12/4/14 - 12/10/14 Arts and Urbanism Roundup

Cleveland

Cleveland officer who shot 14 year old considered unfit for duty by another police department (PBS Newshour)

National questions about police hit home in Cleveland (New York Times)

Cleveland Police evade Ohio's mandatory DNA collection law (Jurist)

Major expansion of The Cleveland Institute of Art nears completion (Cleveland.com)

Pittsburgh

Port Authority drivers ordered to stand trial for Pittsburgh bus crash (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Pittsburgh mayor stars on reality TV show, "Undercover Boss" (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

LBPC to unveil plans for a more walkable, bikeable Lawrenceville (Bike Pittsburgh)

US Steel keeps headquarters in Pittsburgh for a price (Pennsylvania Independent)

State liquor laws hurt young musicians (Pittsburgh City Paper)

Pennsylvania

Why 2015 could be the year for medical marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Independent)

Climbing employee pension costs squeeze state budget (Pennsylvania Independent)

No escape from pension math in Pennsylvania (Bloomberg News)

Harvard study ranks Pennsylvania among top 5 most corrupt states (CBS Philly)

Philadelphia regional transit system, SEPTA finally ditching tokens and paper tickets (NBC 4)
 
Other Urbanism and Architecture News

Can different training make police officers guardians, not warriors?

Do federal stats undercount police killings? (PBS Newshour)

More than 1000 people have been killed by police in 2014 (Reason)

Houston police chief calls drug war a "miserable failure", says Feds need to lead reform (Huffington Post)

Walkability vs. affordability (Washington Post)

More Americans are behind on car payments (CNN Money)

How a train station offering no new service cost $4 Billion in NYC (New York Times)

"Latino Urbanism" influences a Los Angeles in flux (Los Angeles Times)

Why the Da Vinci fire has L.A. urbanists rethinking downtown's future (Los Angeles Times)

Tech Culture and rising inequality: A complex relationship (CityLab)

Why Nashville is still America's music city (Next City)

Detroit artist: Actually Detroit isn't so cheap (Next City)

Copenhagen plans to expand by building artificial islands (CityLab)

Late-night transit service to expand from San Francisco to East Bay (San Francisco Examiner)

Other Arts and Archeology News

Pioneering Brooklyn Art space, Galapagos moves to Detroit (Detroit Free Press)

How Mosaics are shaping Haiti's future (Hyperallergic)

Miami graffiti artist in critical condition after cop runs him over (Hyperallergic)

Photographers irked as Flickr profits from creative commons images (Hyperallergic)

Museums and market finally warming to works on paper (The Art Newspaper)

A documentary traces the history of video game graphics (Hyperallegic)

Can satellite fairs give artists their first big break? (The Art Newspaper)

11/11/14 - 11/18/14 Arts and Urbanism Roundup

Pittsburgh

Baron Batch discusses life as a Pittsburgh artist (Daily Toreador)

Nurturer of Modernism: Modernist studies conference looks at Pittsburgh's role. (Pittsburgh Post Gazette) (Nov 5th)

Pittsburgh Post Gazette looks at holiday season house tours (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Forbes ranks Pittsburgh as a top place for veterans (Forbes)

Pittsburgh's arena football team, The Pittsburgh Power, ceases operations (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Cleveland

Lawn mowing sheep, one of several green, money saving strategies (National Journal)

Lake Effect artist's studios and event space coming to Cleveland State campus district (Freshwater Cleveland)

East Boulevard is a hidden gem among Cleveland neighborhoods (Freshwater Cleveland)

Cleveland's best places to live car-lite (Green City Blue Lake)


Cincinnati 

Cincinnati bike movement skips angry drivers, gets right down to growing (Next City)

West Virginia and Appalachia

West Virginia University suspends fraternities after student death (Valley News Live)

WVU School of Art hosts second annual Iron Pour event (The Daily Athenaeum)

