2011-12-02 "Introducing Megapolitanism"
[http://www.thinkurban.org/category/regionalism/]
A recent article from John King at the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned the concept of using the Megalopolitan scale for planning purposes [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/25/BA271M30IG.DTL].  The article references the new book by Arthur C. Nelson and Robert E. Lang entitled ‘Megapolitan America: A New Vision for Understanding America’s Metropolitan Geography‘ (APA, 2011) [http://www.amazon.com/Megapolitan-America-Understanding-Metropolitan-Geography/dp/1932364978].
As an example, King mentions the Sierra Pacific Megapolitan Area, seen below as a large geographical area that extends from the San Francisco Bay area all the way into Western Nevada, around Reno.   The region includes 27 counties and includes over 12.4 million people, and its expected to grow substantially in the next 30 years.

As mentioned in the article, the significance of the concept of megapolitan areas is to look more broadly at a larger scale, King, quoting Nelson, mentions that “regions can be more proactive in everything from transportation planning to economic strategies…  to have people look at things a little differently, the whole rather than the parts.” 
While explicitly not a model for mega-regional government, there are some possibilities of what this might mean for regions by looking at larger areas.  As mentioned by King, “It’s too early to say whether the concept of megapolitan areas will catch on as a framework for government policy, much less in terms of how regular people define where they live.”
The significant of megapolitan areas, thus is undetermined.  The overall ambiguity of the defining characteristics of a ‘city’ has led to a lot of questions related to city centers, sprawl, and other hybrid urban agglomerations like edge cities, exurbs, and the shift from urban area to metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).  This leads to a lot of diversity in definition (outlined in the SF Gate article) -  including the largest megapolitan area (NY-Phil 33.9 million people) to the smallest, fastest growing (Las Vegas 2.4 million).  While Vegas booms, the Steel Corridor of wester PA is creeping along slowly.  In terms of diversity, not surprisingly, the Southern California region has the largest percentage of minorities (62.7%) and the Twin-Cities are the least diverse with 15.5% of minorities.
The terms megaregion, megalopolis, megapolitan area, while similar in nature, are somewhat different historically, spatially, and statistically, so it is worth a look at some of the designations.  A map of megaregions shows the eleven areas in the United States as determined by the Regional Plan Association.

This differs somewhat from a more recent version of Megapolitan areas from a recent essay by Lang and Nelson on Places from Design Observer [http://places.designobserver.com/feature/megapolitan-america/30648/])  They identify 10 megapolitan clusters that exist in 23 megapolitan areas that are similar but slightly different from those above.

The different terms, definitions, and geographical extents makes the concepts a bit difficult to parse, but in general terms, the areas are defined by a population of more than 10 million people that exist within a ‘clustered network of cities’ typically delineated through transportation corridors.
The new interpretation of Megapolitan area builds on earlier concepts to describe a more general ‘transmetropolitan geography’ which is typically thought of more commonly in larger, global areas such as China, Japan, Brazil – which include megaregions of 120 million (Hong Kong, Shenzen-Guangzhou), 60 million (Nagoya-Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe) and 43 million (Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paulo).  While the concepts are similar, the scale of these new global areas are immense in comparison to the US.
Interestingly enough, the term has been used since the 1820s, and the conceptual usage of the concept of Megalopolis as a grouping of urban areas within a region dates back almost 100 years.  This includes references by Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West (1918) and Lewis Mumford in The Culture of Cities (1938).  The most popularized recent usage was from 1950s and 60s, in the book on the Northeast United States by Jean Gottmann entitled ‘Megalopolis’ (1961).

