Monday, April 23, 2007
How do you see your city, how do non-residents see it, facts and reality
_What are some of the particularly false images you feel are attached to your city because of wrong or outdated stereotypes? I do not ask specificaly for people to promote their city, I'm especialy interested in the positive stereotypes that the residents know, or feel are false.>
MARACAIBO CITY - VENEZUELA
MARACAIBO
Maybe you've hear about this city or maybe you're not, the only thing you need to know is that this is the second largest and important city in Venezuela and the most important oil city of Latin America. Here you have a lot of places to visit, famous avenues, buildings, streets, chuches and of course the third largest bridge in the world and at night a lot of pleople will be waiting for you just to have a good time. Famous places from all over the world have a branch in Maracaibo like TGI Fridays or Hooters, famous hotels like Intercontinental and Crowne Plaza. This season every year we have the biggest fair in Venezuela and one of the most important fairs in Latin America "Chinita's Fair" where you could go to the concerts of the most important singers of Hispano-America (Latin America and Spain)... Here some pictures for you:
http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?i...eellagobx8.jpg
http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?i...lpuenteos0.jpg
http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?i...uenteiiio7.jpg
http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?i...lavistanm8.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/my.php?i...vistaixmk1.jpg
http://img159.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ercedesdh9.jpg
http://img159.imageshack.us/my.php?i...cedesiiwx2.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/my.php?i...rnaciondl8.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/my.php?i...taverdenk7.jpg
http://img440.imageshack.us/my.php?i...averdeiji0.jpg
Of course you want to watch and read more, so i recomed to you next pages:
www.laciudadmasbella.com
www.maracaiboonline.com
www.gobernaciondelzulia.gov.ve
www.metrodemaracaibo.com.ve>
Maybe you've hear about this city or maybe you're not, the only thing you need to know is that this is the second largest and important city in Venezuela and the most important oil city of Latin America. Here you have a lot of places to visit, famous avenues, buildings, streets, chuches and of course the third largest bridge in the world and at night a lot of pleople will be waiting for you just to have a good time. Famous places from all over the world have a branch in Maracaibo like TGI Fridays or Hooters, famous hotels like Intercontinental and Crowne Plaza. This season every year we have the biggest fair in Venezuela and one of the most important fairs in Latin America "Chinita's Fair" where you could go to the concerts of the most important singers of Hispano-America (Latin America and Spain)... Here some pictures for you:
http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?i...eellagobx8.jpg
http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?i...lpuenteos0.jpg
http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?i...uenteiiio7.jpg
http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?i...lavistanm8.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/my.php?i...vistaixmk1.jpg
http://img159.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ercedesdh9.jpg
http://img159.imageshack.us/my.php?i...cedesiiwx2.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/my.php?i...rnaciondl8.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/my.php?i...taverdenk7.jpg
http://img440.imageshack.us/my.php?i...averdeiji0.jpg
Of course you want to watch and read more, so i recomed to you next pages:
www.laciudadmasbella.com
www.maracaiboonline.com
www.gobernaciondelzulia.gov.ve
www.metrodemaracaibo.com.ve>
MARKET RATE HOUSING COMES TO HARLEM
Julia Vitullo-Martin,February 2006
Harlem's recent rejuvenation should be welcomed by all New Yorkers. Instead, as a Feb. 24 symposium at Baruch College's Steven L. ****** Real Estate Institute showed, the new Harlem is a target of substantial grievance among activists, small retailers, self-described artists, and others who argue that Harlem's cultural identity is being wiped out. They contend that rehabilitation and the construction of new housing, combined with commercial development from Old Navy, Magic Johnson's Theatres, Staples, Marshall's, and even Bill Clinton's office, have cost Harlem its unique African-American heritage.
The whole subject is fraught with difficulties. "Trying to get the emotional portion out and getting to the objective is always a challenge," says developer Carlton Brown, whose Kalahari on 116th Street stands as a sensitive tribute to African culture. "If there's to be an objective evaluation. you need a base of comparison. If you compare Harlem today to the Harlem that was vacant and burning, that's one story. If you compare Harlem today to the vibrant cultural renaissance of the 1920s, that's something else."
HARLEM TODAY
Harlem became Manhattan's most desperate neighborhood in the 1970s and early 1980s when the city government, in lieu of tax payments, reluctantly took ownership of some 70% of Harlem's real estate. If that's the reality against which today's Harlem should be judged, then city policy has been triumphant. In August, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city had finished selling off all formerly tax delinquent property—an extraordinary achievement that tends to get short shrift, as if success were inevitable. It wasn't. As late as 1986, when Mayor Ed Koch announced a citywide plan to return 100,000 city-owned housing units to the private sector, virtually no private investment was going into Harlem.
The development numbers since then have been substantial. Between January 1987 and December 2005, the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD) completed the construction of 44,774 affordable housing units in Community Boards 9, 10, and 11—or 19% of the citywide total. Of these, 7,454, or 22%, are owned rather than rented, increasing home-ownership in Harlem to 16% in 2002, up from less than 2% in 1993. (Actual home-ownership is probably closer to 20%, but the official neighborhood figures from the city's Housing and Vacancy Survey won't be available until 2007.)
Complaints that city policy has driven out low-income households are not borne out by any data. Over 78% of HPD's beneficiaries were low-income, 11% were moderate-income, and 11% were middle-income. According to Deputy Commissioner Kimberly Hardy, who directs the Office of Community Partnership, HPD's rehabilitation of 27,764 once highly dilapidated but occupied units caused no displacement, because HPD policy returns the apartments to the original tenants. From the tenants’ perspective, the rehabilitation is done virtually for free.
The truth is that the new Harlem is substantially benefiting the old Harlem. So why all the complaints?
WEAK COMMERCIAL CORRIDORS
Harlem today is reminiscent of the Upper West Side in the early 1980s. Decent, stable, residential stock, particularly on the side streets, is served by weak commercial corridors. Whole sections of Harlem's major avenues lack good (or any) retail. Symposium participants complained about the chain stores opening on 125th Street, but these stores have established a core of retail services that attract crowds.
One can argue that the presence of the big stores on 125th Street has produced positive spillover effects. It seems to have encouraged the opening, for instance, of the now-renowned Harlem Vintage wine store on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 122nd Street, and the elegant Les Ambassades restaurant down a few blocks more. Both have Harlem roots.
Yet the real commercial problem, just as it was until recently on the Upper West Side, is one of density. Harlem still doesn't have enough consumers of the kinds of (inevitably high-end) goods that get produced and sold in indigenous crafts stores like harlemmade, because harlemmade needs far more upper-income residents than currently live within shopping distance. Luckily for harlemmade, and for Harlem itself, those higher-income residents are coming.
HARLEM'S FIRST MARKET-RATE BUILDING
Despite HPD's $1.5 billion investment in Harlem, and the subsequent construction of 62 developments, no large market-rate apartment building has opened in Harlem for decades. That’s about to change.
The Lenox, built without government subsidies, on privately owned land, will open at 129th Street and Lenox Avenue in the spring. Its 77 apartments will range from $490 per square foot, for 3-bedroom units, to $668 per square foot, for the penthouses with terraces. Of the 17 apartments priced over $1 million, 5 have already been sold, even though occupancy is several months away. Developer Lewis Futterman told the Baruch audience that "we wanted the most upwardly mobile members of the Harlem community to stay. And we wanted to attract back those who had left in the days when there was so much disinvestment in Harlem."
Futterman also said, to murmurs of disapproval, that middle- and upper-middle-class African-Americans tend to be very conservative with money and were formerly reluctant to buy in Harlem. But what's important for Harlem's future is that they are now buying in Harlem, and will be spending their dollars at Harlem stores. That's the most direct solution for Harlem's current lack of retail diversity.
DISPLACEMENT
The assumption of many at the symposium seemed to be that renovated buildings and new construction will displace longtime residents. But there's no evidence for this. One of the few rigorous studies of gentrification, Lance Freeman and Frank Braconi's Gentrification and Displacement (2002), found that improving housing and neighborhood conditions encourages the stability of low-income households, more than offsetting any dislocation from rising rents. As Futterman told a heckler at the symposium, "You got CB 10 up there. If you had displacement going on, that community board would be on top of people like hawks on a chicken. No way it's happening on any scale."
"There's never been a previously down-trending area come back with so little displacement as Harlem, Futterman added a day later, still sounding somewhat frustrated. "You can even be a bad guy as a developer, but unless you’re terminally stupid. why would you take on vacating an occupied building when you could get vacant land in Harlem?"
WHAT’S NEXT
Harlem was incredibly dangerous as recently as 1990, when dozens of burglaries and assaults occurred daily. In 1990, Harlem had an astonishing 243 murders, compared to only 42 last year.
But these trends do not mean that Harlem is as safe as most other Manhattan neighborhoods. Harlem is doing well, but its future is not yet secure. It was once nearly destroyed by crime, and crime—particularly in the visible form of street drug dealers—is down but not defeated. This is one neighborhood that still needs thoughtful, attentive analysis by those who care.
Link:http://www.manhattan-institute.org/e...tter02-06.html>
Harlem's recent rejuvenation should be welcomed by all New Yorkers. Instead, as a Feb. 24 symposium at Baruch College's Steven L. ****** Real Estate Institute showed, the new Harlem is a target of substantial grievance among activists, small retailers, self-described artists, and others who argue that Harlem's cultural identity is being wiped out. They contend that rehabilitation and the construction of new housing, combined with commercial development from Old Navy, Magic Johnson's Theatres, Staples, Marshall's, and even Bill Clinton's office, have cost Harlem its unique African-American heritage.
The whole subject is fraught with difficulties. "Trying to get the emotional portion out and getting to the objective is always a challenge," says developer Carlton Brown, whose Kalahari on 116th Street stands as a sensitive tribute to African culture. "If there's to be an objective evaluation. you need a base of comparison. If you compare Harlem today to the Harlem that was vacant and burning, that's one story. If you compare Harlem today to the vibrant cultural renaissance of the 1920s, that's something else."
HARLEM TODAY
Harlem became Manhattan's most desperate neighborhood in the 1970s and early 1980s when the city government, in lieu of tax payments, reluctantly took ownership of some 70% of Harlem's real estate. If that's the reality against which today's Harlem should be judged, then city policy has been triumphant. In August, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city had finished selling off all formerly tax delinquent property—an extraordinary achievement that tends to get short shrift, as if success were inevitable. It wasn't. As late as 1986, when Mayor Ed Koch announced a citywide plan to return 100,000 city-owned housing units to the private sector, virtually no private investment was going into Harlem.
