Category Archives: Places

“Without Lake Mead, there would be no Las Vegas”

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The 14 year drought in southern Nevada, northern Arizona, and southern California threatens Lake Mead and the water supply to Las Vegas and other communities. The ability to have such a city in the middle of a desert is quite remarkable. It rests on the construction of Hoover Dam:

HooverDamJul12

I’ve been there twice and I was impressed both times by the ability to put this all together in the 1930s. Yet, the dam is highly dependent on available water and weather patterns. Here is a look at the lower Lake Mead from the top of Hoover Dam in July 2012:

LakeMeadJul12

While this is partly a cautionary tale about the the limits of human consumption, it also presents an opportunity for human ingenuity. As the news report notes, “Las Vegas actually reuses 93% of its water.” Imagine if all cities in the world reached such levels. Thus, even with an extended drought, Las Vegas may continue to thrive:

BellagioFountainsJul12

The show must go on…

Super Bowl program, tickets feature NYC skyline though game takes place in New Jersey

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Updating the New York/New Jersey Super Bowl discussion, the official Super Bowl program and tickets feature New York City:

But it reached a fever pitch this week when the NFL unveiled its design for the official game program and tickets — a shot of the New York City skyline — with New Jersey a small speck in the distance.

“Apparently, the NFL needs a geography lesson,” Sen. Robert Menendez, (D-NJ) said at a press conference with Sen. Cory Booker and other elected officials held to denounce the NFL’s design and reprimand players and broadcasters who refer to the Feb. 2 game as the ‘New York Super Bowl.’ Menendez also took issue with the “tiny sliver of Jersey City” visible in the program cover, adding; “You’re kidding, right?”

Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the NFL who took pains to point out he lives in New Jersey, sent a long list of the NFL-supported Super Bowl activities happening in the Garden State. He insisted that the program and ticket design featured Jersey City, and said the Super Bowl logo prominently shows MetLife Stadium with a view toward New York City, adding that other promotional decor displayed both New York and New Jersey.

But the program design — in which Jersey City can be found if you’re looking for it — hit a nerve that was made raw almost immediately after the 2010 announcement that the nation’s first cold-weather Super Bowl would be played in New Jersey; news which was heralded on the cover of New York City’s tabloids as the ‘New York Super Bowl,’ and is repeatedly referred to by sportscasters as such.

I suspect that the New Jersey politicians can complain all they want and most people are still going to focus on New York City. Fair or not, New York City has a more glamorous profile than suburban New Jersey. Perhaps New Jersey can take solace in the fact that much of the attention on New York City tends to primarily focus on the wealthier areas of Manhattan, like around Times Square or Wall Street, while leaving out the majority of the city.

“Chicago’s RIverwalk To Be the Next Times Square?”

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The City of Chicago just announced what it desires for its Riverwalk:

In the Mayor’s attempt to turn the Chicago Riverwalk into Times Square Jr. or Hong Kong Lite, the city may soon be installing some new lights. A lot of lights. The Mayor wants to boost tourism in the city by 10 percent, or attract 55 million annual visitors by 2020 and thinks that adding a light show to the city would be the key. The lights are intended to highlight Chicago’s architecture and skyline, but also to open up tourists’ wallets by extending the day into night.

This “bright” initiative, headed up by the president of Broadway In Chicago, will start with an international call for submissions. Plans show that the lights won’t only be noticeable in the loop, as the Mayor’s vision is to expand the project into the neighborhoods. Perhaps some think Chicago’s world famous architecture can’t speak for itself.

More on the plans:

“It will make nighttime in Chicago an experience unto itself. It will make us North America’s city of lights. People will come from far and wide to see what we’ve done and enjoy our city,” Emanuel told a clout-heavy audience at the Museum of Science and Industry.The light-up Chicago initiative is being spearheaded by Lou Raizin, president of Broadway in Chicago.

If artists, architects and engineers “work together as teams,” Raizin said he’s certain they will find ways to use Chicago’s world-renowned architecture, the city’s iconic bridges, Lower Wacker and the river itself as a “canvas” to “imagine lighting in a unique and different” way.

“It’s about creating a spectacle that winds up allowing us to be sensitive to the assets that we have, but making a pivot that takes the old guard to the vanguard. It’s not just washing a building with light. It’s about creating theater. It’s about engaging. It’s not just color. It’s three-dimensional. It’s really creating events in light,” Raizin said.

One can only hope this is done tastefully and doesn’t turn out to be garish. But, there is a lot of potential with the riverwalk and I’m still surprised it has taken this long to do much. This may seem particularly odd since since Chicago has a long history of protecting land along Lake Michigan. Yet, the city has never quite respected the river in the same way as the lake. The river has always been much more functional: a connection to the Mississippi or a place to dump sewage. Perhaps the lights indicate a new era might soon begin…

Nice graphic on Chicago’s relative position as a global city

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The cover story in today’s Chicago Tribune on Chicago’s status as a global city includes a nice graphic showing how Chicago matches up on a variety of dimensions.