2011-11-21 "A Quiet Push to Grow Crops Under Cover of Trees" by Jim Robbins from "New York Times"
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/science/quiet-push-for-agroforestry-in-us.html]
HELENA, Mont. — On a forested hill in the mountains north of Montana’s capital, beneath a canopy of pine and spruce, Marc and Gloria Flora have planted more than 300 smaller trees, from apple and pear to black walnut and chestnut.
Beneath the trees are layers of crops: shrubs like buffalo berries and raspberries, edible flowers like day lilies, vines like grapes and hops, and medicinal plants, including yarrow and arnica.
 Turkeys and chickens wander the two-acre plot, gobbling hackberries and bird cherries that have fallen from trees planted in their pen, and leaving manure to nourish the plants.
 For the Floras, the garden is more than a source of food for personal use and sale. Ms. Flora, an environmental consultant and former supervisor for the United States Forest Service, is hoping it serves as a demonstration project to spur the growth of agroforestry — the science of incorporating trees into traditional agriculture.
 The extensive tree canopy and the use of native plants, she says, make the garden more resilient in the face of a changing climate, needing less water, no chemical fertilizers and few, if any, pesticides. “It’s far more sustainable” than conventional agriculture, she said.
 The idea is to harness the ecological services that trees provide. “Agroforestry is not converting farms to forest,” said Andy Mason, director of the Forest Service’s National Agroforestry Center. “It’s the right tree in the right place for the right reason.”
 The Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service’s parent agency, began an initiative this year to encourage agroforestry.
 Depending on the species, trees make all sorts of contributions to agriculture, experts say. Trees in a shelter belt reduce wind and water erosion. Some trees serve as fertilizers — they take in nitrogen from the atmosphere, or pump it from deep underground and, when they drop their leaves, make it available upon decomposition.
 Trees planted along streams can take up and scrub out polluted farm runoff. They increase species diversity by providing habitat, and some of those species are friendly to farmers — bees and butterflies that help pollinate crops, for example. (One study showed that 66 species of birds benefit from windbreaks on farms.) Trees can keep a field cooler and more moist.
 Some research also shows that cattle farmers can improve their income by introducing trees, both by selling timber and by cooling cows in the shade.
 And trees in general help the environment by absorbing greenhouse gases and by cleaning up polluted water — countering some of the effects of large-scale agriculture.
 “The biggest problem with food production is environmental degradation,” said Gene Garrett, an emeritus professor of forestry and former director of the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri.
 Properly placed belts of trees and other vegetation along streams can filter out 95 percent of the soil sediment that washes off farm fields, studies show, and up to 80 percent of phosphate and nitrogen that runs off.
 While the idea of farming with trees is being reborn in the United States, it is not new. It got its start here in the Dust Bowl era, when trees were planted in shelter belts to stop severe wind erosion, Mr. Mason said. And around the world, agroforestry goes back centuries. “Many generations have been on the land,” said Jill M. Belsky, a professor of rural and environmental sociology at the University of Montana who has studied forest farms. “They have deep ecological knowledge and many cycles of these seasons.
 “For example, they taste the soil and say, ‘We need a few more chickens in here’ ” for fertilizer.
 Elsewhere, “working” trees are being used to replenish eroded or desert landscapes. A program in Niger has greened millions of acres in the last 20 years.
 There are several approaches to agroforestry. Grazing livestock under a canopy of trees is called silvo-pasture, for instance. In alley cropping, an ancient technique that is becoming more common in the United States, rows of commercially valuable hardwood trees like oak are alternated with rows of corn, wheat or grasses for biofuel.
 Agroforestry operations are also helping raise specialty crops. Nicola MacPherson raises timber in the Ozarks, and grows shiitake and oyster mushrooms on the waste branches; she is also establishing a truffle orchard. Then there are forest gardens like the one the Floras are creating.
 Agroforestry is not just as simple as sticking trees in the ground — it can be a sophisticated form of management. “The key to a lot of systems is how they manage shade and light,” Dr. Belsky said. In one common system — teak trees over vegetable crops — as the over-story closes, limiting light, “the types of crops below change.”
 Here in Montana, the Floras say they hope that their garden will evolve as conditions change. The climate of the northern Rockies, though, is a world away from tropical forest farms, and the Floras are pioneers.
 They have had their share of learning experiences. Bees left their hives and never came back; the Floras had to pollinate their fruit trees by hand, with paintbrushes. One October, trees were killed by a snowstorm and bitter cold. And there are rodents.
 “Gophers do a lot of damage,” Ms. Flora said. “They eat tree roots, carrots and potatoes.” Her Yorkshire terrier, Rocky, has been the best remedy so far.
 The soil is nutrient-poor, but a forest garden turns marginal soil into much more fertile ground. As the needles and leaves fall and animal waste collects, nutrients increase over time.
 One major hurdle to widespread adoption of agroforestry, though, might be conventional thinking about trees.
 “Families spent generations removing trees to practice agriculture, and we’re up against that,” said Dr. Garrett, the emeritus professor here. “We have to stress that if you don’t put them in the way, you can use working trees to benefit agriculture.”

Photograph by Anne Sherwood for The New York Times: Gloria Flora's forest garden includes berries and medicinal plants.