The development numbers since then have been substantial. Between January 1987 and December 2005, the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD) completed the construction of 44,774 affordable housing units in Community Boards 9, 10, and 11—or 19% of the citywide total. Of these, 7,454, or 22%, are owned rather than rented, increasing home-ownership in Harlem to 16% in 2002, up from less than 2% in 1993. (Actual home-ownership is probably closer to 20%, but the official neighborhood figures from the city's Housing and Vacancy Survey won't be available until 2007.)
Complaints that city policy has driven out low-income households are not borne out by any data. Over 78% of HPD's beneficiaries were low-income, 11% were moderate-income, and 11% were middle-income. According to Deputy Commissioner Kimberly Hardy, who directs the Office of Community Partnership, HPD's rehabilitation of 27,764 once highly dilapidated but occupied units caused no displacement, because HPD policy returns the apartments to the original tenants. From the tenants’ perspective, the rehabilitation is done virtually for free.
The truth is that the new Harlem is substantially benefiting the old Harlem. So why all the complaints?
WEAK COMMERCIAL CORRIDORS
Harlem today is reminiscent of the Upper West Side in the early 1980s. Decent, stable, residential stock, particularly on the side streets, is served by weak commercial corridors. Whole sections of Harlem's major avenues lack good (or any) retail. Symposium participants complained about the chain stores opening on 125th Street, but these stores have established a core of retail services that attract crowds.
One can argue that the presence of the big stores on 125th Street has produced positive spillover effects. It seems to have encouraged the opening, for instance, of the now-renowned Harlem Vintage wine store on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 122nd Street, and the elegant Les Ambassades restaurant down a few blocks more. Both have Harlem roots.
Yet the real commercial problem, just as it was until recently on the Upper West Side, is one of density. Harlem still doesn't have enough consumers of the kinds of (inevitably high-end) goods that get produced and sold in indigenous crafts stores like harlemmade, because harlemmade needs far more upper-income residents than currently live within shopping distance. Luckily for harlemmade, and for Harlem itself, those higher-income residents are coming.
HARLEM'S FIRST MARKET-RATE BUILDING
Despite HPD's $1.5 billion investment in Harlem, and the subsequent construction of 62 developments, no large market-rate apartment building has opened in Harlem for decades. That’s about to change.
The Lenox, built without government subsidies, on privately owned land, will open at 129th Street and Lenox Avenue in the spring. Its 77 apartments will range from $490 per square foot, for 3-bedroom units, to $668 per square foot, for the penthouses with terraces. Of the 17 apartments priced over $1 million, 5 have already been sold, even though occupancy is several months away. Developer Lewis Futterman told the Baruch audience that "we wanted the most upwardly mobile members of the Harlem community to stay. And we wanted to attract back those who had left in the days when there was so much disinvestment in Harlem."
Futterman also said, to murmurs of disapproval, that middle- and upper-middle-class African-Americans tend to be very conservative with money and were formerly reluctant to buy in Harlem. But what's important for Harlem's future is that they are now buying in Harlem, and will be spending their dollars at Harlem stores. That's the most direct solution for Harlem's current lack of retail diversity.
DISPLACEMENT
The assumption of many at the symposium seemed to be that renovated buildings and new construction will displace longtime residents. But there's no evidence for this. One of the few rigorous studies of gentrification, Lance Freeman and Frank Braconi's Gentrification and Displacement (2002), found that improving housing and neighborhood conditions encourages the stability of low-income households, more than offsetting any dislocation from rising rents. As Futterman told a heckler at the symposium, "You got CB 10 up there. If you had displacement going on, that community board would be on top of people like hawks on a chicken. No way it's happening on any scale."
"There's never been a previously down-trending area come back with so little displacement as Harlem, Futterman added a day later, still sounding somewhat frustrated. "You can even be a bad guy as a developer, but unless you’re terminally stupid. why would you take on vacating an occupied building when you could get vacant land in Harlem?"
WHAT’S NEXT
Harlem was incredibly dangerous as recently as 1990, when dozens of burglaries and assaults occurred daily. In 1990, Harlem had an astonishing 243 murders, compared to only 42 last year.
But these trends do not mean that Harlem is as safe as most other Manhattan neighborhoods. Harlem is doing well, but its future is not yet secure. It was once nearly destroyed by crime, and crime—particularly in the visible form of street drug dealers—is down but not defeated. This is one neighborhood that still needs thoughtful, attentive analysis by those who care.
Link:http://www.manhattan-institute.org/e...tter02-06.html>
C02 emission figures
Hi, I'm beginning to write my architecture dissertation synopsis on sustainable homes for the future. I've read that buildings account for 50% of all C02 emissions, what I'm after is a site or somewhere which may be able to provide me with the percentage of that that is residential buildings. Does anybody know of such a site?
many thanks
Simon>
many thanks
Simon>
who's got my new urbanism basics?
supposed to do a presentation tomorrow with my research question being: "are the effects of new urbanism on sprawl exaggerated?"
the way i look at it, this question is loaded, with many ifs and buts that come into play (how dense, location, demographics, ect...). from past examples in florida and virginia, some work and some do not...
so the question i ask is this: what makes new urbanism communities successful and what doesn't?
also if anyone has some helpful links or pointers that i could say in order to sound very intelligent during my presentation, feel free to share
>
the way i look at it, this question is loaded, with many ifs and buts that come into play (how dense, location, demographics, ect...). from past examples in florida and virginia, some work and some do not...
so the question i ask is this: what makes new urbanism communities successful and what doesn't?
also if anyone has some helpful links or pointers that i could say in order to sound very intelligent during my presentation, feel free to share
>
GDP of Shanghai will enter top 10 of the world
In 2006, GDP of Shanghai will be 1050 billion RMB, that is 133 billion US$. (In 2005, GDP of Shanghai was 114.3 billion US$.)
I think Shanghai is going to enter top 10 cities for the first time, and it's the first Chinese city (except HongKong) as well.>
I think Shanghai is going to enter top 10 cities for the first time, and it's the first Chinese city (except HongKong) as well.>
Stylist Boutiques in your city
Where are they located?Where are they concentrated?
Of course,I mean the most important stylists in the world.
Pictures are appreciated>
Of course,I mean the most important stylists in the world.
Pictures are appreciated>
Waste Disposal
More than half the world's population now live in cities. Waste handling and disposal are major emerging issues as the world's cities get larger. How is your city dealing with all that waste?
Hong Kong has seen its wasteloads grow as its economy has grown. Municipal wasteloads have increased an average of about three per cent per year since 1986. At the same time, the population has grown by more than one million people and each person is throwing away more waste. The per capita level of domestic waste has risen from 0.95 kilogrammes per person per day in 1990, to 1.11 kilogrammes in 2002.
Municipal solid waste includes waste from households, industry and commercial operations, but landfills are also under tremendous pressure from construction waste. About 38 per cent of waste dumped in landfills comes from this sector. This figure fluctuates depending on how many reclamation sites can take the waste for fill, the willingness of industry to separate waste on site and the number of construction projects underway.
Per Capita Disposal Rates of Municipal Solid Waste and Domestic Waste in 1991-2005
Quantities of Major Types of Solid Waste Disposed of in 1991-2005
Types of Solid Waste Disposed of at Landfills in 2005
Through the existing waste recovery system, about 2.59 million tonnes of municipal solid waste were recovered in Hong Kong in 2005. Of that total, 6% was recycled locally and 94% was exported to the Mainland and other countries for recycling, with an export earning of HK$4.5 billion for Hong Kong.
Major Materials Recovered / Recycled in 2005
Source : http://www.epd.gov.hk/>
Hong Kong has seen its wasteloads grow as its economy has grown. Municipal wasteloads have increased an average of about three per cent per year since 1986. At the same time, the population has grown by more than one million people and each person is throwing away more waste. The per capita level of domestic waste has risen from 0.95 kilogrammes per person per day in 1990, to 1.11 kilogrammes in 2002.
Municipal solid waste includes waste from households, industry and commercial operations, but landfills are also under tremendous pressure from construction waste. About 38 per cent of waste dumped in landfills comes from this sector. This figure fluctuates depending on how many reclamation sites can take the waste for fill, the willingness of industry to separate waste on site and the number of construction projects underway.
Per Capita Disposal Rates of Municipal Solid Waste and Domestic Waste in 1991-2005
Quantities of Major Types of Solid Waste Disposed of in 1991-2005
Types of Solid Waste Disposed of at Landfills in 2005
Through the existing waste recovery system, about 2.59 million tonnes of municipal solid waste were recovered in Hong Kong in 2005. Of that total, 6% was recycled locally and 94% was exported to the Mainland and other countries for recycling, with an export earning of HK$4.5 billion for Hong Kong.
Major Materials Recovered / Recycled in 2005
Source : http://www.epd.gov.hk/>
The Most Insignificant 'Big' Cities
I'm thinking along the lines of, say, a city like Kinshasa which seems to exist, but whom hardly anyone is aware of.
Which cities would you list under this heading?
Is anyone else willing to agree with me that Brussels is given a surprising amount of importance in comparison to what it has to offer, whatever that may be? I'm sure that it being fairly forgettable is what made them decide to have all the headquarters there.
>
Which cities would you list under this heading?
Is anyone else willing to agree with me that Brussels is given a surprising amount of importance in comparison to what it has to offer, whatever that may be? I'm sure that it being fairly forgettable is what made them decide to have all the headquarters there.
>
What are the world's most famous landmarks?
Below is what I think are the world's most famous landmarks.
I've shown my top 10 here - but feel free to discuss what you think the top 20, top 30, etc. should be.
1. Eiffel Tower, Paris
2. Statue of Liberty, New York
3. Pyramids, Giza
4. Big Ben, London
5. The White House, Washington
6. Empire State Building, New York
7. Sydney Opera House, Sydney
8. Great Wall of China
9. Leaning Tower of Pisa
10. Colloseum, Rome
>
I've shown my top 10 here - but feel free to discuss what you think the top 20, top 30, etc. should be.
1. Eiffel Tower, Paris
2. Statue of Liberty, New York
3. Pyramids, Giza
4. Big Ben, London
5. The White House, Washington
6. Empire State Building, New York
7. Sydney Opera House, Sydney
8. Great Wall of China
9. Leaning Tower of Pisa
10. Colloseum, Rome
>
Which cities have you been? (overseas cities))
I have been to...
London, Paris, Lyon, Amsterdam, Hague, Copnehagen, Odense,
Stockholm, Gotenburg, Oslo, Koeln, Hamburg, FrankFurt, Berlin,
Bonn, Heidelberg, Vienna, Innsbruck and Tokyo.