This sort of multi-dimensional graphic is becoming more common. Its biggest advantage is that it can display a lot of information across a variety of dimensions. This graphic shows 10 different aspects of being a global city. It is also relatively easy to compare ranks of cities, if you know what you are looking at – the further out the area or the more area a city covers on the graphic means a higher ranking. Of course, the biggest downside is that is takes a little bit of time to figure out how to read it. Is a city better if it is closer to the middle or further away on each dimension? (It is is better to be further out – higher ranking cities cover more area.) It can also be a lot to take in at once.

It is a nice addition to add the seven comparison cities at the bottom with Chicago’s mass overlaid on each diagram. Just having Chicago’s rankings graphed would provide some information but do so without any context.

Mapping NYC’s manufacturing facilities in 1919

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A 1919 map of New York City’s manufacturing facilities provides insights into the city’s manufacturing prowess:

In 1919, this list shows, New York produced more than 50% of total national output in twelve lines of manufacture, and was competitive in many more.

Geographer Richard Harris, writing about industry in the city between 1900-1940 in the Journal of Historical Geography, points out that because of the particular products New York was known for (lapidary work, women’s clothing, millinery), many industrial workers were women. In 1939, they represented 36% of the total workforce. Workers in Lower Manhattan, where many garment factories were located, were particularly female.

Harris points out that although factories tended to move outward into the boroughs after 1919, before WWII the city did retain many factories in its central core, bucking the nationwide trend of suburbanization of industry. In 1940, 60% of New York workers had manufacturing jobs.

In the midcentury period, however, development trends turned toward offices and corporate headquarters. Zoning regulations made building more factories difficult.

In recent years, the city’s economy has rested on the service and financial industries. While manufacturers still do set up shop in the city, the scope of their activities is specialized. According to the New York City Economic Development Corporation, industry now provides just 16% of private-sector jobs. New York still produces garments, textiles, and printed material, and has increased production of packaged foods (see this October 2013 report from the NYCEDC for details [PDF]), but city factories tend to be smaller and to employ fewer workers.

This is an impressive range of industrial capabilities in 1919. As the above section notes, today New York City doesn’t have much of a manufacturing image due to the rise of Wall Street, the finance industry, the sector, and entertainment industries. Yet, 16% of manufacturing jobs in New York City still adds up to a big number of employees and firms, even if these facilities are not in highly visible areas in Manhattan. Additionally, some of the more hip areas in New York City today, such as Williamsburg and SoHo, are places that were ripe for gentrification and redevelopment in recent decades after large industry left in the mid 20th century.

CNN’s Chicagoland reality series featuring Rahm Emanuel premieres at Sundance

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Here is some activity regarding the upcoming Chicagoland series on CNN:

The William Morris Endeavor clients decided to ask that their agency not represent them in the deal so as to avoid a conflict of interest when covering Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, brother of WME co-CEO Ari Emanuel. The agency agreed with the decision…

The filmmakers tell The Hollywood Reporter that the project is an evenhanded look at the mayor and the city, which was rocked by a bitter teacher’s strike and has grappled with a high murder rate. “The teacher’s union thought we were with Rahm, and Rahm thought we were the teacher’s union,” Benjamin says.

The pair gained extraordinary access to Rahm Emanuel, which was facilitated by David Axelrod, the Chicago-based former campaign adviser to President Barack Obama. Rahm was Obama’s first chief of staff and helped him get elected in 2008. Ari was instrumental in mobilizing the Hollywood donor community to back Obama.

Levin and Benjamin shot footage over an eight-month period in which the murder rate did go down, but they say they were prepared to cover the city’s story however it unfolded. “We expect criticism,” says Levin. “So long as it’s from all sides, we’ll be happy. If someone says we’re too kind or too critical to one side, that wouldn’t be good.”

In a series like this, I imagine there will be plenty of unhappy viewers. Regardless, it should be interesting to see how Chicago and its mayor are portrayed. City effectively responding to 21st century challenges or superactive mayor needed to help a city escape its own troubles? Additionally, I think it will be difficult to convey the complexity of a global city like Chicago in eight episodes and by focusing on its leader. Leaders are important but they don’t dictate everything happening in a city of nearly 3 million people.

In the movie Her, futuristic Los Angeles looks like Shanghai

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In recently watching the movie Her, I was intrigued to see the futuristic Los Angeles. What exactly does it look like? Shanghai, as the film was filmed in LA and there. Here is what I noticed in the film:

1. There are a number of portrayals of Los Angeles. For example, the Walt Disney Concert Hall is featured in several scenes. One time the main character walks past the Hall and another scene takes places on an outside terrace with a lotus flower fountain on an upper level of the hall. Here is what the fountain looks like:

WaltDisneyConcertHallFountain

See an exterior shot of the building in an earlier post. This building fits well with a futuristic image with its metal panel exterior and unusual lines.

2. There are a number of shots of a city skyline, particularly from the main character’s apartment. However, this view usually has a lot more tall buildings than Los Angeles actually has. While Los Angeles has a downtown as well as an outcropping of taller buildings by Beverly Hills, there were clearly too many to be LA. At the same time, there were also shots featuring the One Wilshire building. So the film plays loose with the skyline shots but they are often Shanghai.

