07 July 2008

updates from recent posts...

Some topics we hit recently that deserve a second look:

- I mentioned last week that I wanted to see Wall-E. Everyone else has done that except for me now and I am jealous of all of you. The NYT has bigger ideas for Wall-E: Wall-E for President.

- I posted a link to a blog about San Antonio's confusing downtown. In fulfilling my requirements in obtaining a minor in Geography from UT-Austin, I was able to study a good bit of urban design and city planning. San Antonio was actually "planned" by Spaniards in the 1700s in the common Spanish form of the time - the plaza model. Basically, cities were organized "around" plazas (which leads to a meandering mess of streets that all seem to lead to the same place), with all life emanating from those hubs.

The plaza model is the opposite of the "grid" design popularized in many modern cities, but is being revisited as cities attempt to reconstruct neighborhoods and walkable spaces in congested urban areas. San Antonio has many small plazas and parks downtown that were previously key to the life and function of the city. Similarly, as you leave downtown San Antonio, the grid patterns begin to develop as later planners adopted the more linear (and less confusing) thinking. Read more about the planning of SA here...

- For those of you thought that "InSuspenders Day" was a joke, think again. We celebrated at our house with a few dozen friends and we have photographic evidence to prove it. A recap is coming tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. well, if it makes you feel any better, i think you and i are the only people left who haven't seen wall-e... so perhaps we can join each other in an empty theatre and see the movie that the rest of the country already has.

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  2. Don't feel bad...I have not seen Walle-E either....soon I hope...soon. Shannon :)

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