And you ???>
London, Paris, Lyon, Amsterdam, Hague, Copnehagen, Odense,
Stockholm, Gotenburg, Oslo, Koeln, Hamburg, FrankFurt, Berlin,
Bonn, Heidelberg, Vienna, Innsbruck and Tokyo.
And you ???>
Manchester International Festival
Manchester International Festival
The worlds first international festival of original, new work.
The Industrial Revolution forged the world's first modern city, which in 2007 will launch the world's first international festival of original, new work - created by leading artists from across the spectrum of credible popular culture, innovation and the arts.
Drawing from the city's pivotal role in music, the Festival progrmme will have a focus on new music - premierimg work by established and emerging international musicians. In step with the city's history, the Festival will focus on the important issues and stories of our time, through debates and new commissions. It will also reaffirm the city's 24 hour party spirit by working with the city's clubs, bars, cafes and restaurants.
Many of the Festivals's productions and events will world premiere in the city before touring to other international destinations, such as Paris, New York and Berlin. The Festival programme will also feature on National TV and Radio, in newspapers and magazines, on digital platforms and the internet, in bookes and in cinemas.
Following a series of three trailblazer events presented from late 2005, this city's first biennial festival will launch in July 2007.
Welcome... to the Manchester International Festival
Official website www.manchesterinternationalfestival.com
So come on whose gonna join me in 2 years?>
The worlds first international festival of original, new work.
The Industrial Revolution forged the world's first modern city, which in 2007 will launch the world's first international festival of original, new work - created by leading artists from across the spectrum of credible popular culture, innovation and the arts.
Drawing from the city's pivotal role in music, the Festival progrmme will have a focus on new music - premierimg work by established and emerging international musicians. In step with the city's history, the Festival will focus on the important issues and stories of our time, through debates and new commissions. It will also reaffirm the city's 24 hour party spirit by working with the city's clubs, bars, cafes and restaurants.
Many of the Festivals's productions and events will world premiere in the city before touring to other international destinations, such as Paris, New York and Berlin. The Festival programme will also feature on National TV and Radio, in newspapers and magazines, on digital platforms and the internet, in bookes and in cinemas.
Following a series of three trailblazer events presented from late 2005, this city's first biennial festival will launch in July 2007.
Welcome... to the Manchester International Festival
Official website www.manchesterinternationalfestival.com
So come on whose gonna join me in 2 years?>
Why aren't there any American sports teams in Mexico while there are some in Canada?
I've been tinking about this for a long time. The NBA has a Canadian team, MLB has a Canadian team, but neither of them have a team in Mexico, which is one of the two neighbors of the U.S., the other one being Canada.>
Tourism: USA or China?
Which country is more tourist friendly with better tourist attractions ,cities to visit, and a better tourist industry?>
Manchester UK. What do you think?
What do you think of Manchester UK? What do you know of Manchester, and are you planning on visiting Manchester. I would like to hear from foreign people mostly.>
the "Disney Factor" and rebuilding New Orleans
I'll call it the "Disney factor". Disney developed it in its theme parks, the ability to bring back the past, albeit a sanitized past, by constructing buildings that look like those of a prior era.
Many of us bemoan the effect such thinking has had on architecture in US cities and how they have, in essence, removed the real and the genuine and have turned our major cities into amusement parks, often characteratures of themselves from bygone eras.
Our flight to fantasy and the technology to build in a way that mimics the era of true craftsmenship has produced tear-downs of houses across this country, replaced by huge, new ones, designed to look like they are hardly new at all.
Now how will all this play out in the reconstruction of New Orleans? Will the attempt be, particularly in historically important areas like the French Quarter, to replace destroyed structures in disneyesque style, allowing them to fit in? Will the Disney concept be used throughout the city to recreate the old Nawlins?
And, if so, in this case, is that necessarily a bad thing? If a destoryed community can use the existing technology to "patch" its destruction by building something compatable, intentinally designed to fit in, is this a wise idea?>
Many of us bemoan the effect such thinking has had on architecture in US cities and how they have, in essence, removed the real and the genuine and have turned our major cities into amusement parks, often characteratures of themselves from bygone eras.
Our flight to fantasy and the technology to build in a way that mimics the era of true craftsmenship has produced tear-downs of houses across this country, replaced by huge, new ones, designed to look like they are hardly new at all.
Now how will all this play out in the reconstruction of New Orleans? Will the attempt be, particularly in historically important areas like the French Quarter, to replace destroyed structures in disneyesque style, allowing them to fit in? Will the Disney concept be used throughout the city to recreate the old Nawlins?
And, if so, in this case, is that necessarily a bad thing? If a destoryed community can use the existing technology to "patch" its destruction by building something compatable, intentinally designed to fit in, is this a wise idea?>
Places to Get Lost In
I love exploring the narrow maze-like streets of old cities. What are some of your favorite neighborhoods to get lost in?
p.s. If you post pics, could you try and keep them down in size - it takes forever for those of us on dial-up to load some threads!>
p.s. If you post pics, could you try and keep them down in size - it takes forever for those of us on dial-up to load some threads!>
Privatised postal service?
Singapore has a privatised postal service.
Any other cities out there have privatised postal service?>
Any other cities out there have privatised postal service?>
Melbourne's Docklands Comes Back to Life
At last: Docklands slowly comes to life
Mathew Dunckley and Mark Phillips
23 February 2006
Australian Financial Review
Ten years ago, it was a wasteland of empty warehouses that even taxi drivers feared to go near. But today, following $3.7 billion of investment, Melbourne's Docklands is a bustling residential and commercial precinct with a daily population of 32,800.
Docklands is still a work in progress, and some scepticism remains about its prospects as dozens of high-rise apartments sit unsold.
But the more recent transformation has silenced most of the critics who a decade ago voiced doubts about the wisdom of proceeding with the largest urban revitalisation project in Australia.
From the sports stadium, which celebrated its 10 millionth patron in August, to the rows of apartment towers in New Quay and Yarra's Edge, to the acclaimed National Australia Bank HQ in Victoria Harbour, Docklands is taking shape as it moves towards eventually doubling the size of Melbourne's central business district.
"You couldn't stop Docklands today if you tried," says John Tabart, the outgoing chief of VicUrban, which manages the precinct on behalf of the state government.
"It has mixed use and is a high-quality venue. Much of Melbourne doesn't realise that yet."
The connection of Bourke and Collins streets could be just a few years away, altering Melbourne's grid street system in a way never envisaged by the city's original planners and symbolically linking Docklands to the CBD.
Located on partly reclaimed swampland at the west of the CBD, Docklands was Melbourne's original port, operating from the early 1900s until the mid-1990s, made obsolete by the requirements of container ships.
It begins at Spencer Street Station and Batman's Hill - the highest point of early Melbourne - extending to the Bolte Bridge.
Running parallel to each other through the CBD, Collins and Bourke streets have already been extended into Docklands and will eventually meet as the apex of a triangle deep in the Victoria Harbour precinct.
Mark Birrell, who was major projects minister in the first Kennett government when the Docklands vision was formalised, admits to an "ongoing parental interest" in the precinct. "This was a site that taxi drivers would not take you to for fear of the consequences," he says.
"It's [now] become a must-visit place for tourists, and people enjoy the restaurants and literally thousands of people are living there."
Docklands is one of the world's largest urban revival projects.
According to VicUrban's figures, investment at Docklands is running at an average of $500 million a year.
About $3.7 billion of development has been completed or is in construction. It hosts more than 6000 permanent residents, 6500 daily office commuters and averages 15,000 daily visitors, according to VicUrban.
When completed by about 2020, the Docklands development will have in effect doubled the size of Melbourne's city centre.
The doubters remain.
Ten years into what will be a 20- to 25-year project on a 200 hectare site on the western edge of Melbourne's CBD, the pace of development has slowed. Huge swaths of land are still barren, and the precinct has borne the brunt of criticism for the overheated residential property market of the early 2000s.
Little apartment building is planned for the near future as the market still absorbs the 2654 already built and 696 under construction.
At the beginning of October, the vacancy rate for Docklands apartments was 3.5 per cent and average weekly rent was $455, according to VicUrban.
VicUrban says there have been 144 resales of Docklands apartments for an average price of $517,000 and annual capital growth of 5.9 per cent, but 22 per cent have lost value. Forty per cent of sales have resulted in gains of between zero and 5 per cent a year, while 22 per cent lost value.
The area has received a boost in the past two days, with the state government awarding the contract for a $1 billion convention centre on Docklands' doorstep and also announcing in-principle support for a $60 million ice-skating centre at Waterfront City.
The precinct also received a lift last year when ANZ Bank announced it was looking for a new 80,000 square metre campus-style office space to house most of its Melbourne operations.
Victoria Harbour is regarded as a frontrunner for that deal and is "the jewel in the crown", according to Docklands general manager Michael Hynes.
Lend Lease has already taken a gamble on that status by beginning construction of its first residential tower, Dock 5, in the middle of last year at the height of negativity towards Docklands.
Lend Lease Victoria Harbour project director Maurice Cococcia acknowledges that the pace of sales at the project will not match those experienced by MAB and Mirvac who were selling at the height of the boom.
"Most of the developers have probably only been here for six or seven years and in that short period, [to have the current level of development] in a relatively untried and untested part of Melbourne is a great testament to that strategy," he says.
Despite fears in the early days about contamination, the biggest logistical issue has been coping with the Coode Island silt, which he says required more engineering work on building foundations.
Certainly not everything at Docklands has been a success. The $110 million Central City film studios, a private consortium chaired by movie distributor Sino Guzzardi, in the most north-western precinct, opened eight months late in February 2004, $7.4 million over budget and without electricity.
Since then, it has been the setting for the features Hating Alison Ashley, The Extra and the Nicolas Cage feature, Ghost Rider, but the jury is still out on whether the studios will attract enough top local and international productions to be viable. Nevertheless, a $7 million expansion began last year.
For the developers who moved into the early stages of the project, Docklands was a huge gamble.
"It was certainly pioneering territory," says Paul McDonald, chief executive officer of MAB Corporation, which will eventually invest more than $1 billion in its New Quay precinct at the northern end of Docklands.
Tabart says the well-publicised stoushes with unsuccessful developers were the low points of his 10-year reign but he stands by the authority's approach.
"Our agreements have to be hard-nosed business arrangements that require a developer to build at a time when there is no market. They win a bid with a design and a price and a time frame; [if they miss] they can lose their rights over the land."
Now, almost at the halfway stage of the Docklands experiment, all the precincts are ahead of their required development timetables, he says.