The All Good Music Festival and Camp out returns to West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle (JamBase)

Other Urbanism and Architecture News

How will congress respond to marijuana legalization in D.C.?  (Reason)

How sprawl hits Atlanta residents right in the wallet

Rise of the robot security guards (MIT Technology Review)

Riding the Rails: Chicago's history as a transit hub in photos (Curbed Chicago)

Survey shows Miami-Dade transit riders put frequent service and reliability first   (Miami Today)

American's cellphones targeted in secret U.S. spy program (Wall Street Journal)

Tensions over park behavior as homelessness rises in New York (New York Times)

Walkable development protects against catastrophe (Houston Chronicle)

Seattle government destroys play-garden for special-needs kids (Crosscut)

How the war on drugs perpetuates violence in Latin America (Vox)

World's largest solar energy plant producing much less power than expected (Associated Press)


Other Arts and Archeology News

Arts Scene in downtown Los Angeles grows (The Art Newspaper)

Christie's to sell largest private collection of Asian art at auction (The Art Newspaper)

Warhol's Elvis and Brando paintings sell or more than $151 million at Christie's (UK Telegraph)

11 modern and contemporary artists including Twombly, Ruscha, Kusama, Sherman, Gorky, break auction records

New project to digitize 10,000 Sci-Fi zines (Hyperallergic)

How Museums affect the brain (Hyperallergic)

Richmond, Virginia's RVA Street Art Festival announces a new location (Richmond.com)

Disturbing new documentary claims sex abuse widespread in Hollywood (The Hollywood Reporter)

Inside look at Harvard's new art museum (Boston.com)

A Philadelphia library sues Maurice Sendak's estate (Hyperallergic)

Real-life Sherlock Holmes hunts down stolen Nazi art (Vocative.com)

Black Comedy: cartoons in the first world war (Apollo Magazine)

Satirical news website, The Onion may be for sale (Bloomberg)

Texas Art Site, Glass Tire Creates Southern California Regional Site

As a New Yorker, The Los Angeles area always struck me more as a brand, masquerading as a city. The one thing they do well is slapping a cohesive mental image on a vast region of disparate parts, none of which alone would warrant such a high level of attention.

Not so surprisingly, the ten year old, famous art website, Glass Tire that did so much to connect and brand the Texas Art community, is creating a spin off site linking Southern California.

Glass Tire: Southern California

The map's tire icons link to art events and stories in each sub region-

Santa Barbara
Santa Monica/Venice
West Hollywood/Midtown
Culver City
Downtown LA
LA -Other
Orange County
San Diego

This is a vast area of 215 miles, between Santa Barbara and San Diego with a travel time of almost 4 hours, much further than the distance between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we thought a bit more regionally. What factor do state borders and old money foundations have in creating artificial distortions? Do people who visit or live in one place know much about what's happening so close by?

L.A. Stakes Its Claim as a World Art Center, The Benefits of Regional Collaboration

The Times has a good article about almost 170 exhibits in 130 institutions, highlighting the birth of what is now known as the L.A. art scene.

Funny thing is that the shows are spread from San Diego to Santa Barbara,(more than 200 miles) a vast region, making it a triumph of branding, so strong that for many Los Angeles and Southern California have become interchangeable places.

"Still, for many Los Angeles artists and critics, Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, is a long-needed accounting of the emergence of the region as an art capital in the same league as New York, Berlin and London. Indeed, Los Angeles these days has more than its share of ambitious museums, adventurous art galleries, wealthy collectors, top-notch art schools and — perhaps most important — young artists drawn here by relatively cheap rents, abundant light and an atmosphere that encourages experimentation."

The overall region has always done well at creating collaborations-like Supersonic-a huge annual joint regional MFA show.

I guess, I wonder why the Pittsburgh to Cleveland region which is also loaded with low costs and a wide variety of creative assets has done so little to create these kinds of connections or any kind of regional brand.