Catching Up

Been busy the last few days, so I'm catching up on things, ready to make up for the lack of posts lately.

:: The biggest news today appears to be the Supreme Court decision that expands the U.S. government's use of eminent domain to encompass economic development. Previously, eminent domain applied to condemnation for public uses, such as highways and railroads. This ruling opens up an avenue for private developments, like a new Pfizer facility, to bully property owners and take their property with the government's backing, in the name of "economic development." This is a bad judgement that will be fraught with problems down the road as courts try to decide if new and "more lucrative" uses are in fact that, or if they are harmful to their context.

:: Making up for the above no-no, the U.S. government voted to not cut public broadcasting's funding by 25%. Hooray!

:: Treehugger features an interview with James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency (which I'm about ready to start reading) and perhaps the loudest cautionary voice of our impending cheap oil crisis.

:: Future Feeder posts on Virtual Cities and Urban Underground Farming.

:: David Sucher is pissed that Frank Gehry was given an urban design award by the Congress for New Urbanism, while Joseph Clarke thinks it's warranted, using the Disney Concert Hall - like Sucher - as an example.

:: Books of the Moment: Sketch - Plan - Build: World Class Architects Show How It's Done and Deyan Sudjic's The Edifice Complex.

:: The Paul Klee Centre opened Monday. Improvised Schema has the lowdown.

:: And finally, Marcus at gravestmor took bronzein the competition for a National Police Memorial in Canberra, Australia, out of 77 entries. An impressive design that isn't a reinterpretation of Maya Lin's wall in D.C., as many memorials these days are.