Demographer Bernard Salt of KPMG says Docklands' future is assured because of major social changes that are undermining the traditional nuclear family.
"Docklands does serve a niche in the sense that it offers something that has not been offered previously in Melbourne - water-based apartment accommodation adjacent to the CBD," he says.
Damian Trytell, principal of the Mecca restaurant group, says that in just three years, Docklands has become one of Melbourne's leading restaurant and entertainment precincts. His Livebait and Mecca Bah were among the first venues to open at New Quay in November 2002.
"We have generally run 27 per cent above what we budgeted in the early stages of our five-year business plan," he says.
Only one business at Docklands has been forced to close - a nightclub that Trytell says was inappropriate for the precinct.
The Docklands Authority and its successor were required to borrow to fund infrastructure under their establishing legislation - that debt stands at $150 million. Providing that infrastructure was a key to luring private investment, Tabart says.
The first project to use the model was the $400 million stadium. The then Docklands Authority assisted with $65 million worth of bridges and roads.
The roofed stadium - now known as Telstra Dome - is home to the AFL and has given Docklands a strong identity as the western fringe of the CBD through the exposure gained from the close to 10 million football supporters who have passed through its gates.
There is bipartisan political support for the project, although the Liberal opposition continues to criticise the merger of the Docklands Authority with the Urban Land Authority to form VicUrban. VicUrban believes that over 20 years Victoria will make a profit on Docklands.
The opposition's major projects spokeswoman, Louise Asher, says some delays and cost overruns have not affected the Liberal Party's backing of the development.
But there are those who do not share VicUrban's optimism. A professor of architecture at Melbourne University, Miles Lewis, a long-time sceptic of Docklands, says the precinct's shape is an opportunity lost.
The Bolte Bridge bridge was built too low to allow for cruise ships so, for example, unlike Sydney's Circular Quay, tourists cannot be dropped in the heart of Melbourne's new waterfront.
He also describes the building design as "low-rate".
Asked to nominate a positive, Lewis cites the extension of Collins and Bourke streets and the quality of the restaurants.
But Mark Birrell remains an enthusiastic believer in the Docklands and dismisses criticism of the project. "It's just the same thing every year, but they sell, they work and are in the high end of quality.">
Mathew Dunckley and Mark Phillips
23 February 2006
Australian Financial Review
Ten years ago, it was a wasteland of empty warehouses that even taxi drivers feared to go near. But today, following $3.7 billion of investment, Melbourne's Docklands is a bustling residential and commercial precinct with a daily population of 32,800.
Docklands is still a work in progress, and some scepticism remains about its prospects as dozens of high-rise apartments sit unsold.
But the more recent transformation has silenced most of the critics who a decade ago voiced doubts about the wisdom of proceeding with the largest urban revitalisation project in Australia.
From the sports stadium, which celebrated its 10 millionth patron in August, to the rows of apartment towers in New Quay and Yarra's Edge, to the acclaimed National Australia Bank HQ in Victoria Harbour, Docklands is taking shape as it moves towards eventually doubling the size of Melbourne's central business district.
"You couldn't stop Docklands today if you tried," says John Tabart, the outgoing chief of VicUrban, which manages the precinct on behalf of the state government.
"It has mixed use and is a high-quality venue. Much of Melbourne doesn't realise that yet."
The connection of Bourke and Collins streets could be just a few years away, altering Melbourne's grid street system in a way never envisaged by the city's original planners and symbolically linking Docklands to the CBD.
Located on partly reclaimed swampland at the west of the CBD, Docklands was Melbourne's original port, operating from the early 1900s until the mid-1990s, made obsolete by the requirements of container ships.
It begins at Spencer Street Station and Batman's Hill - the highest point of early Melbourne - extending to the Bolte Bridge.
Running parallel to each other through the CBD, Collins and Bourke streets have already been extended into Docklands and will eventually meet as the apex of a triangle deep in the Victoria Harbour precinct.
Mark Birrell, who was major projects minister in the first Kennett government when the Docklands vision was formalised, admits to an "ongoing parental interest" in the precinct. "This was a site that taxi drivers would not take you to for fear of the consequences," he says.
"It's [now] become a must-visit place for tourists, and people enjoy the restaurants and literally thousands of people are living there."
Docklands is one of the world's largest urban revival projects.
According to VicUrban's figures, investment at Docklands is running at an average of $500 million a year.
About $3.7 billion of development has been completed or is in construction. It hosts more than 6000 permanent residents, 6500 daily office commuters and averages 15,000 daily visitors, according to VicUrban.
When completed by about 2020, the Docklands development will have in effect doubled the size of Melbourne's city centre.
The doubters remain.
Ten years into what will be a 20- to 25-year project on a 200 hectare site on the western edge of Melbourne's CBD, the pace of development has slowed. Huge swaths of land are still barren, and the precinct has borne the brunt of criticism for the overheated residential property market of the early 2000s.
Little apartment building is planned for the near future as the market still absorbs the 2654 already built and 696 under construction.
At the beginning of October, the vacancy rate for Docklands apartments was 3.5 per cent and average weekly rent was $455, according to VicUrban.
VicUrban says there have been 144 resales of Docklands apartments for an average price of $517,000 and annual capital growth of 5.9 per cent, but 22 per cent have lost value. Forty per cent of sales have resulted in gains of between zero and 5 per cent a year, while 22 per cent lost value.
The area has received a boost in the past two days, with the state government awarding the contract for a $1 billion convention centre on Docklands' doorstep and also announcing in-principle support for a $60 million ice-skating centre at Waterfront City.
The precinct also received a lift last year when ANZ Bank announced it was looking for a new 80,000 square metre campus-style office space to house most of its Melbourne operations.
Victoria Harbour is regarded as a frontrunner for that deal and is "the jewel in the crown", according to Docklands general manager Michael Hynes.
Lend Lease has already taken a gamble on that status by beginning construction of its first residential tower, Dock 5, in the middle of last year at the height of negativity towards Docklands.
Lend Lease Victoria Harbour project director Maurice Cococcia acknowledges that the pace of sales at the project will not match those experienced by MAB and Mirvac who were selling at the height of the boom.
"Most of the developers have probably only been here for six or seven years and in that short period, [to have the current level of development] in a relatively untried and untested part of Melbourne is a great testament to that strategy," he says.
Despite fears in the early days about contamination, the biggest logistical issue has been coping with the Coode Island silt, which he says required more engineering work on building foundations.
Certainly not everything at Docklands has been a success. The $110 million Central City film studios, a private consortium chaired by movie distributor Sino Guzzardi, in the most north-western precinct, opened eight months late in February 2004, $7.4 million over budget and without electricity.
Since then, it has been the setting for the features Hating Alison Ashley, The Extra and the Nicolas Cage feature, Ghost Rider, but the jury is still out on whether the studios will attract enough top local and international productions to be viable. Nevertheless, a $7 million expansion began last year.
For the developers who moved into the early stages of the project, Docklands was a huge gamble.
"It was certainly pioneering territory," says Paul McDonald, chief executive officer of MAB Corporation, which will eventually invest more than $1 billion in its New Quay precinct at the northern end of Docklands.
Tabart says the well-publicised stoushes with unsuccessful developers were the low points of his 10-year reign but he stands by the authority's approach.
"Our agreements have to be hard-nosed business arrangements that require a developer to build at a time when there is no market. They win a bid with a design and a price and a time frame; [if they miss] they can lose their rights over the land."
Now, almost at the halfway stage of the Docklands experiment, all the precincts are ahead of their required development timetables, he says.
Demographer Bernard Salt of KPMG says Docklands' future is assured because of major social changes that are undermining the traditional nuclear family.
"Docklands does serve a niche in the sense that it offers something that has not been offered previously in Melbourne - water-based apartment accommodation adjacent to the CBD," he says.
Damian Trytell, principal of the Mecca restaurant group, says that in just three years, Docklands has become one of Melbourne's leading restaurant and entertainment precincts. His Livebait and Mecca Bah were among the first venues to open at New Quay in November 2002.
"We have generally run 27 per cent above what we budgeted in the early stages of our five-year business plan," he says.
Only one business at Docklands has been forced to close - a nightclub that Trytell says was inappropriate for the precinct.
The Docklands Authority and its successor were required to borrow to fund infrastructure under their establishing legislation - that debt stands at $150 million. Providing that infrastructure was a key to luring private investment, Tabart says.
The first project to use the model was the $400 million stadium. The then Docklands Authority assisted with $65 million worth of bridges and roads.
The roofed stadium - now known as Telstra Dome - is home to the AFL and has given Docklands a strong identity as the western fringe of the CBD through the exposure gained from the close to 10 million football supporters who have passed through its gates.
There is bipartisan political support for the project, although the Liberal opposition continues to criticise the merger of the Docklands Authority with the Urban Land Authority to form VicUrban. VicUrban believes that over 20 years Victoria will make a profit on Docklands.
The opposition's major projects spokeswoman, Louise Asher, says some delays and cost overruns have not affected the Liberal Party's backing of the development.
But there are those who do not share VicUrban's optimism. A professor of architecture at Melbourne University, Miles Lewis, a long-time sceptic of Docklands, says the precinct's shape is an opportunity lost.
The Bolte Bridge bridge was built too low to allow for cruise ships so, for example, unlike Sydney's Circular Quay, tourists cannot be dropped in the heart of Melbourne's new waterfront.
He also describes the building design as "low-rate".
Asked to nominate a positive, Lewis cites the extension of Collins and Bourke streets and the quality of the restaurants.
But Mark Birrell remains an enthusiastic believer in the Docklands and dismisses criticism of the project. "It's just the same thing every year, but they sell, they work and are in the high end of quality.">
Inner City Crime - Battling the Code of Silence
Looking For A Few Good Snitches
America's inner cities are ruled by a brutal code of silence.
How one city is fighting to crack it
Nathan Thornburgh / Baltimore
27 February 2006
Time
Alvin Chalmers, handcuffed in the backseat of an undercover cop car, closes his eyes and lets out a small moan. "I'm being treated like a criminal for being a victim," he says. "What kind of system is this?" Chalmers, a former municipal worker with a full beard and sad eyes who admits having been a drug addict, has just been plucked off rough-and-tumble Whitelock Street in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, Md. His crime? Being too scared to testify in court against a paroled murderer who robbed him at gunpoint last April. Chalmers began missing court dates three months before he was picked up. So the state of Maryland plans to incarcerate him until it's his time to testify. His biggest mistake, Chalmers says on the way to the same facility where his alleged attacker is being jailed, is ever having told the police the name of the man who robbed him. "That man is a killer," he says. "And now they're putting me in the same building as him. This is so wrong."
