Was walking the suspicious activity in the Trayvon Martin case?

I probably shouldn't throw this theory out there, but one of the first things after hearing about the tragic Trayvon Martin (most likely murder) case was that it happened outside Orlando, Florida--a place notorious for it's lack of basic urbanism.

People have speculated, that Trayvon was considered a suspect, just because he was black or because he was black and wearing a hoodie (it was raining)Few have noted he was also doing something else, that may have seemed unusual; he was walking in a place most people seem to drive everywhere.

I just heard about the greater Orlando area being ranked as the most dangerous major urban area for pedestrians in the entire country.

Dangerous by Design

The new report comes with a listing of the 10 most dangerous urban areas to be on foot (greater Orlando takes the prize as the most hazardous city to walk in) and with an interactive map, showing where fatalities are most likely to occur.

From walkscore.com

....................Walk Score........population

Sanford, Florida .... 36 ........... 52,273

Orlando, Florida .... 47 ........... 237,105

Could an place that makes basic daily human interaction so difficult have helped create paranoid fears? Anyway, if you know this area well and have thoughts, please share them.

Rebuilding the Cities That Built America Conference Was Great

OK, I gotta call a spade on this one. Substantive, in depth, pretty uplifting and crowded with people and ideas.

I swear this time I will really get back with at least one or two in depth posts about it. One negative was that I failed to network more, in that there just wasn't enough time. Don't worry not all my thoughts are positive and my fear that this was nothing more than a shallow lobbying effort was partially, true. But, believe me it was much more. If you live in Pittsburgh, you know about a lot of the great small scale efforts made by thousands of people and dozens of small organizations. It's great to see that similar and sometimes even more uplifting and spectacular things are happening in places like Youngstown.

We broke down into working groups, one of which detailed efforts by University's in Cleveland, Youngstown and Pittsburgh to create and leverage new relationships with their communities. Several bummers. No mayor of Youngstown--a pretty busy guy these days and almost no chance at all to see the city, even though the event was just at the edge of downtown.

The Fight To Cross A Bridge In Cleveland

Photo from Rust Wire

I've seriously thought about expanding the blog's name and mission yet again to include the maligned city of Cleveland, and all the area in between. Like it or not, Cleveland is the nearest neighboring planet of size and improvements in both places will be good for all.

A fight is developing, for the simple right of pedestrians and bikes to cross a major highway bridge there. You know, it sucks when people who live in the city inconvenience those who are just passing through. Perhaps the whole city should be labled an obstruction to highway traffic, like the South Bronx was.

"Residents in Tremont, one of Cleveland’s fastest growing neighborhoods, were cut off from downtown when ODOT closed an onramp last year that connected the area to downtown with virtually a straight line.

The bridge is going to be replaced anyway, beginning in 2011. So why not include such a path? It seems rare nowadays that the common sense, the public interest, and federal agency’s directives are on the same page. The Federal Highway Administration’s officially adopted policy for new transportation infrastructure, you would think, makes it easy for ODOT to give the path a green light:"

Dennis Kucinich, today took the issue to the house floor and the story was picked up by the Streetsblog network, which is emerging as an important grapevine for pro urban activists.