2011-11-13 "City's little boxes, but these look pretty good" by John King from "San Francisco Chronicle"[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/12/BAIJ1LTA4J.DTL]
It's a sign of our continued economic torpor that San Francisco's most engaging new buildings are nine shipping containers slung across two parcels where the asphalt poured for parking lots remains.
And it's a sign of the disconnect in our society between ideas and implementation that the innovative development dubbed Proxy took nearly two years to reach its present form.
But while it's here, enjoy an architectural work-in-progress that uses sturdy hollow metal to convey a core truth of big cities: often, what we savor aren't individual landmarks or buildings so much as the overall sense of place.
The still-evolving compound lines a block of Octavia Boulevard framed by the shops and cafes of Hayes Street on the north and the small but lively Patricia's Green on the west. An alleyway runs through it. There's a car-sharing lot in the back.
The lots are to be filled with housing as part of the transformation of the former Central Freeway path into a landscaped boulevard. But by the time the Board of Supervisors approved a neighborhood development plan in 2008, the recession loomed.
Now's there's an alternate reality, one that merges high style with roll-the-dice spunk.
The first customized containers debuted this spring, back to back, one housing artisanal coffee and the other a maker of ice cream by the scoop. A museum shop followed in July with outdoor exhibition space. Last month saw the opening of the largest component so far, a beer garden where five containers are deployed around picnic tables and a transplanted Redbud tree.
The guiding hand in all this is Oakland architect Douglas Burnham, whose firm Envelope A+D infused the container forms - most of them roughly 20 feet long and 9 feet high - with a new purpose. The goal was "flexible urbanism," composed of simple elements easily revised or removed.
"This is an experiment in a way, to see how cities can adapt to how people today live," said Burnham, who doesn't anticipate Proxy being on Octavia past 2015. "The pace of society has really ramped up, and whether that's good or bad this is an attempt to create a physical framework that can accommodate that."
If the emphasis is on utility, neither design nor setting were neglected.
Glass ends were added to the spaces filled by Ritual Roasters and Smitten Ice Cream, allowing views to and from Patricia's Green across the way. Outside Ritual is a clearing of decomposed granite with movable tables and chairs. Smitten opens onto a concrete patio framed by low benches that also serve to corral the toddlers brought here by parents.
As for the beer garden, it makes the most of its minimal elements: the mature Redbud is a visual anchor, a counterpart to the surrounding chain-link fence. A container used to store the picnic tables walls off one end of the site.
The shame is that all this took so long.
Burnham devised his concept in 2009 and it was embraced promptly by officials at the Mayor's Office of Economic Development, who sought ways to activate the boulevard while construction lagged. But every item on the bureaucratic checklist that followed came with some obstacle to surmount.
"Interim uses don't fit the structure of the building code," Burnham explained. "Everything became a negotiation, and every negotiation takes time."
The same holds true for utility hookups: a full year passed between the application filed for the beer garden, and the lights coming on last month - barely ahead of autumn rains.

Proxy is still evolving -
The museum outpost along Octavia closes Nov. 20 and will be replaced in the spring by retail kiosks. A containerized art gallery is slated for one now-open spot, a double-height shoptainer on another. Next fall, Burnham hopes to replace the car-share lot with a tented event space.
Already, though, the promise is being fulfilled.
This isn't about architecture so much as urban place making: you're less aware of the structures than of the surroundings. The containers aren't treated as sculptural elements, as is the case recently in other international cities. They're content to add layers to the landscape, enlarging the Hayes Valley experience without making a fuss.
Skeptics can say the end result is precious, but so is the ever-more-rarefied Hayes Street scene. An interim use like this takes cues from the setting, then follows through in unpredictable ways. Every neighborhood has sites of similar potential. All we need is to find ways for them to happen.
More details on Proxy are at proxysf.net.

Sarah Rice / Special to The Chronicle
The Proxy project, a set of shops in repurposed shipping containers in San Francisco's still-on-the-way-up Hayes Valley, is the work of Oakland architect Douglas Burnham who made the containers serve as a flexible format for small businesses.