This is the treacherous moral ground of inner-city America, where communities from Boston to Milwaukee are looking for ways to combat a rising culture of witness intimidation. Despite a dip in 2004, national homicide rates have increased since 2000, and in some towns it is as difficult as ever to prosecute shootings and murders. Prosecutors say that the nationwide popularity of Stop Snitching T shirts is proof positive that thugs in some parts of the country continue to control the streets. Whether out of fear or a deep allegiance to the code of silence, witnesses simply aren't talking, and cities are increasingly exerting their own pressure on no-show witnesses.
Few cities have it quite as bad as Baltimore. The city's highest- crime areas tend to be close-knit, insular communities where everybody knows everybody else's business, including who's talking to the police. Mix in a high-stakes drug trade and a flood of handguns, and you have a recipe for a pitiless war on witnesses. Baltimore's problems first made national news in 2002 when a family of seven were killed in an arson attack after they helped police identify drug dealers in their neighborhood.
The climate of fear has only worsened since then. In 2004 it even got a slogan--Stop Snitching--with the appearance of an underground DVD with that title. The video, which gained attention around the country in part because of a cameo by homegrown NBA superstar Carmelo Anthony, is both a celebration of thug life and an orgy of threats and denunciations against crime witnesses who cooperate with police. Since the DVD appeared, Stop Snitching T shirts, visors and other apparel have become a fashion phenom in inner-city America. The apparel has been banned from Massachusetts courthouses as of January. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has pressured store owners to stop selling the merchandise, at one point threatening to send city officials into shops to seize the shirts, provoking the American Civil Liberties Union to complain that he was stepping on the freedom of expression.
Patricia Jessamy, the state's attorney in Baltimore, saw an opportunity in the controversy over the Stop Snitching craze. For years, she says, she lobbied unsuccessfully for more tools to fight witness intimidation. She told lawmakers that 90% of the murder cases her office handles involve some form of witness coercion and that 25% of her shooting trials were dismissed because a witness didn't show. But the Stop Snitching DVD argued her case better than any statistics could. She immediately made more than 400 copies and gave one to each state legislator. "That DVD showed them what is really going on here," she says. "The blinders came off, and the lights went on." Last year Maryland passed one of the toughest laws of its kind in the country, making witness intimidation in certain cases a felony punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment.
Arguments will begin next month in the first trial to test the new law. When a teenager told police he had seen two men shoot Paige Boyd last June, the accused men's friends and family stepped into action. Police say one defendant's girlfriend, with her toddler in tow, went to the teenager's house and told his father that the boy would "get it" for "snitching on my family." The next day, according to the police, a co-defendant's brother cornered the father at a store and said his teenager would "be dead before [the trial]". The girlfriend and the brother were both charged under the new law. Rather than face 20 years for witness intimidation, the brother struck a deal with prosecutors last week to testify against the girlfriend and plead guilty to a lesser charge.
Still, Jessamy is dissatisfied with the law. She wants it amended so that if witnesses are killed or intimidated into not showing up in court, their stories could still be introduced--even if they had never made a written or sworn statement--by having others testify about what the original witnesses had said about a case. "As it is now, a defendant knows that if he kills the witness, he kills the case," says Jessamy.
The Maryland legislature will consider the change this week but is unlikely to adopt it. The amendment may never emerge from the judiciary committee, given that the body is run by a former defense attorney. Many defense attorneys argue that the constitutional right to confront one's accuser in court is too important to discard. And, says city of Baltimore public defender Elizabeth Julian, "it's too hard to prove exactly why a witness didn't come to court."
Jessamy replies that the city is facing an epidemic of intimidation. She and her lieutenants in the state's attorney's office rattle off a list of examples: the hit that was nearly carried out on an 11-year-old witness; the two cut-rate attackers, paid just $50 each to rough up a witness before trial, who proved so inept that one of them collapsed and died after the witness gained the upper hand and started beating them up; the row of thugs who lined the marble steps of the courthouse so they could stare down witnesses and jurors entering a trial; the hoodlums who sent a sequestered witness text messages from their cell phone; the jurors in a case who, one by one, refused to read a guilty verdict aloud, convinced that they would become targets of retaliation.
Julian and other public defenders say the intimidation threat is overhyped, that the real reason witnesses don't testify is that the citizens of Baltimore have lost faith in the city's justice system, particularly the scandal-racked police force. A special rapid- reaction unit called a flex squad in the southwestern district was disbanded in December after one of its officers was accused of raping a detained woman before setting her free. A search of the precinct building turned up stashed narcotics and counterfeit DVDs. The charges came after years of rumored misconduct, and critics in the media say police brass let the unit continue to function primarily because the department's code of silence is not that much different from the one on the streets. "How will the department look now when any of its spokesmen speak out against things like the Stop Snitching DVDs, T shirts and caps?" wrote Baltimore Sun columnist Gregory Kane.
Some prosecutors acknowledge that the deep suspicion of the city's criminal-justice system is a major stumbling block. "Building trust at the grass-roots level would go a long way toward solving these witness issues," says homicide prosecutor Lisa Goldberg. But, prosecutors say, they simply don't have the luxury of waiting for that bond with the community to develop before trying to convict criminals. In the absence of trust, sometimes the only solution is to put as much pressure on witnesses as the thugs do.
That's where Sam Bowden, 34, and Byron Conaway, 30, come in. The former undercover narcotics detectives were assigned to the state's attorney's office full time in September 2004. Since then they have been assigned to serve more than 300 summonses and body attachments (special incarceration warrants for witnesses who don't want to be found). It can be a maddening chase at times. Wearing baggy street clothes with Kevlar vests underneath, the two troll the city's grim row houses looking for witnesses who are, as often as not, "in the game" themselves, part of the same shadowy and dangerous criminal class as the defendants. Even thugs are often afraid of what will happen if they are forced to testify, so Bowden and Conaway try to handle all their witnesses as gently as possible. "You do feel bad sometimes," says Bowden. "But these are important witnesses. These trials need to happen."
Nearly all states have a statute that allows judges to jail material witnesses to major crimes. "Somewhere in the deep core of American law is the notion that judges have a right to aggressively enforce court orders," says Stanford University law professor Robert Weisberg. "Witnesses are, in that sense, like defendants. People may think that one is the good guy and the other is the bad guy, but they both need to be in court for the legal system to work." Even if the jailed witness changes testimony on the stand--and prosecutor Goldberg says she can't remember a murder trial in which someone hasn't backtracked on his or her story--the witness's mere presence in court allows the prosecutors to admit earlier statements pointing toward the defendant's guilt.
Still, John Glynn, the circuit-court judge who signs many of the city's body attachments, says the system works better when witnesses testify voluntarily instead of being coerced by the court. "It's a battle of who can control the witness--the state or the street," he says. "And justice suffers when that happens." Baltimore, like many state and local governments, lacks the resources to protect witnesses after they have testified. The Baltimore witness- assistance program used to be called witness protection, but with a shoestring budget and local motels doubling as witness safe houses, officials realized they couldn't always live up to the protection promise. Unlike the federal witness-protection program for turncoat mobsters and cocaine kingpins, there is no reconstructive surgery, no house with a pool in suburban Phoenix. Baltimore authorities had to stretch their $400,000 annual budget in 2005 to accommodate 184 families in hiding--a few with as many as 11 members. Although some are relocated near family as far away as California, most are loath to leave Maryland and wind up languishing in motels just outside the city limits. "I wish we could just make our witnesses more comfortable," says Goldberg. "We need a lot more money."
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York reintroduced a bill this month that would help. It would provide nearly $100 million in federal funding to help local and state governments protect witnesses. Inspired by the murder of a crime witness in Brooklyn in 2002, the bill foundered when it was first submitted three years ago, but Schumer says the issue is too important to give up on. "Every day, witnesses who are willing to stand up in court and testify about a violent crime in their community put their lives on the line for the sake of justice," said Schumer. "The very least we can do is protect them."
That promise is too distant for the very present danger Alvin Chalmers faces. His pleading with detectives Conaway and Bowden in the car on the way to central booking has fallen on deaf ears, so Chalmers takes a new tack, rehearsing what he will probably say on the stand. "I was high when it happened," he says over and over. "I don't remember anything.">
America's inner cities are ruled by a brutal code of silence.
How one city is fighting to crack it
Nathan Thornburgh / Baltimore
27 February 2006
Time
Alvin Chalmers, handcuffed in the backseat of an undercover cop car, closes his eyes and lets out a small moan. "I'm being treated like a criminal for being a victim," he says. "What kind of system is this?" Chalmers, a former municipal worker with a full beard and sad eyes who admits having been a drug addict, has just been plucked off rough-and-tumble Whitelock Street in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, Md. His crime? Being too scared to testify in court against a paroled murderer who robbed him at gunpoint last April. Chalmers began missing court dates three months before he was picked up. So the state of Maryland plans to incarcerate him until it's his time to testify. His biggest mistake, Chalmers says on the way to the same facility where his alleged attacker is being jailed, is ever having told the police the name of the man who robbed him. "That man is a killer," he says. "And now they're putting me in the same building as him. This is so wrong."
This is the treacherous moral ground of inner-city America, where communities from Boston to Milwaukee are looking for ways to combat a rising culture of witness intimidation. Despite a dip in 2004, national homicide rates have increased since 2000, and in some towns it is as difficult as ever to prosecute shootings and murders. Prosecutors say that the nationwide popularity of Stop Snitching T shirts is proof positive that thugs in some parts of the country continue to control the streets. Whether out of fear or a deep allegiance to the code of silence, witnesses simply aren't talking, and cities are increasingly exerting their own pressure on no-show witnesses.
Few cities have it quite as bad as Baltimore. The city's highest- crime areas tend to be close-knit, insular communities where everybody knows everybody else's business, including who's talking to the police. Mix in a high-stakes drug trade and a flood of handguns, and you have a recipe for a pitiless war on witnesses. Baltimore's problems first made national news in 2002 when a family of seven were killed in an arson attack after they helped police identify drug dealers in their neighborhood.
The climate of fear has only worsened since then. In 2004 it even got a slogan--Stop Snitching--with the appearance of an underground DVD with that title. The video, which gained attention around the country in part because of a cameo by homegrown NBA superstar Carmelo Anthony, is both a celebration of thug life and an orgy of threats and denunciations against crime witnesses who cooperate with police. Since the DVD appeared, Stop Snitching T shirts, visors and other apparel have become a fashion phenom in inner-city America. The apparel has been banned from Massachusetts courthouses as of January. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has pressured store owners to stop selling the merchandise, at one point threatening to send city officials into shops to seize the shirts, provoking the American Civil Liberties Union to complain that he was stepping on the freedom of expression.
