This is my bit of a blog. Rambling words about rambling days. No focus and nothing ambitious. I seem to write most about local color, nature, and animals, and there is an incomplete chunk about my road trips of 2011.
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Monday, August 13, 2012
Recycling in Monroe County
Monroe County does not pick up recycling with trash. However, we have a 'mobile recycling' program. Residents can deposit recyclables in a collection trailer that stops in different towns on different days.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Retail Landscape
Things I Haven't Been Able to Find In My New Little Town
Things I Haven't Been Able to Find Anywhere, at Least Twenty Miles Around
(1) The library will make copies for you, but you can't use the machine yourself.
(2) I was told today that the computer repair shop probably sells copy paper. Have to check that out.
(3) The very wonderful little neighborhood pharmacy will, however, order such items for next-day availability.
- Copy machine (1)
- Copy paper (2)
- Laundromat
- Shoe store
- Cobbler
- Cotton swabs - economy pack with paper stems (3)
- Sanitary napkins - my preferred variety (3)
- Fluoride rinse (3)
Things I Haven't Been Able to Find Anywhere, at Least Twenty Miles Around
- Hummus
- Writing paper
- Cornichons
(1) The library will make copies for you, but you can't use the machine yourself.
(2) I was told today that the computer repair shop probably sells copy paper. Have to check that out.
(3) The very wonderful little neighborhood pharmacy will, however, order such items for next-day availability.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Facilities
Found fitness course today. A winding blacktop path on the side of hill. Studded with fitness challenges (pull-up bars, etc.) With views to the western ridges.
Very intelligently planned, set immediately among the health center, the low-income senior housing, and the elementary school.
Desperately needs shade trees. And would do well to double as a nature trail.
Also returned to look at the pool, after hours, and the tennis courts. The tennis courts were built, but they did not come. Dilapidated.
Impressed with all the facilities of this little town, which reveal themselves slowly as one looks around.
Very intelligently planned, set immediately among the health center, the low-income senior housing, and the elementary school.
Desperately needs shade trees. And would do well to double as a nature trail.
Also returned to look at the pool, after hours, and the tennis courts. The tennis courts were built, but they did not come. Dilapidated.
Impressed with all the facilities of this little town, which reveal themselves slowly as one looks around.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Public Pool
I heard a rumor there was a public swimming pool in town. And after lunch today, I went and searched it out. Indeed, there is a public swimming pool in town. It's set a little high up, in a field on a gentle hill, with some of the small houses of town fringing the field. You can see Main Street, a couple blocks away, and nature and far, wooded hills all around.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Road Numbers
I think I've figured out the road numbering logic around here. Most roads have a two-part number, written out on maps like 19-3. Or shown on road signs as 19 over 3 with a horizontal line separating.
It seems that what's regarded as a main artery will be given a single number, 19. Then branches from that artery are given the additional, secondary number, 19-*3*.
It seems that what's regarded as a main artery will be given a single number, 19. Then branches from that artery are given the additional, secondary number, 19-*3*.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Projects
Tooled today around two of the poorest tracts in NYC, one in Bed-Stuy, two conjoined in Brownsville. I'm thinking now about how and why project housing doesn't work and what should have been and/or could be done instead.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Ghetto
Looked for churches down Putnum Street.
Spent quite a bit of time researching poverty statistics in the US, counties and cities, and especially in New York and Brooklyn. Looked at crime reports too, and real estate prices.
Spent quite a bit of time researching poverty statistics in the US, counties and cities, and especially in New York and Brooklyn. Looked at crime reports too, and real estate prices.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Warren County Open Space
Attended a Warren County Open Space Committee meeting tonight, as an observer. Essentially, the Committee reviews requests for money to be allocated from the County open space fund and then recommends to the County which requests to grant.
This year, the fund is somewhere "just over a million dollars." Let's say $1,100,000 and crunch some ridiculously rough numbers like I like to do, using the ridiculously out-of-date, year-2000 census data I have readily available at my fingertips.
If an acre of open space in Warren County costs $4,000, which it might, the $1,100,000 fund this year will buy 275 acres, or about 0.12% of the county's land mass. The battle for open space in New Jersey, if it hasn't already been won or lost, will be, within the next generation, or twenty years. At a dollar commitment proportionate to this year's, Warren County will in the end have preserved 2.40% of its land. The rest will have fallen to the sprawl of development. (All this of course does not account for land already preserved as open space and land already "developed.") The $1,100,000 fund this year accounts for 0.04% of Warren County residents' income.
If Warren County residents instead contributed 0.50% of their incomes to the fund, 29% of the county's land could be preserved. Assuming the municipalities of the county and the State of New Jersey contributed equally to preservation, 85% or so of Warren County could be preserved in the end, with development concentrated in towns covering the remaining 15% of the land.