3. There are a number of scenes in public spaces, particularly nice plazas and walkways that connect large buildings. I haven’t explored all of LA but I know these are limited in the downtown so there seemed to be too many.

4. There is a scene early in the movie featuring a subway/train map in the background and while the base map is of Los Angeles, it clearly has too many mass transit routes to match today’s LA.

5. Others images of mass transit don’t look like LA including a bullet train and elevated mass transit lines.

6. Some of the shots from apartments or the tops of buildings show more boulevards than streets or highways.

7. Some of the outdoor scenes have street signs that look more Asian in design as well as more Asian pedestrians (though LA has a large Asian population).

Los Angeles was once viewed as the future of American cities: sprawling, encompassing a broad range of terrains from beaches to hills, and glamorous locations. However, American filmmakers may now be looking to rapidly growing Chinese cities for what the future holds.

Two “cousin” states follow different paths: Minnesota goes Democrat, Wisconsin goes Republican

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A look at the twin ports of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin highlights the political differences between the two states:

In 2013, Wisconsin’s lawmakers cut income taxes. They approved an expansion of school vouchers. They passed a requirement, portions of which are now being contested in court, that abortion providers have admitting privileges at local hospitals and that women seeking abortions get ultrasounds. They rewrote iron mining rules to ease construction of an open pit in Northern Wisconsin.

In Minnesota, lawmakers sent more money to public schools, raised income taxes on the highest earners, increased the tax on cigarettes and voted to add new business taxes. They allowed some undocumented immigrants to get in-state tuition for public universities. They legalized same-sex marriage.

“It’s staggering, really, like night and day,” said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota. “You’ve got two states with the same history, the same culture, the same people — it’s kind of like they’re cousins. And now they’re looking across the border and seeing one world, then seeing something else entirely on the other side.”

This sounds like a good natural experiment for social scientists to look at. If the states share similar backgrounds and geography, perhaps the differences in outcomes over the next few years can be attributed to the different political parties in control. Unfortunately, the article is pretty impressionistic thus far and doesn’t offer too many concrete differences in life. Perhaps not enough time has passed – or perhaps the differences in daily life still might not change that much for most residents.

Planning for the first “truly urban” presidential library

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Plans for the Obama Presidential Library to be located in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago note that such a location would be the first urban presidential library:

A helpful tipster has provided Curbed Chicago with a 32-page PDF full of renderings for a future Obama Presidential Library from the office of architectural critic/design studio leader Michael Sorkin. Who paid for said thing to be designed? We cannot say. What we do know is that the document makes the case for ” the first Presidential Center to be truly urban,” and located in Chicago, in the Woodlawn neighborhood. The document argues that Chicago, not Honolulu, is the better city to host, because,

“it is the city where the Obamas will presumably live post-presidency” and it is “where Obama made his first deep contributions in public service and the place to which he returned to begin and advance his political mission.”When it comes to a neighborhood, Sorkin argues that

“my own sense is that – far and away – the best choice would be Woodlawn, on the city’s South Side, and that several large vacant sites on 63rd Street most perfectly fit the bill.”

There are 13 presidential libraries so far, dating back to Herbert Hoover. Several are located in big cities: Dallas (Bush II), Austin (Johnson), Atlanta (Carter), and Little Rock (Clinton). But, these are Sunbelt cities which have more square mileage and are more sprawling (due to an ability to annex more land compared to Northeast and Midwest cities where annexations stopped around 1900). So, I presume the argument here is that the Obama library in Woodlawn would be in a true urban neighborhood, in Chicago, the “city of neighborhoods,” rather than a gleaming suburban-like setting.

Would Sorkin consider the former Michael Reese site, another possible option in Chicago, similarly “truly urban”?

The one man behind mapping the changing boundaries of Chicago neighborhoods

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WBEZ argued in November 2012 that one mapmaker is responsible for delineating the changing boundaries of Chicago’s 100+ neighborhoods:

Actually, many of Chicago’s neighborhoods are being updated and labeled by one man: Christopher Devane, a local mapmaker and president of Big Stick, Inc., a Naperville-based publisher.
Devane has been making neighborhood maps for the last decade and plans further updates as the city’s neighborhoods evolve.
But this is where things get a bit tricky. Devane claims the city has been copying his neighborhood borders (without his permission), beginning around 2005.
By surveying residents on the changing boundaries and the names used within them, Devane has essentially been doing what the Department of Planning did in 1978 when it conducted citywide interviews to create a map. But because the city hasn’t done such a survey in decades, Devane (a lifelong Chicagoan) has picked up the slack.

I would think the city would want to be more involved here in “officially” setting the boundaries, at least for attracting visitors and tourist dollars. Additionally, aren’t there any sociologists or other academics looking beyond the 77 official community areas (mostly set since the 1920s)?

All of this highlights the dynamic nature of neighborhoods. It can be easier to try to rely on fixed geographic boundaries but social life doesn’t necessarily always follow these. People can move, interact with people across boundaries, and change their collective perceptions of their own neighborhoods and those of others.