Patricia Jessamy, the state's attorney in Baltimore, saw an opportunity in the controversy over the Stop Snitching craze. For years, she says, she lobbied unsuccessfully for more tools to fight witness intimidation. She told lawmakers that 90% of the murder cases her office handles involve some form of witness coercion and that 25% of her shooting trials were dismissed because a witness didn't show. But the Stop Snitching DVD argued her case better than any statistics could. She immediately made more than 400 copies and gave one to each state legislator. "That DVD showed them what is really going on here," she says. "The blinders came off, and the lights went on." Last year Maryland passed one of the toughest laws of its kind in the country, making witness intimidation in certain cases a felony punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment.
Arguments will begin next month in the first trial to test the new law. When a teenager told police he had seen two men shoot Paige Boyd last June, the accused men's friends and family stepped into action. Police say one defendant's girlfriend, with her toddler in tow, went to the teenager's house and told his father that the boy would "get it" for "snitching on my family." The next day, according to the police, a co-defendant's brother cornered the father at a store and said his teenager would "be dead before [the trial]". The girlfriend and the brother were both charged under the new law. Rather than face 20 years for witness intimidation, the brother struck a deal with prosecutors last week to testify against the girlfriend and plead guilty to a lesser charge.
Still, Jessamy is dissatisfied with the law. She wants it amended so that if witnesses are killed or intimidated into not showing up in court, their stories could still be introduced--even if they had never made a written or sworn statement--by having others testify about what the original witnesses had said about a case. "As it is now, a defendant knows that if he kills the witness, he kills the case," says Jessamy.
The Maryland legislature will consider the change this week but is unlikely to adopt it. The amendment may never emerge from the judiciary committee, given that the body is run by a former defense attorney. Many defense attorneys argue that the constitutional right to confront one's accuser in court is too important to discard. And, says city of Baltimore public defender Elizabeth Julian, "it's too hard to prove exactly why a witness didn't come to court."
Jessamy replies that the city is facing an epidemic of intimidation. She and her lieutenants in the state's attorney's office rattle off a list of examples: the hit that was nearly carried out on an 11-year-old witness; the two cut-rate attackers, paid just $50 each to rough up a witness before trial, who proved so inept that one of them collapsed and died after the witness gained the upper hand and started beating them up; the row of thugs who lined the marble steps of the courthouse so they could stare down witnesses and jurors entering a trial; the hoodlums who sent a sequestered witness text messages from their cell phone; the jurors in a case who, one by one, refused to read a guilty verdict aloud, convinced that they would become targets of retaliation.
Julian and other public defenders say the intimidation threat is overhyped, that the real reason witnesses don't testify is that the citizens of Baltimore have lost faith in the city's justice system, particularly the scandal-racked police force. A special rapid- reaction unit called a flex squad in the southwestern district was disbanded in December after one of its officers was accused of raping a detained woman before setting her free. A search of the precinct building turned up stashed narcotics and counterfeit DVDs. The charges came after years of rumored misconduct, and critics in the media say police brass let the unit continue to function primarily because the department's code of silence is not that much different from the one on the streets. "How will the department look now when any of its spokesmen speak out against things like the Stop Snitching DVDs, T shirts and caps?" wrote Baltimore Sun columnist Gregory Kane.
Some prosecutors acknowledge that the deep suspicion of the city's criminal-justice system is a major stumbling block. "Building trust at the grass-roots level would go a long way toward solving these witness issues," says homicide prosecutor Lisa Goldberg. But, prosecutors say, they simply don't have the luxury of waiting for that bond with the community to develop before trying to convict criminals. In the absence of trust, sometimes the only solution is to put as much pressure on witnesses as the thugs do.
That's where Sam Bowden, 34, and Byron Conaway, 30, come in. The former undercover narcotics detectives were assigned to the state's attorney's office full time in September 2004. Since then they have been assigned to serve more than 300 summonses and body attachments (special incarceration warrants for witnesses who don't want to be found). It can be a maddening chase at times. Wearing baggy street clothes with Kevlar vests underneath, the two troll the city's grim row houses looking for witnesses who are, as often as not, "in the game" themselves, part of the same shadowy and dangerous criminal class as the defendants. Even thugs are often afraid of what will happen if they are forced to testify, so Bowden and Conaway try to handle all their witnesses as gently as possible. "You do feel bad sometimes," says Bowden. "But these are important witnesses. These trials need to happen."
Nearly all states have a statute that allows judges to jail material witnesses to major crimes. "Somewhere in the deep core of American law is the notion that judges have a right to aggressively enforce court orders," says Stanford University law professor Robert Weisberg. "Witnesses are, in that sense, like defendants. People may think that one is the good guy and the other is the bad guy, but they both need to be in court for the legal system to work." Even if the jailed witness changes testimony on the stand--and prosecutor Goldberg says she can't remember a murder trial in which someone hasn't backtracked on his or her story--the witness's mere presence in court allows the prosecutors to admit earlier statements pointing toward the defendant's guilt.
Still, John Glynn, the circuit-court judge who signs many of the city's body attachments, says the system works better when witnesses testify voluntarily instead of being coerced by the court. "It's a battle of who can control the witness--the state or the street," he says. "And justice suffers when that happens." Baltimore, like many state and local governments, lacks the resources to protect witnesses after they have testified. The Baltimore witness- assistance program used to be called witness protection, but with a shoestring budget and local motels doubling as witness safe houses, officials realized they couldn't always live up to the protection promise. Unlike the federal witness-protection program for turncoat mobsters and cocaine kingpins, there is no reconstructive surgery, no house with a pool in suburban Phoenix. Baltimore authorities had to stretch their $400,000 annual budget in 2005 to accommodate 184 families in hiding--a few with as many as 11 members. Although some are relocated near family as far away as California, most are loath to leave Maryland and wind up languishing in motels just outside the city limits. "I wish we could just make our witnesses more comfortable," says Goldberg. "We need a lot more money."
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York reintroduced a bill this month that would help. It would provide nearly $100 million in federal funding to help local and state governments protect witnesses. Inspired by the murder of a crime witness in Brooklyn in 2002, the bill foundered when it was first submitted three years ago, but Schumer says the issue is too important to give up on. "Every day, witnesses who are willing to stand up in court and testify about a violent crime in their community put their lives on the line for the sake of justice," said Schumer. "The very least we can do is protect them."
That promise is too distant for the very present danger Alvin Chalmers faces. His pleading with detectives Conaway and Bowden in the car on the way to central booking has fallen on deaf ears, so Chalmers takes a new tack, rehearsing what he will probably say on the stand. "I was high when it happened," he says over and over. "I don't remember anything.">
Does your city services work for you?
Just wanna discuss this. Does your city services work for you. Services such as police, medical, fire, etc. Are fast, efficient and are always on time? Are they there who you need them?>
Basel Invests in Art & Architecture
Cultural riches
Prosperous Swiss city invests in art and architecture
ERIC CONVEY
19 February 2006
BASEL, Switzerland - Watches. Secret bank accounts. Cheese with holes. Chocolate that's to die for. That's what this country is famous for.
But in this city along the hilly banks of the Rhine River, another commodity is far more visible: science. And success in that field has led to another attraction: art and architecture.
Basel is profoundly shaped by its life sciences industry and by the cultural treasures it has brought.
Nestled hard up against France and Germany, Basel is home today to many of the world's biggest pharmacology concerns, including Novartis - which has its world research headquarters in Cambridge (Basel thinks of Boston as a sister city) - and Roche.
Striking architecture, especially of the modern variety, is most visible in the sprawling campuses of the pharmaceutical companies.
The Novartis campus, for instance, is high above the river. A former manufacturing site, it has grown into a sprawling complex of offices, and is still growing. Executives expect to double the 5,000- person work force over the next 10 to 15 years. The exterior walls of the modern glass structure are decorated with translucent panels that transform the building itself into a work of art. Sculpture animates the grounds.
When you explore the city's history you begin to understand the intellectual underpinnings that allowed the rise of the pharmaceutical industry.
In the mid-1400s, Catholic and Orthodox Christians held one of the many councils of the era in Basel. Like their modern counterparts, the scholars needed paper. That spawned a printing and book trade industry that thrived here for hundreds of years.
In 1529, the Reformation hit Basel and the city became officially Protestant. Hugenots arrived soon after and brought with them silk- dyeing skills. Colored ribbons were the specialty. The city's richly decorated cathedral dates to this time.
The leaps from manufacturing pigments to manufacturing chemicals to producing drugs were not big ones.
All the work with chemicals took its toll on this stretch of the Rhine, but the river was cleaned up years ago. As one local explained, the river used to smell, but "Now you can swim in it."
Several bridges span the river in Basel, but driving across is the boring way. Far more fun is to ride one of the small boats that are attached to cables and slowly propelled along by the river's current, as they have been for more than 100 years.
A number of residences, ranging from 15th century houses to 19th century mansions, line the roads high above the river. And they can be viewed on riverboat tours that run the Rhine and back. The trips last several hours and offer views of the countryside as well.
A significant portion of the wealth generated in Basel over the years went into institutions dealing with the visual arts. (For all those left-brainers, the thriving arts scene, painting and sculpture in particular, keeps the right brain firing.)
There are dozens of museums in town. The link of art and industry is no more obvious than at the Tinguely Museum, an extraordinarily fun expanse of sculptures at the Roche Headquarters. (When's the last time you stopped by a U.S. corporate headquarters to examine the company's art collection?).
Other must-dos for art lovers are Foundation Beyeler museum on the outskirts of the city and the Kunstmuseum Basel downtown.
Unlike most museums, the Foundation Breyeler is the kind of place an art aficionado and a novice can enjoy equally. Getting there by street car is easy and the pleasant grounds and stunning ship- shaped building designed by Renzo Piano, justify the trip, as do the world-class special exhibitions. The 200-piece permanent collection (once a private collection) includes Cezanne, Picasso, Rousseau, Mondrian, Klee, Matisse and more.
The expansive Kunstmuseum is the city's impressive museum of fine arts. Highlights include works from 1400 to 1600 and from the 19 th and 20th centuries including Cubism (Picasso et al) and post-1950s American art (Warhol et al). The courtyard boasts Rodin and Caldor and inside you will also find works by such names as Gauguin, Van Gogh, Klee and Giacometti.
As big as art is year-round in Basel, it all but consumes the city each summer for the annual Art Basel (for information about this year's event, June 14-18, log on to www.artbasel.com ). International artists numbering more than 2,000 as well as dealers, patrons and fans come to town for this World's Fair of the arts world.
