper)

Pittsburgh task force on affordable housing to convene Thursday (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

City affordable housing task force convenes for the first time (Essential Pittsburgh)

Why blacks are not part of the vision of a Pittsburgh "comeback". (Pittsburgh Courier)

Is East End renewal really "black removal?" (Pittsburgh Courier)

Free Jazz pops ups in unexpected hot spots (Pop City)

As bicycle commuting rises, so does the danger of  pedaling by trucks (Public Source)

Pittsburgh rated a favorite food city by Livability.com 

Find unforgettable art in a most unlikely place: A Pittsburgh Mattress Factory (NPR- National Public Radio)

Fuerza! event celebrates Latinos making a difference in Pittsburgh  (Pop City)

What happens in Pittsburgh stays in Pittsburgh (An  honest post about the isolation of Pittsburgh's art scene) (Pittsburgh Articulate)

Other Urbanism and Architecture News

How conservative pundits have become the most vocal champions of smart urban planning (Pacific Standard)

Is this how to keep Indy's gentrifying neighborhoods affordable to homeowners?  (IndyStar)

Ferguson: The black iron fences of St. Louis (Belt Magazine)

10 years of change: The evolution of Detrot's non motorized transportation network (Model D)

Hypergentrification and the dissapearance of local businesses   (Governing)

America's biggest problem is concentrated poverty, not inequality. (Citylab)

Do outdoor smoking bans mostly punish the homeless? (Citylab)

Coming soon to America, one fare card for all transit (Citylab)

Florida's privately funded passenger rail plan chugs forward amid opposition (Citylab)

Should Tampa Bay embrace new urbanism? (Tampa Bay Times)

When sports fans fight, Why violence in the stands, online rage are spreading (The Seattle Times)

Pentagon orders Ferguson to return Humvees amid concerns about police militarization (Rawstory)

Art, Archaeology and Design news

Wind powered sculptures designed to outlive us all (Hyperallergic)

A new museum is a beacon for lighthouse history (Hyperallergic)

Cannabis discovered in pipes in William Shakespeare's gardern (The Telegraph)

Have humans evolved to love art? (Artnet)

New York's Hasted Kreutler Gallery closes amid accusations of financial misdeeds (Artnet)

Honolulu Museum sues art collector for nearly $1 million over donation of allegedly smuggled artwork (Artnet)

Sotheby's misses estimates in "bumpy" second quarter (Artnet)

Queen Nefertiti's burial chamber could lie behind Tutankhamun's tomb (The Art Newspaper)

Some Assembly Required

Oh, this was just a lot of fun! Attack Theatre plays hard, don't they?
For a limited time, coming to a neighborhood near you! ...for scheduling and location details
Enjoy the following VERY short clips.

Ass backwards state cuts transit funds while giving 4.5 million for East Liberty parking garage

As someone coming from somewhere else, one thing I can't get past is the city's deeply damaged self confidence.

Poor little Pittsburgh left with nothing after the mills closed --and now--great, we got a Target and a Home Depot.

Coming from that damaged perspective, the bar is set at a level where almost all development looks good.

from Pop City

After 25 years of vacancy, the Historic Highland and Wallace buildings in East Liberty are under renovation and will once again offer housing and retail opportunities to the community. Construction began Monday on the 103-year-old complex, which is being converted to 129 apartments, 5,000 sq. ft. of retail space, and will include a 180-car parking garage

After 25 years! In East Liberty, where the black people used to live and everybody knows you shouldn't go! At least Pop City didn't try to call it "Eastside". Ooooh, thank you for the retail and housing opportunities!

It's safe now and look we got parking! In fact, we spent 4.5 million in state tax dollars to put in 180 units of parking. Never mind that East Liberty is a transit hub served by many bus lines or that surrounding areas are walkable. The bus service is for poor people. We got parking!

The development hinged on two key funding components: a $4.5 million grant from the state for construction of a parking garage, and federal financing from HUD, both of which the project received.

LOL "It's 100 percent historic renovation" says the developer. A good part of one of the buildings was torn down to make way for the parking, which hardly fits with historic preservation.

Whatever. The bar is obviously set very, very low. Driving and masses of parking spaces are built into the pie and basically forced down our throats at gunpoint. Anyway, this is the kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that helps make the urban tax base and transit system such a black hole.

Some Details On Upcoming Pittsburgh Small Press Festival In October

Got this email from occasional blog contributor, Karen Lillis, who is up on all things lit related.

Keep up with all details and news here on the SPF site.

"SPF, Pittsburgh's Small Press Festival, is on for October! The Third Annual SPF Expo will happen on Saturday, Oct. 8, as a part of VIA, Pittsburgh’s premiere audio and visual festival! The expo will be held on the 2nd Floor of the Family Dollar building at Broad & Sheridan in East Liberty—a superb location near lots of students, writers, readers, and arts enthusiasts (and even more free parking). They’re sharing the space with the Pittsburgh Record Fest, which (along with our association with VIA) will surely help draw a crowd in this tight timeframe.

Because they are still confirming some details with both VIA and the Pittsburgh Record Fest, they are tentatively slating the SPF Expo for an 11am to 5pm timeframe. The SPF website will be updated and ready for online registration soon. They’ll also be flooding the local media with press releases to reflect this development in the coming days, but for now, please respond to Adam's email (below) if you intend to register as a press, magazine, zine, author, etc.—and feel free to tell your friends in the literary and publishing communities, as well!

The price for a table and chairs at SPF remains at $25. If you have any other questions, please do ask away. They understand that this is invitation is down to the wire (The Expo date is less than six weeks away!), and really appreciate your patience.

