Tall and tan and young and lovely,
The girl from Pontiac goes walking
And when she passes,
Each one she passes goes - yo!
Posted on 12/26/2012 3:15:00 PM PST by surroundedbyblue
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Paris — the city of lights and love, and a destination for millions of tourists — could that be the future Pittsburgh with some sensible, healthy-focused city planning?
“Pittsburgh has wonderful parks, and you also have that wonderful next to the river walking pathway,” says Dr. Richard Jackson, a physician and urban designer.
Jackson, who teaches at UCLA, says Paris is a good example of a healthy city that Pittsburgh could become.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburgh.cbslocal.com ...
So we can assume the professor does not drive nor own a dirty car?
It's also too much of a consumption centered vision. Old Pittsburgh wanted to produce goods for the rest of the world and did so, well and on a large scale. That was a good enough destiny for any city. After that, crepes and aperitifs is a major comedown. You're not going to get back the identity and sense of purpose that steelmaking gave the city by inviting in artists and hipsters who'd just as soon be somewhere else.
You're right that the vision of the "new Paris" is the bait people are offered to swallow the "carless future" idea. But I wouldn't be too down on that idea. Who can say what conditions will be like 50 or 100 years from now?
Children who grew up a century ago in the real mansions of Fifth Avenue and Newport got really sick of those environments and came to prefer apartment living. Who's to say that the kids in today's minimansions may not follow a similar path?
Already a lot of retirees are moving back to cities, glad to be rid of the hassles of suburban existence. Of course the freedom and mobility cars bring shouldn't be surrendered, but if people choose otherwise for themselves without diminishing your options, is it really a bad thing?
Is there enough dogcrap on Pittsburgh’s sidewalks to resemble Paris?
Dr. Richard Jackson, Chair of the School of Health at UCLA, and former head of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), argued that how we shape our environment impacts our health. There are now deep-rooted structural issues with the built environment that are creating epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and depression. Also, the current way of dealing with these structural issues is only just increasing the annual amount of spending on healthcare (now at 17 percent of GDP), instead of addressing the underlying problems. “We are now medicalizing the problems people are experiencing with their environment. We are no longer creating wellbeing.”
Instead of addressing the public health impacts of the absence of trees, low-albedo streets (which contribute to the urban heat island effect), as well as a lack of sustainable transportation planning, which can help spur the growth of public transit options, we are instead “looking at the end of the pipeline,” the medical effects. Our environment is sending us a message: “We are appendages to our cars.”
While in California he helped establish the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program and state and national laws to reduce risks from pesticides, especially to farm workers and to children. While at CDC he established the national asthma epidemiology and control program, oversaw the childhood lead poisoning prevention program, and instituted the federal effort to “biomonitor” chemical levels in the US population
Tall and tan and young and lovely,
The girl from Pontiac goes walking
And when she passes,
Each one she passes goes - yo!
No, I heard it was too much like Pittsburgh.........
I find the Shanghai transformation astonishing,especially in such a brief period of time.
One of my sons visited Shanghai about a year ago and loved it,especially the way it lights up at night.
.
I don’t think most people go on vacation so they can jog and ride their bikes — walk maybe from their hotel to wherever, maybe. But their primary reason for going on the vacation is not to walk from one place to another.
Now, does Pittsburgh have adequate tourist attractions? I’m not so sure....Carnegie Science Center is nice, but a lot of major cities have hands-on science museums now. Some will come for the ball games (Pirates, Steelers, Penguins, even Pitt) but most major cities have that too. I don’t think anyone goes on vacation for the parks and greenways, unless it’s a big park and you can camp overnight.
They built a large convention center some years ago....I don’t think they had the hotel space to support large conventions though. I’ve been away for a while; I get back occasionally so maybe the hotel space has caught up.
I’m looking over the convention center’s schedule....RV Show, Auto Show, Bead/Jewelry Show, Home and Garden Show...I think these are things people from the metro area come to look at rather than stay overnight for.
I thought he was going to say “Ahhh, the French, they are a funny race, they fight with their feet and f...”
Wow!!!
“Of course the freedom and mobility cars bring shouldn’t be surrendered, but if people choose otherwise for themselves without diminishing your options, is it really a bad thing?”
It is a bad thing when it’s “encouraged” by the political elite & us serfs are nudged toward carlessness & public housing. That, to me, is the insinuation here.
Perhaps you ought to read “Agenda 21”. Although it’s a work of fiction (written by a woman from Pittsburgh, ironically) it gives you a good glimpse into where this type of thinking is leading.
‘burg ping!
Ispierd mmmmmmm Buy Dat Same French Excliance.
It is a Rich Full Bodied Wine, sensibly priced at a Dollar a Jug.
They are full of Country Goodness and Green Pea-ness.
Ok....I live here & that’s a little TOO SCARY!!! LOL!
The story specifically mentioned tourism, so that’s where I went with it....but you’re probably right that there is a hidden agenda here.
Pittsburgh is not a particularly easy city for tourists to get around....its city blocks are not necessarily square (due to the triangles of the river and the hills)...so you can take 4 right turns and not wind up where you started.
I think your post is EXCELLENT & expresses what I have been thinking & could not quite put into words. Thanks!
They’re always big on the part about not driving cars like European cities, but not so big on putting enough busses on the street to make riding them feasible.
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