Basel's residents really cut loose for the annual Carnival, Fasnacht, featuring elaborate, costumed, all-night street celebrations, this year March 6-8 (more at www.fasnachts-comite.ch/ english.html).
The city's hospitality industry is first class and the industrious yet friendly locals make visitors feel at home. The Swissotel Le Plaza Basel (winter rates are from about $190 per night; www.swissotel.com ) served up a comfortable guest room that included a small table, chair and drawing supplies for our 2-year- old.
In this prosperous city shopping is first-class, too. And there are numerous fun surprises tucked away. We found one shoe store, for instance, with a children's slide that runs from the ground floor to the basement. And of course there is no shortage of chocolate shops, with delicious fare ranging from the inexpensive to the exotic. (Bad Swiss chocolate, it turns out, is better than good American chocolate. And great Swiss chocolate is out of this world.)
Like any Swiss city, Basel has plenty of restaurants that give meat - beef especially - prominence on their menus. But many also offer a good variety of vegetable dishes, even vegetarian options. Fondue is a must-do here. Meal prices cover a broad range, with a very nice dinner for two costing about $100 before wine.
In part because English is the dominant language in modern science, and also because Switzerland like most European countries takes language instruction for children seriously, moving through Basel is easy for an American. (When English failed, the remnants of high school French proved adequate.) A convenient and clean tram system, meanwhile, made moving around a breeze.
For more information, go to www.baseltourismus.ch .>
Prosperous Swiss city invests in art and architecture
ERIC CONVEY
19 February 2006
BASEL, Switzerland - Watches. Secret bank accounts. Cheese with holes. Chocolate that's to die for. That's what this country is famous for.
But in this city along the hilly banks of the Rhine River, another commodity is far more visible: science. And success in that field has led to another attraction: art and architecture.
Basel is profoundly shaped by its life sciences industry and by the cultural treasures it has brought.
Nestled hard up against France and Germany, Basel is home today to many of the world's biggest pharmacology concerns, including Novartis - which has its world research headquarters in Cambridge (Basel thinks of Boston as a sister city) - and Roche.
Striking architecture, especially of the modern variety, is most visible in the sprawling campuses of the pharmaceutical companies.
The Novartis campus, for instance, is high above the river. A former manufacturing site, it has grown into a sprawling complex of offices, and is still growing. Executives expect to double the 5,000- person work force over the next 10 to 15 years. The exterior walls of the modern glass structure are decorated with translucent panels that transform the building itself into a work of art. Sculpture animates the grounds.
When you explore the city's history you begin to understand the intellectual underpinnings that allowed the rise of the pharmaceutical industry.
In the mid-1400s, Catholic and Orthodox Christians held one of the many councils of the era in Basel. Like their modern counterparts, the scholars needed paper. That spawned a printing and book trade industry that thrived here for hundreds of years.
In 1529, the Reformation hit Basel and the city became officially Protestant. Hugenots arrived soon after and brought with them silk- dyeing skills. Colored ribbons were the specialty. The city's richly decorated cathedral dates to this time.
The leaps from manufacturing pigments to manufacturing chemicals to producing drugs were not big ones.
All the work with chemicals took its toll on this stretch of the Rhine, but the river was cleaned up years ago. As one local explained, the river used to smell, but "Now you can swim in it."
Several bridges span the river in Basel, but driving across is the boring way. Far more fun is to ride one of the small boats that are attached to cables and slowly propelled along by the river's current, as they have been for more than 100 years.
A number of residences, ranging from 15th century houses to 19th century mansions, line the roads high above the river. And they can be viewed on riverboat tours that run the Rhine and back. The trips last several hours and offer views of the countryside as well.
A significant portion of the wealth generated in Basel over the years went into institutions dealing with the visual arts. (For all those left-brainers, the thriving arts scene, painting and sculpture in particular, keeps the right brain firing.)
There are dozens of museums in town. The link of art and industry is no more obvious than at the Tinguely Museum, an extraordinarily fun expanse of sculptures at the Roche Headquarters. (When's the last time you stopped by a U.S. corporate headquarters to examine the company's art collection?).
Other must-dos for art lovers are Foundation Beyeler museum on the outskirts of the city and the Kunstmuseum Basel downtown.
Unlike most museums, the Foundation Breyeler is the kind of place an art aficionado and a novice can enjoy equally. Getting there by street car is easy and the pleasant grounds and stunning ship- shaped building designed by Renzo Piano, justify the trip, as do the world-class special exhibitions. The 200-piece permanent collection (once a private collection) includes Cezanne, Picasso, Rousseau, Mondrian, Klee, Matisse and more.
The expansive Kunstmuseum is the city's impressive museum of fine arts. Highlights include works from 1400 to 1600 and from the 19 th and 20th centuries including Cubism (Picasso et al) and post-1950s American art (Warhol et al). The courtyard boasts Rodin and Caldor and inside you will also find works by such names as Gauguin, Van Gogh, Klee and Giacometti.
As big as art is year-round in Basel, it all but consumes the city each summer for the annual Art Basel (for information about this year's event, June 14-18, log on to www.artbasel.com ). International artists numbering more than 2,000 as well as dealers, patrons and fans come to town for this World's Fair of the arts world.
Basel's residents really cut loose for the annual Carnival, Fasnacht, featuring elaborate, costumed, all-night street celebrations, this year March 6-8 (more at www.fasnachts-comite.ch/ english.html).
The city's hospitality industry is first class and the industrious yet friendly locals make visitors feel at home. The Swissotel Le Plaza Basel (winter rates are from about $190 per night; www.swissotel.com ) served up a comfortable guest room that included a small table, chair and drawing supplies for our 2-year- old.
In this prosperous city shopping is first-class, too. And there are numerous fun surprises tucked away. We found one shoe store, for instance, with a children's slide that runs from the ground floor to the basement. And of course there is no shortage of chocolate shops, with delicious fare ranging from the inexpensive to the exotic. (Bad Swiss chocolate, it turns out, is better than good American chocolate. And great Swiss chocolate is out of this world.)
Like any Swiss city, Basel has plenty of restaurants that give meat - beef especially - prominence on their menus. But many also offer a good variety of vegetable dishes, even vegetarian options. Fondue is a must-do here. Meal prices cover a broad range, with a very nice dinner for two costing about $100 before wine.
In part because English is the dominant language in modern science, and also because Switzerland like most European countries takes language instruction for children seriously, moving through Basel is easy for an American. (When English failed, the remnants of high school French proved adequate.) A convenient and clean tram system, meanwhile, made moving around a breeze.
For more information, go to www.baseltourismus.ch .>
Contemporary Urban Plazas
What are some of the most modern urban plazas across the world?
For example, I think Stadtlounge in St. Gallen, Switzerland is very contemporary.>
For example, I think Stadtlounge in St. Gallen, Switzerland is very contemporary.>
Urban Parks
What are the largest urban parks in the world?
A top 20 would be great, if anyone has the info.>
A top 20 would be great, if anyone has the info.
>
In what ways is Chicago different from NYC?
I was planning to visit Chicago for the first time this summer, but unfortunately will have to put off the trip. Having only lived on the coasts and overseas, I never really gave much thought to the city until coming to this website. It seems like an interesting place, and I have to say my curiosity is piqued.
But from the photos, I have to say it reminds me a lot of NYC. The skyscraper district of midtown or downtown, and the outskirts of Queens or Brooklyn. From photos, (and certainly from visiting) one can get a sense of how for instance SF, Boston, LA, Miami and Washington are all quite different from NY. In what ways would you say the look or feel of Chicago is unique?>
But from the photos, I have to say it reminds me a lot of NYC. The skyscraper district of midtown or downtown, and the outskirts of Queens or Brooklyn. From photos, (and certainly from visiting) one can get a sense of how for instance SF, Boston, LA, Miami and Washington are all quite different from NY. In what ways would you say the look or feel of Chicago is unique?>
150 Biggest Agglomerations in world Jan. 2006
this is a list of the 150 biggest agglos in 2006 ;it includes agglos. over 1 million pop. ;the source is citypopulation de :
what do you think about this list !?---
1.) Tokyo 34.200.000
2.) Mexico city 22.800.000
3.) Seoul 22.300.000
4.) New York City 21.900.000
5.) Sao Paulo 20.200.000
6.) Bombay 19.850.000