2011-11-05 Sonoma sustainability leadership series

2011-10-24 "UC Davis West Village touts zero net energy living; UC Davis enclave plans to generate all its power" by John King from "San Francisco Chronicle"
[http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-10-24/news/30318903_1_shutters-zero-buildings]
Davis --
Sustainable design is often measured by the use of recycled materials and power-saving gadgets. But architecture itself can embody the quest for conservation, as is the case in this university city 80 miles east of San Francisco, where a new 130-acre development aspires to be the nation's largest zero net energy community.
The first 23 buildings have just opened, so it's too early to say whether the enclave will consume no more energy than is generated by the on-site solar panels. But the goal takes form in the sunshades that rake shadows across large windows and in the park's artful circular courtyard, which doubles as a basin where rainwater can be absorbed into the earth - touches that give a flavor not found in other Northern California projects of this size.
Though the "village" is the work of private developers, it occupies land owned by UC Davis. The site west of the campus across Highway 113 is conceived as a neighborhood unto itself, with three- and four-story student apartment buildings radiating out from the village green. The green is flanked by ground-floor space reserved for shops and university offices, along with a free-standing outpost of Sacramento City College that will open in January. Land north of the green is being readied for what will be 343 houses reserved for UC Davis academics and employees.
The target population is part of what sets UC Davis West Village apart from such recent mixed-use projects as those erected near BART stations. Another difference is that zero net quest - a desire that adds layers of site-specific architectural detail.

Stylish shutters -
You see this at the village green, designed by SWA Group amid buildings by Studio E Architects of San Diego.
The residential structure on the east edge is cloaked in loose-fitting corrugated metal that's open at the base and roofline, allowing surface heat to rise up and out rather than be absorbed by the units inside. Other surfaces are stucco, yet they have a more substantial presence than the infill norm. There's a reason: The building's plywood-clad form is wrapped in an extra half inch of insulation before the outer skin is applied.
Then there is the assertive use of sunscreens.
Building rooftops extend 6 feet beyond outer walls. Slatted screens that form upside-down L's deflect afternoon sun. Other facades come with shutters that rest flat on rollers against the building; a resident can open a window, reach out and pull the shutter into any position he or she desires.
"We've wanted to do shutters like this forever, and we finally got the chance," said Eric Naslund of Studio E. He described the airy corrugated wall as "a pretty dumb ventilated facade, and pretty inexpensive to do."
As for the central open space, one corner slopes down to a landscaped nook reached by a circular path with low walls ideal for seating. It's one of several "bioswales" planned for the district - low spots that will capture rainwater that otherwise would go into storm drains.

Design for climate -
Another subtle touch: SWA's master plan arranges buildings in loose clusters so as to allow afternoon breezes from the delta to filter through the site.
These moves are keyed to the Davis climate, where summer days often are accompanied by triple-digit temperatures. And while the cumulative effect is to conserve resources, the units fit within the market-rate budget of developers Carmel Partners and Urban Villages.
As exotic as zero net energy might sound, the concept is taking hold as a tool to lessen development's impact on the environment.
One example is in Emeryville, where an 8-acre industrial site slated for housing is the subject of a zero net energy design competition sponsored by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Looking into the future, California's Public Utilities Commission has called for all new buildings in the state to meet this standard by 2030.

Selective zero -
To be sure, the zero net notion can be viewed with a skeptical eye.
At UC Davis West Village, the record keeping won't tabulate the embedded energy of the giant wall-mounted televisions in the lounge or the exercise machines that fill the gym on the floor above. Or the full bathroom that comes with each bedroom in the undergraduate suites.
But as long as a large subset of Americans want and expect the latest in creature comforts, designers must take advantage of every tool that reduces the amount of energy we consume in the process. If an added bonus is distinctive buildings and landscapes with a fine-tuned sense of place, all the better.
Online resources

UC Davis West Village: Zero net energy community. [http://westvillage.ucdavis.edu/energy].
Architecture at Zero: Design competition. [http://www.architectureatzero.com/Architecture_at_Zero/Home.html].

West Davis Village in Davis, Ca., on Friday October 21, 2011. West Davis Village is reported to be the largest community in the country to be a "zero net energy" community, that is one that generates as much energy as it consumes.
Credit: Michael Macor

