My Critique of the Living and Hybrid Homes

Although the Living and Hybrid homes were designed with the idea of sustainability in mind for almost every detail, there are a few qualities of both homes which were not so carefully considered. I believe that both homes are currently very marketable for people with a generous amount of income and ability to build or buy one of these new residences. However, there are two problems that arise from this.

One is that because both the Living Home and Hybrid Homes are available for a only select group of people, the sustainable practices they promote can be easily bought by families of considerable wealth but not by the general populous. Even if a family would be able to afford one of these homes, it is unlikely that these sustainable dwellings will spur a sustainable housing movement because of the mere fact that common families would not be able to sell their home and move somewhere where these homes can be easily produced. Because these homes are not wide spread, each individual home's impact on the larger scale of community sustainability is small and restricted to the immediate site. In order for these homes to be entirely valued as sustainably constructed and maintained is if their impact spreads beyond the reaches of the wealthy.

The second issue is that although these homes may be marketable (for a select group of people) now, their future value may not be promising. As this goes with most non-traditional, modernly designed homes, technology may progress too soon for these homes to be attractive to buyers in the long run. This will affect their market value in the future, as projected property values are important for home buyers and owners to reflect on.

There is another drawback to these homes regarding the implications of development trends. Considering the Living Home in particular, the scale of the home is fairly large and spacious and unlike the Hybrid Home, its construction does not account for square footage as sustainability criteria. Relevant to the larger context of urban sprawl, our development patterns affect the ability of our urban settlements to take advantage of open space, cropland, and ecological services in general. After touring the Living Home and Hybrid Home website and videos, I did not find that the homes were constructed using an infill development strategy or if square footage was considered for the Living Home. If the construction process of both homes were mindful of outward expansion and site-scale was considered for the Living home as being detrimental to sustainability, I would be able to award their construction as more truly sustainable.

My Chicago Home's Building Envelope

My Chicago home in the Oriole Park neighborhood was built in the 1950's and still maintains most of it's original construction both inside and out.

This building does not take full advantage of natural light, of course this does depend on the room and time of day. The living room on the ground floor has windows facing north, east, and south. This room in particular is darkest during the mornings and lights up most in early afternoon. The living room could be improved upon in that the only window facing east is very small, as is the one facing south. The biggest window in the front of the house faces north and lets in a fair amount of light, mostly because of it's size. The kitchen located on the same floor is south-west oriented and only receives decent lighting during the afternoons, staying fairly dark in the morning. My kitchen is very small and only has two regular sized windows. Even during the day when it is not clear day, it is difficult to work in the kitchen because most of the counter space is not located directly under a window.

Because of my home's age, it does not manage its temperature as well as it could if improvements were made to the existing heating and air systems. In the winter, this building is heated by furnaces, which I find to be very inefficient at heating larger rooms and maintaining temperature overall. In the summer, we use window air conditioning units my father installs when the first wave of heat hits. Because the units are installed seasonally/temporarily, my father has to install small pieces of insulation to fit the windows width. There is a lot of cold air lost through this poor method.

My house does not have large eaves to help shading in the summer time, however we have two large pine trees located in our backyard. There is also one large maple tree in our front lawn that helps shade the building in the summer. By both the front and side door entrances there is a small porch and awning that also aids in shading the area, mitigating intense heat energy from entering the building through the doors.

Also due to the age of this building, our windows and doors are very old and make for a poorly insulated home. However, my father has just begun replacing these windows one by one. Especially in the winter time, you can feel the cold air seeping through the sealant of the windows. During intense rainfall, our basement is prone to flooding through the basement door and cracks in the foundation.

To conclude, my home could use major improvements to maximize it's use of natural energy. It is necessary to renovate old windows and doors to create a more energy efficient and sustainable home. Although building orientation is only able to be altered at the first stages of building construction, the kinds of windows installed can be beneficial in taking advantage of the existing layout and orientation of the building. Each of the aspects described above can be used as a reference for creating more sustainable building units which ultimately contribute to the larger community's sustainability efforts.

Curitiba's Web of Solutions

Each of Curitiba's many solutions to it's urban issues have been very successful in eliminating a multitude of issues. Solutions were not only geared toward fixing one problem, but rather they work in a multi-faceted fashion. This methodology has produced extremely productive urban improvement efforts that have benefited the lives of all Curitiban's. Lerner has been successful in utilizing the power of urban planners to create solutions that have altered the ways people live out their daily lives rather than relying on mere technological fixes. This Curitiban innovation has produced myriad forms of action, making this city one of the world's leading sustainable urban communities.