7.) Delhi 19.700.000
8.) Shanghai 18.150.000
9.) Los Angeles 18.000.000
10.) Osaka 16.800.000
11.) Jakarta 16.550.000
12.) Calcutta 15.650.000
13.) Cairo 15.600.000
14.) Manila 14.950.000
15 .) Karatschi 14.300.000
16.) Moskva 13.750.000
17.) Buenos Aires 13.450.000
18.) Dacca 13.250.000
19.) Rio de Janeiro 12.150.000
20.) Bejing 12.100.000
21.) London 12.000.000
22.) Tehran 11.850.000
23.) Istanbul 11.500.000
24.) Lagos 11.100.000
25.) shenzen 10.700.000
26.) Paris 9.950.000
27.) Chicago 9.750.000
28.) Canton 9.550.000
29.) Chungking 9.350.000
30.) Wuhan 9.100.000
31.) Lima 8.550.000
32.) Bangkok 8.450.000
33.) bogota 8.350.000
34.) washington 8.150.000
35.) Nagoya 8.050.000
36.) Madras 7.600.000
37.) Lahore 7.550.000
38.) Hongkok 7.400.000
39.) Johannesburg 7.400.000
40.) San Francisco 7.250.000
41.) Bangalore 7.100.000
42.) Kinshasa 7.000.000
43.) Taipeh 6.950.000
44.) Hyderabad 6.700.000
45.) Tientsen 6.350.000
46.) Dallas 6.000.000
47 Philadelhia 6.000.000
48,) Santiago de Ch. 5.900.000
49.) Detroit 5.800.000
50.) Ruhr area 5.800.000
51.) Boston 5.700.000
52.) Khartum 5.650.000
53.) Ahmadabad 5.600.000
54.) Belo Horizonte 5.600.000
55.) madrid 5.600.000
56.) Bagdad 5.550.000
57.) Miami 5.550.000
58.)Houston 5.400.000
59.) Saigon 5.400.000
60.) Toronto 5.400.000
61.) Sankt Petersburg RSS 5.250.000
62.) Atlanta 5.100.000
63.) Alexandria 5.000.000
64.) Caracas 4.700.000
65.) Sigapore 4.650.000
66.) Riad 4.550.000
67.) Shenyang 4.550.000
68.) Rangyun 4.500.000
69.) Pune 4.450.000
70,) Guadalajara 4.350.000
71.) Sydney 4.350.000
72.) Chittagong 4.300.000
73.) Kuala Lumpur 4.300.000
74.) Berlin 4.200.000
75.) Algier 4.150.000
76.) Porto Alegre 4.150.000
77.) Abidjan 4.100.000
78.) Monterry 3.950.000
79.) Phoenix 3.900.000
80.) Casablanca 3.850.000
81.) Milano 3.850.000
82.) Barcelona 3.800.000
83.) ANKARA 3.750.000
84.) Recife 3.750.000
85.) Seattle 3.750.000
86.) Pusan 3.700.000
87.) melbourne 3.700.000
88.) Surat 3.700.000
89.) Montreal 3.650.000
90.) Brasilia 3.600.000
91.) Pjonjang 3.600.000
92.) Xian 3.600.000
93.) Athens 3.500.000
94.) Durban 3.500.000
95.) fortaleza 3.500.000
96.) Nanjing 3.500.000
97.) Salvador 3 .500.000
98.) Medelin 3.450.000
99.) Harbin 3.400.000
100.) Minneapolis 3.400.000
101.) Kano 3.350.000
102 .) Roma 3.350.000
103.) Capetown 3.300.000
104.) Curitiba 3.300.000
105.) Chengdu 3.250.000
106.) Kanpur 3.250.000
107.) Kiew 3.250.000
108.) accra 3.200.000
109.) Kabul 3.150.000
110.) Tel Aviv 3.150.000
111.) Amman 3.100.000
112.) Bandung 3.100.000
113.) Changchun 3.100.000
114.) Jiddah 3.100.000
115.) Napoli 3.100.000
116.) adis abeba 3.050.000
117.) Dar Es Salam 3.050.000
118.) dongguan 3.050.000
119.) San Diego 3.050.000
120.) Ibadan 3.000.000
121.) Nairobi 3.000.000
122.) Santo Domingo 3.000.000
123.) Surabaya 3.000.000
124.) Faisalabad 2.950.000
125.) Jaipur 2.950.000
126.) Dalian 2.900.000
127.) Kaosiung 2.900.000
128.) Lisboa 2.900.000
129.) Cleveland 2.850.000
130.) Damascus 2.850.000
131.) Katowice 2.850.000
132.) Rawalpindi 2.850.000
133.) San Juan 2.850.000
134.) Daegu 2.800.000
135.) Izmir 2.800.000
136.) St Louis 2.800.000
137.) Campinas 2.750.000
138.) Haleppo 2.750.000
139) Luanda 2.750.000
140.) Lucknow 2.750.000
141.) Cali 2.700.000
142) Denver 2.700.000
143.) Medan 2.700.000
14.4) Kunming 2.650.000
145.) Mashad 2.650.000
146.) Stuttgart 2.650.000
147.) Tampa 2.650.000
148.) Birmingham GB 2.600.000
149.) Hamburg 2.600.000
150.) Hangzou 2.600.000>
what do you think about this list !?---
1.) Tokyo 34.200.000
2.) Mexico city 22.800.000
3.) Seoul 22.300.000
4.) New York City 21.900.000
5.) Sao Paulo 20.200.000
6.) Bombay 19.850.000
7.) Delhi 19.700.000
8.) Shanghai 18.150.000
9.) Los Angeles 18.000.000
10.) Osaka 16.800.000
11.) Jakarta 16.550.000
12.) Calcutta 15.650.000
13.) Cairo 15.600.000
14.) Manila 14.950.000
15 .) Karatschi 14.300.000
16.) Moskva 13.750.000
17.) Buenos Aires 13.450.000
18.) Dacca 13.250.000
19.) Rio de Janeiro 12.150.000
20.) Bejing 12.100.000
21.) London 12.000.000
22.) Tehran 11.850.000
23.) Istanbul 11.500.000
24.) Lagos 11.100.000
25.) shenzen 10.700.000
26.) Paris 9.950.000
27.) Chicago 9.750.000
28.) Canton 9.550.000
29.) Chungking 9.350.000
30.) Wuhan 9.100.000
31.) Lima 8.550.000
32.) Bangkok 8.450.000
33.) bogota 8.350.000
34.) washington 8.150.000
35.) Nagoya 8.050.000
36.) Madras 7.600.000
37.) Lahore 7.550.000
38.) Hongkok 7.400.000
39.) Johannesburg 7.400.000
40.) San Francisco 7.250.000
41.) Bangalore 7.100.000
42.) Kinshasa 7.000.000
43.) Taipeh 6.950.000
44.) Hyderabad 6.700.000
45.) Tientsen 6.350.000
46.) Dallas 6.000.000
47
Philadelhia 6.000.00048,) Santiago de Ch. 5.900.000
49.) Detroit 5.800.000
50.) Ruhr area 5.800.000
51.) Boston 5.700.000
52.) Khartum 5.650.000
53.) Ahmadabad 5.600.000
54.) Belo Horizonte 5.600.000
55.) madrid 5.600.000
56.) Bagdad 5.550.000
57.) Miami 5.550.000
58.)Houston 5.400.000
59.) Saigon 5.400.000
60.) Toronto 5.400.000
61.) Sankt Petersburg RSS 5.250.000
62.) Atlanta 5.100.000
63.) Alexandria 5.000.000
64.) Caracas 4.700.000
65.) Sigapore 4.650.000
66.) Riad 4.550.000
67.) Shenyang 4.550.000
68.) Rangyun 4.500.000
69.) Pune 4.450.000
70,) Guadalajara 4.350.000
71.) Sydney 4.350.000
72.) Chittagong 4.300.000
73.) Kuala Lumpur 4.300.000
74.) Berlin 4.200.000
75.) Algier 4.150.000
76.) Porto Alegre 4.150.000
77.) Abidjan 4.100.000
78.) Monterry 3.950.000
79.) Phoenix 3.900.000
80.) Casablanca 3.850.000
81.) Milano 3.850.000
82.) Barcelona 3.800.000
83.) ANKARA 3.750.000
84.) Recife 3.750.000
85.) Seattle 3.750.000
86.) Pusan 3.700.000
87.) melbourne 3.700.000
88.) Surat 3.700.000
89.) Montreal 3.650.000
90.) Brasilia 3.600.000
91.) Pjonjang 3.600.000
92.) Xian 3.600.000
93.) Athens 3.500.000
94.) Durban 3.500.000
95.) fortaleza 3.500.000
96.) Nanjing 3.500.000
97.) Salvador 3 .500.000
98.) Medelin 3.450.000
99.) Harbin 3.400.000
100.) Minneapolis 3.400.000
101.) Kano 3.350.000
102 .) Roma 3.350.000
103.) Capetown 3.300.000
104.) Curitiba 3.300.000
105.) Chengdu 3.250.000
106.) Kanpur 3.250.000
107.) Kiew 3.250.000
108.) accra 3.200.000
109.) Kabul 3.150.000
110.) Tel Aviv 3.150.000
111.) Amman 3.100.000
112.) Bandung 3.100.000
113.) Changchun 3.100.000
114.) Jiddah 3.100.000
115.) Napoli 3.100.000
116.) adis abeba 3.050.000
117.) Dar Es Salam 3.050.000
118.) dongguan 3.050.000
119.) San Diego 3.050.000
120.) Ibadan 3.000.000
121.) Nairobi 3.000.000
122.) Santo Domingo 3.000.000
123.) Surabaya 3.000.000
124.) Faisalabad 2.950.000
125.) Jaipur 2.950.000
126.) Dalian 2.900.000
127.) Kaosiung 2.900.000
128.) Lisboa 2.900.000
129.) Cleveland 2.850.000
130.) Damascus 2.850.000
131.) Katowice 2.850.000
132.) Rawalpindi 2.850.000
133.) San Juan 2.850.000
134.) Daegu 2.800.000
135.) Izmir 2.800.000
136.) St Louis 2.800.000
137.) Campinas 2.750.000
138.) Haleppo 2.750.000
139) Luanda 2.750.000
140.) Lucknow 2.750.000
141.) Cali 2.700.000
142) Denver 2.700.000
143.) Medan 2.700.000
14.4) Kunming 2.650.000
145.) Mashad 2.650.000
146.) Stuttgart 2.650.000
147.) Tampa 2.650.000
148.) Birmingham GB 2.600.000
149.) Hamburg 2.600.000
150.) Hangzou 2.600.000>
World-class U.S. cities OTHER than NY, LA
Maybe, second world-class lol. But aside from the very expensive NY, LA and all the usual ones, are there any U.S. cities that come somewhat close to offering everything that these cities do but at a lower price and more liveable environment? (things like culture, status, nightlife, excellent shopping/dining etc.) Obviously none are going to match the top cities, but there has to be a few "next best".
I haven't been around too much but I'd have to go with Houston, Dallas or Las Vegas.
I've heard of Dallas referred to as a "Mini L.A." it's known for it's restaurants and shopping and has the "big-spender" image. Nightlife seems to be a little lacking but hey I don't live there so who knows.
Houston is the 4th largest city (assuming this is still correct) so it's got that going for it, both of these cities have some massive and very impressive skylines too... if anything they at least LOOK the part. They also offer a very very low cost of living.
Las Vegas is a little different but there's no denying that EVERYONE knows Vegas, turn on the travel channel.. when are they NOT airing something on Vegas? I think this is as close as it gets to the "feel" of one of the major glamour cities. Vegas gets a lot of important events and a lot of coverage, like NY there always seems to be something going on around town. Cost of living is also reasonable, I hear property prices are going up now but at least they still have no income tax. Aside from the glamour I don't know what other things the city offers or how liveable it is though.
What are yours?>
I haven't been around too much but I'd have to go with Houston, Dallas or Las Vegas.
I've heard of Dallas referred to as a "Mini L.A." it's known for it's restaurants and shopping and has the "big-spender" image. Nightlife seems to be a little lacking but hey I don't live there so who knows.
Houston is the 4th largest city (assuming this is still correct) so it's got that going for it, both of these cities have some massive and very impressive skylines too... if anything they at least LOOK the part. They also offer a very very low cost of living.
Las Vegas is a little different but there's no denying that EVERYONE knows Vegas, turn on the travel channel.. when are they NOT airing something on Vegas? I think this is as close as it gets to the "feel" of one of the major glamour cities. Vegas gets a lot of important events and a lot of coverage, like NY there always seems to be something going on around town. Cost of living is also reasonable, I hear property prices are going up now but at least they still have no income tax. Aside from the glamour I don't know what other things the city offers or how liveable it is though.
What are yours?>
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