Just a thought.
This year, the fund is somewhere "just over a million dollars." Let's say $1,100,000 and crunch some ridiculously rough numbers like I like to do, using the ridiculously out-of-date, year-2000 census data I have readily available at my fingertips.
If an acre of open space in Warren County costs $4,000, which it might, the $1,100,000 fund this year will buy 275 acres, or about 0.12% of the county's land mass. The battle for open space in New Jersey, if it hasn't already been won or lost, will be, within the next generation, or twenty years. At a dollar commitment proportionate to this year's, Warren County will in the end have preserved 2.40% of its land. The rest will have fallen to the sprawl of development. (All this of course does not account for land already preserved as open space and land already "developed.") The $1,100,000 fund this year accounts for 0.04% of Warren County residents' income.
If Warren County residents instead contributed 0.50% of their incomes to the fund, 29% of the county's land could be preserved. Assuming the municipalities of the county and the State of New Jersey contributed equally to preservation, 85% or so of Warren County could be preserved in the end, with development concentrated in towns covering the remaining 15% of the land.
Just a thought.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Morgan Hill
Dinner at Vintage (my rating, 7/10) in Williams Township, a suburb of Easton, Pennsylvania. Vintage is the restaurant of the (golf) Club at Morgan Hill. The golf course is woven into Woodside Estates, a Toll Brothers housing development of mostly large, multi-family and some very large single-family homes on fractions of acres. Woodside Estates basically is Williams Township.
Morgan Hill itself, the topographical feature upon which the golf course and housing development are situated, rises about 580 feet from the banks of the Delaware River, dramatically within merely about 600 yards as the crow flies. The views from the golf course and development, in all directions, across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, are absolutely spectacular.
An aerial photo from 1999 shows Morgan Hill was then mostly forested with some farmland.
The housing development and golf course now cover most of the land south of I-78, between Morgan Hill Road and the Delaware River. Here is a topographic map from 1994 of the same area.
There is no native vegetation left on Morgan Hill today. Nor, aside from a few ornamental new plantings, are there any trees at all. Morgan Hill is a tidy, bald hilltop of lawns and houses.
I wonder, who were the last owners of Morgan Hill, who sold it for development? Who were the last farmers to work its fields? Who were the last children to ramble its forest? What were their circumstances when they sold, and do they miss their home? Do they grieve because in effect it no longer exists?
Woodside Estates does not begin to meet most of the objectives of smart growth planning. It is sprawling, not compact. It is residential only, not mixed-use. Residents must commute for shopping and employment. There is no public transportation. The range of housing choices at least appears to be high-income only.
There is more immediate environmental impact as well. Most obviously, the natural habitat of Morgan Hill is just gone. More important though is the hill’s immediate proximity to the Delaware River. The hill actually diverts the course of the river and is a watershed of it. There is negligible vegetation on the hill now to hold rainwater. (The Delaware River is flooding this summer, for the third year in a row.) Instead, rainwater flows a very short distance into the river, carrying with it all the chemicals of modern suburban living and, probably worse, golfing.
Morgan Hill itself, the topographical feature upon which the golf course and housing development are situated, rises about 580 feet from the banks of the Delaware River, dramatically within merely about 600 yards as the crow flies. The views from the golf course and development, in all directions, across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, are absolutely spectacular.
An aerial photo from 1999 shows Morgan Hill was then mostly forested with some farmland.
The housing development and golf course now cover most of the land south of I-78, between Morgan Hill Road and the Delaware River. Here is a topographic map from 1994 of the same area.
There is no native vegetation left on Morgan Hill today. Nor, aside from a few ornamental new plantings, are there any trees at all. Morgan Hill is a tidy, bald hilltop of lawns and houses.
I wonder, who were the last owners of Morgan Hill, who sold it for development? Who were the last farmers to work its fields? Who were the last children to ramble its forest? What were their circumstances when they sold, and do they miss their home? Do they grieve because in effect it no longer exists?
Woodside Estates does not begin to meet most of the objectives of smart growth planning. It is sprawling, not compact. It is residential only, not mixed-use. Residents must commute for shopping and employment. There is no public transportation. The range of housing choices at least appears to be high-income only.
There is more immediate environmental impact as well. Most obviously, the natural habitat of Morgan Hill is just gone. More important though is the hill’s immediate proximity to the Delaware River. The hill actually diverts the course of the river and is a watershed of it. There is negligible vegetation on the hill now to hold rainwater. (The Delaware River is flooding this summer, for the third year in a row.) Instead, rainwater flows a very short distance into the river, carrying with it all the chemicals of modern suburban living and, probably worse, golfing.