Please note also that the same weekend (Saturday and Sunday), Pittsburgh is hosting its Second Annual PIX Indy Comics Expo. This two-day tabling event drew many awesome comics artists and small presses last year, from the Midwest, East Coast, and the Pittsburgh area. PIX will be located a short bus ride from SPF."

More Images From Fleeting Pages Pop Up Bookstore In East Liberty

Swung by Fleetingpages again to help Jean install her art. Lots of good news and expanding inventory. The Big Idea, alternative bookstore in Bloomfield now has a section in the store with perhaps 100 titles--most strongly political.

By tomorrow, Bob Ziller will have a selection of titles from Awesome Books in Garfield, which has a very broad selection of fiction, history and art titles. The Fleetingpages inventory has also expanded. My guess is there might now be 1000 titles in the store, which might not sound like much relative to a large bookstore. This however is a significant amount great stuff you are highly unlikely to find elsewhere.

Swing by often as the space evolves and changes. As you can see from the in store calendar, many events are planned--with many more on the way.

FYI Fleeting Pages is still open to new stuff but it must be brought in by May 13.

Why Pittsburgh Should Consider A Comprehensive City Plan Like Youngstown 2010

Anyone who digs deep enough into this blog's history will know that my personal views lean Libertarian and I'm deeply doubtful of conventional urban planning. This being said, perhaps what might be worse is the hodgepodge of disconnected--non planning I see in Pittsburgh today-in which the city and authorities like the URA seek to "engage the public" or more often reveal their already made plans.

A few weeks ago, I told you about a sudden series of meetings (or at least sudden to me) open to Oakland residents about neighborhood design--meetings that did not involve people from surrounding neighborhoods like The Upper Hill, East Liberty, Squirrel Hill or Shadyside. Not long before, East Liberty did something similar--again without input from surrounding areas. Likewise, those interested could attend meetings about Pittsburgh transit which were also completely detached from zoning, development and other topics.

Now it's Homewood's turn and as is not unusual, the process starts with a press release handed down from top city officials.

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Councilman Ricky Burgess today announced a new collaborative designed to bring East Liberty-style growth to the struggling Homewood neighborhood.

Mr. Burgess announced that the city Planning Department will provide $150,000 to the Homewood-Brushton Community Coalition Organization to hire one or more economic development specialists. He said additional funding announcements by the city and Urban Redevelopment Authority will be made in the next week or so.

How exactly, any of these places or plans are supposed to understand issues like service needs, transit planning or parking and traffic without carefully looking at and coordinating on a wider level is never explained. Often, this job is left to a well paid out of town consultant who flies in and dumps off some advice. The end result is a public confused and unaware of the potential and development options that might be available, who rightly feels the process is a waste of their time.

Interestingly, Pittsburgh's nearby although much smaller neighbor, Youngstown has done things very differently by creating a process that got a broad section of the public, to think about the city's past and future.

"In the infant years of the new millennium, the city realized it urgently needed a new vision. Jay Williams was working as the city’s director of community development in 2001 when the planning department sought out the expertise of Youngstown State University (YSU), the leading employer for the city and Williams’s alma mater. YSU had plans in mind for its own growth, but ended up nurturing a rehabilitative partnership with the city. Williams, along with D’Avignon and Anthony Kobak, the current chief city planner, teamed with YSU academics piqued by the research of new urbanists such as Stephen Graham and Ann Markusen. Youngstown came to recognize itself, in the words of Markusen’s theoretical work, not as a “sticky” place —an urban center that continuously draws people (Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York City) — but as “slippery” — one where it’s easy for, say, a YSU student to slip into the city, and then slip out due to lack of jobs or housing.

“Our right-sizing plan came out of talks we were having internally acknowledging that although our population wouldn’t be going back to the hundreds of thousands, but that smaller didn’t mean inferior,” says Mayor Williams. “The question we asked was, because we were once so much larger how can we take the remnants of what made us large and build upon that?”

The planning team began to consider a counterintuitive approach to development: rather than grow the city, it should clean and “green” up the unoccupied real estate. They conceived and presented a basic “right-sizing” formula to the Youngstown public, who fleshed out the plan with their ideas and expectations. Or, depending on whom you ask, the planners consulted the public first and then drew up a blueprint for Youngstown 2010.

No matter its genesis, the eventual plan reflected three years of public surveys and town hall meetings aimed at understanding the city’s needs. “Overwhelmingly, people said they wanted the city shrunken, and they were for cleaning up the blighted situations that were causing different variations of decay, crime and abandonment,” Kidd says. Thousands of citizens were consulted, and hundreds of students and professionals logged the process. The plan went into high gear after Williams was elected mayor in 2005. At 34, he was the youngest mayor Youngstown ever elected, and also the first African American — two identity aspects that resonated with college students and the emerging black majority."

Now again, I'm not an expert on what Youngstown did. Some might say, this long series of meetings was useless and didn't get down to specifics. It did however get a large percentage of people to support several general themes--that the city in the short run would have to shrink and that resources should be focused on key areas like the downtown. In the few years, since, the relative lack of acrimony and trouble likely came from these early meetings, where a broad base of people came to understand and buy into a certain way of looking at the city.

In my opinion a process like this in which people could meet, study, talk and speak with experts about major issues on something beyond just a neighborhood level would pay huge dividends over time.

Youngstown 2010

What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

The words of Frederic Bastiat are always on my mind here.

"In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."

Here is a question. Does the city of Pittsburgh generate lot's of bad economists or lots of good politicians?