Sussman's Strategy in Boston: Requiring LEED Certification for Commercial Buildings

As mentioned by Edna Sussman, requiring all commercial/large-scale buildings to be LEED certified has been a strategy many municipalities have taken to promote urban sustainability. LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) is a green building certification program that recognizes sustainable building strategies and construction practices. In order to receive LEED certification, building projects need to satisfy prerequisites and earn points to achieve different levels of certification (certified, silver, gold, platinum). Prerequisites and credits differ for each rating system (location and transportation, materials and resources, water efficiency, etc) and project managers themselves are allowed to choose the best fit for their particular project. Requiring LEED certified commercial buildings has been a way for cities and towns across the nation to combat local and global climate change. First, let us take a look at the successes of one major American city that has implemented this strategy. 

Boston has taken the reins in constructing state-of-the-art LEED certified buildings. The old American city has seen much success after requiring all commercial building to be LEED certified, however, the city still struggles with upgrading its existing buildings and the need for historic preservation of the city's many old buildings. This has been the major challenge to the overall success of this strategy because innovation as proven difficult in such a dense urban environment. Besides this, this requirement along with Boston's requirement of all city buildings to be at least Silver LEED certified has spurred an explosive interest in sustainability around the city. In Boston, with the requirement that certain projects need to be LEED-certified, the bar has been raised greatly. It has been noted that despite the wave of successes the LEED requirement has seen in Boston, the next step in the sustainability efforts needs to focus on smart-growth aspects including transportation because climate change is not so much a green-building issue but more so a question of location and density.  

Bogota and Curitiba's Sustainable Cities

Both Bogota and Curitiba took similar routes in planning their cities because these cities were faced with the same issues; population growth which resulted in traffic clogged streets. In addition, both cities were moving towards unsustainable transportation planning methods. Before Penalosa and Lerner took office as mayor of Bogota and Curitiba respectively, there were confronted with efforts being made to demolish buildings and widen streets to allow more cars to travel. Both Penalosa and Lerner saw this as unsustainable and counterintuitive. They believe that more consideration should be given to pedestrians and with a rising population it would become more important to provide safe and accessible walkways because otherwise, automobile dependency would continue to skyrocket, leaving both cities with insufficient street space to hold cars.
One thing both Bogota and Curitiba have in common is that they have implemented similar Bus Rapid Transit systems to improve commuter experience and to cut traffic with mass-transportation. Bogota's "Alameda de Porvenir", a multi-use transit path that connects many important nodes in the city is analogous to Curitiba's system of interconnected green open spaces. Both of these undertakings have created safe places for walkers and bikers alike, allowing them to escape from the perils of high traffic avenues. Finally, both cities have also been dealing with the expanding slums right outside each cities peripheries. In Bogota, urban poverty prompted many of the new, successful planning changes which occurred during Penalosa's mayoral term. In Curitiba, where city life has remained of high quality for almost all residents, still experiences the disadvantages of urban poverty. While Lerner was mayor, he created a program for slum dwellers to clean their compounds and in return, they would receive nutritious food from the government. In both cases, however, urban poverty and slum prevalence have been a key element to the improvement of quality of life in these areas.
These two cities also have a few differing characteristics. In Curitiba, more emphasis has been given to pedestrians in that the system of interlinked parks and open green space have served to complement and supplement other inner city initiatives like the Bus Rapid Transit system. In the video we watched on Bogota, however, there were no green infrastructure implementations. In addition, Curitiba seems to have dealt with urban poverty issues in more depth than Bogota by creating the waste for food program and they have even transferred all of those living in one slum to an area with roads and proper sanitation. Lastly, Bogota has had to deal with other hurdles regarding public transportation which Curitiba has not and that is the corrupt ownership of the private bus system.

Community Scale Sustainability: Oriole Park, Chicago, IL

Regional Accessibility

In the Oriole Park neighborhood located in Northwest Chicago, most people work in the near Northwest suburbs or closer to inner-city neighborhoods while some work in the downtown district. For those who travel to work in the inner-city and downtown areas, there is a CTA blue line stop located on the Northeast edge of Oriole Park. There is a limited degree of walkability to places of work and shopping centers. Unless you are employed by the various businesses and restaurants down the main street, Harlem Avenue, it is likely you have to travel by car to reach other areas of employment, either in or outside of the city limits. Oriole Park is not connected to any green infrastructure systems like regional parks or nature systems. Instead, the neighborhood is bounded on all sides by wide, busy streets.

