Roundabout Downtown Sarasota

A nice new roundabout in beautiful downtown Sarasota on Main Street near the water. Very nicely done.

Motorcycle Parking in front of the roundabout. My Harley Davidson.


Click to see a short video

Park and nice streetscape.

Outdoor sculpure overlooking the new roundabout.

Habitable Bridges Stage a Comeback

"The habitable bridge, out of favor since the Renaissance, has been making a bit of a comeback. After the I-670 cap opened in Columbus, Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid designed this stunning habitable bridge in Zaragoza, Spain, completed in 2008 (pictured above). The following year, architect Steven Holl, whose designs often include sky-borne passages, completed an apartment complex in Beijing where a swimming pool, bookstore and cafe hang between buildings."

Click to read the article in The Atlantic Cities.

http://rocker-lange.com/blog/?tag=competitions

Murder Rates by Region, Nation and State

Intentional Homicide, Rate Per 100,000 Population, By Sub-Region, 2004 

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/unodc-releases-global-homicide-data.html

English: Murder rate per year and 100,000 inhabitants.

   0-1

   1-2

   2-5

   5-10

   10-20

   >20

The map above shows the murder rate by nation and US State. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Homicide-world.png


By State from another source.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/general-u-s/1085852-state-state-map-murder-rates-updated.html#b

http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/06/2006_murder_rate_tops_in_natio.html

Belgium has a higher rate then the US?


http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?137136-Belgium-has-a-higher-murder-rate-than-the-USA-Really

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/491022-again-again-5.html

For Creative Cities, the Sky Has Its Limit

"Over the next 50 years we will spend trillions of dollars on city building. The question is: How should we build? For many economists, urbanists and developers, the answer is simple: We should build up. But the answer is more complex than that."

"Researchers at the Santa Fe Institute have been able to demonstrate that bigger, denser cities literally speed up the metabolism of daily life. Larger beasts may have slower metabolisms in the animal kingdom, but the opposite occurs in cities, which get faster as they grow. Doubling a city's population, the Santa Fe researchers found, more than doubles its creative and economic output, a phenomenon known as "superlinear scaling."

Interesting Essay by Richard Florida

Click to Read The Article

Beijing's Olympic Ruins

While being awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics allowed Beijing to construct new architectural icons and receive international accolades, its current reality is a collection of unused sports facilities with few if any plans for reuse.


Click to Read More

History of the World in Two Minutes

The history of the world in a 2 minute video produced by a high school student.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrqqD_Tsy4Q

Walking - New Urban

An important focus on new urban development and city planning is to create walkable communities. And of course walking is good for your health and good for the environment, reducing miles driven by getting people out of their cars.

Walking can add minutes to your life. 

This enables you at 85 years old

to spend an additional months in a nursing home at $4,000 per month.

My grandfather started walking when he was 63. Now he's 97 years old

and we have no idea where he is.

I like long walks,especially when they are taken

by people who annoy me.

The only reason I would take up walking is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

I have to walk early in the morning, before my brain figures out what I'm doing...

I joined a health club last year, spent about 250 bucks. Haven't lost a pound.

Apparently you have to go there!

Every time I hear the dirty word 'exercise', I wash my mouth out with chocolate. I do have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.

The advantage of exercising every day is so when you die, they'll say,

'Well, he looks good doesn't he.'

If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.

I know I got a lot of exercise the last few years,...... just getting over the hill.

We all get heavier as we get older, because there's a lot more information in our heads. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

AND

Every time I start thinking too much about how I look,

I just find a pub with a Happy Hour and by the time I leave,

I look just fine!

You could run this over to your friends

But just e-mail it to them!

It will save you the walk!

Submitted by Charlie Van Liere

One more thought on walking.

My mother once told us she was going to start walking a mile every day. I said "great by Thanksgiving you'll be in Omaha". She wasn't sure if I was kidding or not, and I did not tell her.

Tom Schildhouse

              God gave me a finite number of heartbeats 

              and I am not going to waste them on walking.