Pittsburgh's Sprawl Problem

Bill O'Driscoll has a nice short story about the effects of our misguided, government funded and enforced development pattern which is at the root of our wastefull lifesyle.

"Jim Hassinger, executive director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, led off by discussing Project Region, the group's effort to chart its 10-county territory's preferred future. Over two years, with input from 3,000 citizens, Hassinger says the SPC discovered a public preference for more compact, higher-density development.

"Thus, the SPC's long-range plan -- the region's blueprint for funding things like infrastructure and economic development -- leans toward revitalizing existing communities and preserving open space, in contrast to the low-density, bedroom-suburb-and-strip-mall model that has characterized growth in the region (and the country) for decades.

This was music to critics of the SPC's history of favoring highway-based development. Meanwhile, the conference's keynote speech by renowned metropolitan land-use strategist, author and real-estate developer Christopher Leinberger announced that communities designed to be more compact and walkable -- and hence more environmentally friendly -- are also the market's future. "The market basically is switching," he said, citing increases not only in fuel prices but in people who prefer urban living."

I'll be back on this subject again soon.

More On The Akron Art Museum

Charles Rosenblum, the architecture critic for The Pittsburgh City Paper wrote a nice piece on the Akron Art Museum's new expansion also. He also fessed up to have never had the urge to go there before this which is the reason so many cities fall over themselves to create a "Bilbao effect."

The strange thing about the reviews I have read so far is that few seem to talk abot the actual gallery and exhibitions spaces-- the aleged reason the place exists. I think if one asked many contemporary artist's their favorite NY exhibition spaces--the modest Whitney would come out near the top- in that it seems to be a building that is well adapted to it's function.I like it but, that could be because, it's the only museum that ever gave me a free lifetime pass!!!

Review OF Swoon Show

By the way there was finally a well written and insightfull review of the Swoon show in the City Paper. From what I can see, that was about it in terms of coverage here.

"Stain and Swoon, derive their inspiration, and in which they define their creative practices. Put simply, they see the outside world of pedestrians and walls as a more potent display space for their ideas than the comparatively sterile pretenses of art patrons and the white cube. Swoon, in an interview with The New York Times, once said that outdoor display avoids the "quiet, boring preciousness" of the gallery world."

You can see very clearly in the show how much all three artists valued and loved the tragically sacred setting of Braddock.