Within Oriole Park

Under my discretion, I believe the identifiable center of the neighborhood is its park, which is next to the library and public school. The boundaries of the neighborhood are Harlem, Foster, Canfield Avenues, and the 1-90 Expressway. Within the neighborhood itself, there are not many reasons to walk around other than to utilize the large park for the various recreational activities offered, to visit the neighborhood school, or library located nearby. Because Oriole Park is a residential neighborhood, one other reason why one may walk within its borders is to travel from one home to another. Oriole Park can improve its walkability by building a CTA blue line stop entrance closer to the residential blocks where a greater number of local commuters reside. As a frequent rider of the CTA, I can speak from experience that the current path leading to the CTA entrance is not walker-friendly and takes significantly longer to reach than if it were built with residential commuters in mind. Considering "bike-ability," this neighborhood serves bikers well within the neighborhood limits. Wide streets allow considerable space for both two lane traffic and bikers and the paths within the park are wide enough that at times of low park visitation, biking is possible with ease.With regard to access to areas outside of Oriole Park, bikers are hindered by lack of corridors and nature paths to ride.

I would not consider any of the streets in my neighborhood to be "complete" because all of the inner streets are residential, containing no places of work or stores to shop in while the streets bounding the neighborhood are high traffic, wide-laned streets with nothing but shops or vacant storefronts. There is not a high degree of mixed land-use in Oriole Park, therefore, I would not consider any of the street blocks to be "complete". I believe due to the neighborhood's location in an isolated pocket in the farthest corner of the Northwest side of Chicago, there are very low instances of crime reported in the neighborhood. As a result of this separation from other surrounding neighborhoods, I feel very safe when roaming the streets, even far after dark.

In the next 50 years?

I predict that over the next 50 years, I believe this area will generally stay the same and maybe (hopefully) see an economic improvement in the local businesses. Maybe more chain restaurants will spring up along the edges of Oriole Park on the busy avenues. More home renovations will take place and many newer more modern houses will be built in place of the traditional styles still standing. Possibly more improvements will be made to the neighborhood's walkability and changes to the nearby Harlem CTA stop will give more consideration to walkers. With a more walkable neighborhood may come more smaller shops and employment opportunities located inside its borders. This would give way for a more sustainable neighborhood, one that is less reliant on automobiles to travel for daily necessities and more conscientious of on harnessing the benefits of its natural amenities. Improving elements of the neighborhood "center" (the park) and designing it to work in tandem with the natural environment is how Oriole Park can implement green infrastructure systems, having positive impacts for residents quality of life.

Tragedy of the Commons in Our Oceans

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21596942-new-management-needed-planets-most-important-common-resource-tragedy-high

In the above news article, the issue of declining biodiversity among the world's oceans has been a direct result from Garrrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" phenomena. Hardin argued that when a resource is collectively owned , over-exploitation leads to the resources long-term viability. In the case of our fragile ocean ecosystem, overfishing has caused the demise of our ocean life in the same way Hardin's example of overgrazing causes the degeneration of the pasture in which cows feed. Because of human tendency to underestimate the long-term vitality of our natural resources, there have many instances of the tragedy that have captured the attention of sustainability efforts. In this instance, the high seas are the commons, where the worlds thousands of miles of coastlines offer fish for all. However, overfishing has resulted in a catastrophic collapse of the oceans biodiversity and has had an impact on the larger biota. The oceans fish stock is not the only part of oceans system which has been affected by the overexploitation of this resource. Declining fish populations have larger implications for the oceans oxygen content, causing the spread of dead zones throughout the globe.
The tragedy of the commons occurs when there are not sufficient rules and institutions governing the use and allocation of a limited resource. Massive individual fisheries have acted in the favor of short-term interests and have failed to recognize the balance needed between short-term benefits and long-term conservation. This article offers several reform solutions to the tragedy. First, fish subsidies are suggested to be ended, as fisheries have been depending on government funds to do major environmental damage. Because there is not a required global fishing registry, individual fishermen have easily gotten away with taking more than their fair share of fish. In addition, less than 1% of the high seas are protected by marine reserves. If there were more reserves, more species of sea life would be conserved from the rapture of private corporations.
I believe all of the solutions presented here could work to revive fish populations and curb their overexploitation. Whatever the solution taken, I believe it is necessary that there be large-scale institutional reform to cut overfishing and, more crucially, to change attitudes toward the way we as a collective society share the bounties of the ocean. If we are looking to create sustainable ways to ensure the longevity of our planet's ocean life, we need to recognize that although the ocean may seem vast and limitless, the fragile species that call it home are in danger because of our overzealous demand for them.