2011-10-22 "Changers' Maroshi changes up solar power" by Klaus Werle from "San Francisco Chronicle"
[http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-10-22/business/30312221_1_solar-power-maldives-social-networkers]
The young entrepreneurs behind green startup Changers are from Berlin, but they're launching their product in California, where they can take advantage of the sun - and social-network thought leaders.
On Thursday, they were in San Francisco to unveil their new device: a small, solar-charged system designed to power smart phones and other USB-enabled devices. The module, called Maroshi, can be attached to any window or sunny surface.
The energy is stored in a solar battery, which can power up a smart phone or tablet via USB, recharging the device as quickly as a wall socket will. There also are eight adapters in the kit, which sells for $149. In all, the company says, the product can connect to more than a thousand devices.
But Changers, backed by German solar-tech company Centrotherm and founded last year by Markus Schulz, Daniela Schiffer, Dirk Gamboa Tuesta and Hans Raffauf, is not about technology. It seeks to set up a green social system.
"We want to enable every single person to produce their own energy, and in doing so, think more consciously about it," Raffauf said.
The battery, called Kalhuohfummi, tracks how much power it generates and uploads the data to an energy marketplace at Changers. com, where users can compare and share their savings via Facebook or Twitter.
"People like to compete, and here they can compete in something sustainable," said Kushtrim Xhakli, who oversees digital media for Changers.
The goal: to make shrinking your carbon footprint as valuable to social networkers as increasing your number of Twitter followers.
"If you really want to have an impact on global warming, you've got to start with the end customer and change their behavior," Raffauf said.
In essence, Changers is looking for a few popular users to help their idea go viral. That's one reason the company is introducing its product in the Bay Area, a hub for renewable energy enthusiasts.
"The Bay Area assembles the opinion leaders in social-network technology," Raffauf said. "It's here we can find the most early adopters."
In fact, at the Web 2.0 summit this week, the company nabbed its first customer: Mary Meeker, a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
By the way, there's a meaning behind the components' names. Maroshi is the name of a Maldive island. Hundreds of years ago, during the Maldives' fight for independence from Portugal, Maroshi was a key port for Kalhuohfummi, a vital supply ship during the battles. Today, the Maldives are under a new threat: global warming and a rising sea level.
Some would say that the techie Maroshi and Kalhuohfummi carry on the tradition.

2011-10-06 "Oakland allows urban farmers to sell produce" by Matthai Kuruvila from "San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper
[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/05/BA331LDR4P.DTL&tsp=1]
Oakland -- You can now legally sell peas grown from your backyard in Oakland.
The City Council voted Tuesday to eliminate the ban on selling homegrown produce, a relic of an era when cities wanted to distinguish themselves from rural areas.
But the old code, which was updated, has come into conflict with a growing but relatively new movement, urban farming. Urban farmers generally seek deeper connections to their food by growing it themselves, and the money helps. Kitty Sharkey harvested 80 pounds of heirloom tomatoes Tuesday from the 3-by-24-foot raised bed at her home in the Havenscourt neighborhood of East Oakland. She thinks she could make up to $400 at a farmers' market, which would help her finances.
Until now, she gave away or bartered what she couldn't eat, cook or can.
"A little bit more money makes it more enticing," said Sharkey, 47, who devotes time to being an urban homesteader and growing almost all of her own food. "I might work a little harder on that winter garden."
Others saw a larger significance in the change.
"It's the first step in legitimizing urban agriculture in Oakland," said Esperanza Pallana, 37, who has a 1,200-square-foot backyard plot in the Grand Lake neighborhood and has been pushing for the change. "It's also preserving our right to grow our own food for ourselves and our community."
The code change altered the definition of "home-based businesses," which previously required that it had to be indoors. The new code allows outdoor vegetables as long as farm equipment isn't needed to produce them. Previously, all it took was one phone call from a neighbor to bring down the city's wrath on someone selling backyard carrots.

Not a primary occupation -
Eric Angstadt, the city's deputy planning and zoning director, said that anywhere from one-half to three-fourths of urban farmers in Oakland will be protected by this change.
"These are people for whom urban farming is not a primary, money-making occupation," he said. "These are maybe people who are just trying to recover their own costs of growing, or maybe people who are trying to see if it can be a possible commercial occupation."
There's little if any controversy over this code change - the first and perhaps least disputed element of the city's desire to revamp its urban farming rules. But that's partly because of what this does not address.
Farmers whose operations are so big they need a tractor won't be covered by this code change. Nor are cooperatives that sell produce boxes or people who grow on vacant lots - because those lots aren't considered yards.

Farm animals not addressed -
But the biggest reason Tuesday's change attracted little hubbub was because it didn't address the issue of farm animals.
The city's vegans and farm animal lovers have been battling over this issue. The vegan farmers say animals should not be used in farming because they are almost always slaughtered. Those who want to have animals on their farms say they help the vegetables, by tilling soil, eating bugs or providing manure.
Livestock prompted complaints to the city against Novella Carpenter, who wrote about the creation of her West Oakland farm in the book, "Farm City." Rabbit rights activists complained about her rabbits and other farm animals after learning that she was slaughtering rabbits and offering rabbit pot pies from her farm to people willing to donate cash.
The city forced Carpenter to apply for a $2,800 conditional use permit to grow vegetables and raise a small number of animals. None of Tuesday's changes would have helped her because her farm is on an empty lot adjacent to her apartment - but the lot is not considered a yard at her home.