For Scott Stringer, winning's the easy part | Crain's New York Business

Reminaging this job, just in terms of what the city's pensions are inevsted in, could be huge for making economy of nyc more democratic, resilient and inclusive; why not fund sustainable infrastructure, worker coop's, land trusts, and community development that stabilizes rents?

Real Estate Weekly » Blog Archive » Pinsky: New York won’t abandon coastline

Lower Manhattan rebuilds again, until the next time | Capital New York

This is one of the very few detailed pieces i've seen that talks about the "manged retreat" option for NYC; i.e. that major building in Zone A, ESPECIALLY in lower manhattan, does not really make sense for anyone. 

New York City previews plans to deal with the next 'very quirky' superstorm | Capital New York

Not as detailed as one might hope!

Alliance for Just Rebuilding Report on NYC Plan for Sandy Redevelopment (phase 1)

How To Manage a Constellation

Another great piece, with fantastic hyperlinks, from Thackera, this time on how to put together a participatory process that can move diverse groups towards creative inclusive socio-ecological sustainability.  Really intrigued by the "boundary object" idea and what would it look like for NYC bioregion?  what sort of artifact-scheme, diagram, image, desire?

Venice: from Gated Lagoon to Bioregion: Observatory: Design Observer

Absolutely fascinating piece.  Not just on the amazing city that Venice is, and its problems (it's sinking!) but also on why it's having such a difficult time taking the imaginative leap: lack of creative democratic governance process.

"Humans, water, and nature are profoundly interrelated in the Venice lagoon — but they are profoundly dis-connected in its governance.  While the Italian state deploys hard infrastructure to create a gated lagoon, Corila’s researchers work separately on a new morphological plan. While myriad heritage groups campaign to protect the built city from floods and tourists, artists and scientists dream up radical scenarios of their own. Native Venetian citizens, for their part, work in tourism, and dislike doing so — but hear little about these alternative projects and visions. The cruise ship industry, proclaiming that there is no alternative source of jobs and prosperity, is left to do its own, ecocidal, thing.

What’s missing is a shared vision around which all the stakeholders who are now separated from each other — municipalities, citizens, artists, mussel farmers, research institutes — could collaborate.
Bringing the lagoon as a bioregion back to life could surely be that issue."

Superstorm Sandy Shapes Discussion At Mayoral Forum About NYC's Waterfront | Elections

City of Seeds - Lapham’s Quarterly

And another piece about rethinking the city through the ecological, this time, seeds.

The Ecozoic City: Change Observer: Design Observer

The Bullitt Center in Seattle Goes Well Beyond Green - NYTimes.com

Yeah its expensive and upscale but I love this project for two reasons, oddly, both involving anarchists.  First off the visibility of the engineering.  The guts of the building, what makes it work are exposed to those who use it.  This helps the users appreciate the impact of what they are doing (from using appliances and computers to going the bathroom!) and helps them to change their behavior to be more responsible.  But it also helps to call attention in a more general sense to the numerous ways we interact with buildings and the variety of systems involved.  The great anarchist social ecologist Murray Bookchin calls for such an architecture in a few of his works and essays.  And this is certainly the view of bioregionalists as well who go beyond sustainability advocates by calling for a closer understanding and identification with place—not just conservation and recycling etc. 

The second thing I love about this and it reminds me of the anarchist geographer Peter Kropotkin is that the building’s systems are not only visible to its users and inhabitants but to the public.  The guts are exposed so as to promote accountability and inspire. 

Service to South Ferry subway stop to resume on Thursday for first time since Hurricane Sandy - NYPOST.com

It cost 500 million to build, it will cost 600 million more to repair and it will flood again in how long?

Service to South Ferry subway stop to resume on Thursday for first time since Hurricane Sandy - NYPOST.com