Recently in urbanity Category

Just went to opening of VAPOR, an exhibit at Southern Exposure on pollution. One of my favorite projects there was Public Smog:

PUBLIC SMOG is a park in the atmosphere that fluctuates in location and scale. The park is constructed through financial, legal, or political activities that open it for public use.

Activities to create Public Smog have included purchasing and retiring emission offsets in regulated emissions markets, making them inaccessible to polluting industries.

When Public Smog is built through this process, it exists in the unfixed public airspace above the region where offsets are purchased and withheld from use. The park’s size varies, reflecting the amount of emissions allowances purchased and the length of contract, compounded by seasonal fluctuations in air quality.

One of the things I like about Public Smog is that, like PARK(ing), it invents a new kind of temporary 'public park' through entry into a market.
In Public Smog, the market is emission trading of greenhouse gases; in PARK(ing) it's the rate of payment for parking meters. They are tied to the forces (like polluting activities, or dependence on cars) that they attack. In that sense, they also gently play with the unrealistic idea that parks are spaces of 'nature' (sorry, have to use the scare quotes) - somehow separate from commercial spaces and processes that shape the rest of human settlements.

My first apartment in New York was at one end of the M14 bus line; my second apartment was at the other end. I have a lot of respect for our "least-loved transit mode" (and the people who depend upon it) – but not a lot of fond memories.

I was in Portland and missed this event the first time, and will probably miss it again, but that doesn't mean I can't promote it:

Thursday, August 24th, 5:45 PM

CITY|SPACE presents a second screening of The Bus on Film, an eclectic collage of short film, clips and documentaries about our least-loved transit mode. Funny, reflective and incisive, the program explores the experience of the bus from a broad range of perspectives. The program was first shown as part of the Get on the Bus exhibition in June.

Wine and cheese reception at 5:45 p.m.
Screening to follow at 6:00 p.m.
Held at SPUR, 312 Sutter St. (at Grant), Fifth Floor. We are located close to the Powell St. BART station and several Muni lines.
SPUR forums and receptions are open to the public, free for members and $5 for non-members.

CITY|SPACE , btw, is a Bay Area organization that:

...cuts across disciplinary boundaries to draw on a wide range of work: aesthetic, documentary, architectural, scientific, and political, that converges around the city as we find it, make it, and struggle with it.

In Spring 2007, they are presenting Appropriation and the Urban Environment, "an investigation into how people take control of public space." I will attempt not to miss it.