UrbanLab’s winning entry,
“Growing Water”
February 2007 | Choice News
Designers Envision Chicago in 2107
What would Chicago look like at the dawn of the 22nd century? What familiar fixtures of modern-day urbanism would remain, and what would be replaced with new, worldchanging concepts?
That was the question at “The City of the Future: A Design and Engineering Challenge,” a national architecture competition sponsored by the History Channel. Intended to coincide with the “Engineering an Empire” television series, the competition was held in November of 2006 and pitted eight top architecture teams from across Chicago in a contest to find the most revolutionary—and applicable—treatment for Chicago’s urban environment a hundred years in the future.
The entries—and the collective creativity they represented—were nothing short of inspiring. Strawn Sierralta, a design firm that was a finalist in the World Trade Center Memorial competition, postulated the creation of floating, lighter-than-air hydrogen collection farms (looking for all the world like giant UFOs) tethered to anchors in Lake Michigan. According to Lev Zvenyach, the team’s mentor and the brain behind the hydrogen disks, the floating farms will extract hydrogen from the air, convert it to electricity and transmit the harvest to mainland Chicago for consumption.
In contrast, Dirk Denison Architects’ design relied upon a not-yet-invented substance the team called “grafted crystalline mesh.” As described, the theoretical material would serve as both an infrastructure material and a communications conduit; the mesh would be strung around the city like a spider’s web, and buildings would be built into this artificial framework. In addition to physical support, the crystalline mesh would transport data much like present-day fiber optics.
The winning entry, however, was absolutely deserving of the top honor. UrbanLab, headed up by Martin Felsen and Sarah Dunn, envisioned a future where water is the most valuable natural resource. In UrbanLab’s world, Chicago will become a key exporter of water to regions around the country, and as such the city’s entire economy must shift toward the retention and distribution of water. Entitled “Growing Water,” the design team presented a Chicago of the future where all east-west boulevards have been returned to greenspace. Vast swathes of native grasses and hardy trees will replace familiar routes like Grand Avenue and Diversey Parkway.
These strips of grass and shrubbery, then, would serve to capture precipitation, biologically filter it and funnel the clean water into the Chicago River, which would then replenish Lake Michigan. UrbanLab’s concept is designed to allow for 100 percent of Chicago’s water to be recaptured for use or export. Of course, the design requires the flow of the Chicago River to be returned to its original pre-20th-century route flowing into the lake.
The winning entry netted UrbanLab $10,000, and the team is currently a finalist in a national competition judged by Daniel Libeskind, architect of the World Trade Center redevelopment site. On February 3, 2007, a popular vote conducted on the History Channel’s website will determine the overall contest winner. — Patrick Rollens
Should There Be 10,000 Reps in Our Congress?
Why are there only 435 representatives for a nation of 300 million people? This is the question at the premise of a new book and blog by Chicago author and Conscious Choice contributor Bryan W. Brickner. The book Article the First of the Bill of Rights tells the forgotten story of constitutional representation in America.
“On 4 January 2007, the new members of Congress took their oath of office for the first time,” says Brickner. “In doing so, the new Representatives and Senators swore to defend these twelve words from Article 1: ‘The Number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.’ The question is, will the new members work to enforce the twelve words from Article 1? And if they do not, why?”
Brickner contends that Congress has not obeyed the “representation ratio” in Article 1 since the Second Congress began ignoring it in April 1792. Although the constitution mandated that the House would grow in size every ten years, concurrent with each new census, the last time Congress added new seats in the House was 1911 — or 95 years ago. Then, in 1929, Congress voted to pass a law capping the number of Representatives at 435. Since then, the 435 have simply shifted around the various states, reflecting changes in state populations. It is important to note, says Brickner, that the Constitution was never amended, as is required to make such a change. Instead of one representative for every 30,000 Americans, the ratio today is roughly one for every 700,000. Consider that the next time you try to set up an appointment with your “representative.”
Compared with other established democracies, a 435-member House for a nation of 300 million appears paltry at best. The British House of Commons has 651 members who represent a population of about 60 million (ratio = 1:92,000), and the French National Assembly consists of 577 members for about 60 million people (ratio = 1:104,000). Even the Iraqi national assembly which America helped design has a Council of Representatives of 275 for a population of around 23 million (ratio = 1:84,000). Of course, India, the world’s largest democracy, has just 545 members of their “lower house” to represent over 1.1 billion people, a ratio of 1:2,000,000.
Writing in 2001, former Congressional aide Matthew Cossolotto said, “The public and the media seem to have grown so accustomed to a 435-member House that we accept it as the natural order of things. But the Constitution does not stipulate an upper limit to the number of representatives. We could just as easily have 535 or 635 members in the House. Increasing the House by 100 seats…would shake up Washington more than any other election reform proposal now being contemplated. It would spread access to representation and power to more women and minorities than any other single action.” This more moderate approach seems to have a greater chance of coming to fruition than a House with 10,000 representatives, particularly in an era when the public seems to want less Federal government, not more. Can you imagine 10,000 representatives living like the fat cats in Washington do today?
Still, Brickner is undaunted. “Our political system is a mess,” he adds. “But it wasn’t designed to be so. Instead, there is a simple way to change things: Let’s build a new House that actually looks like the rest of America.” Visit bryanbrickner.blogspot.com. — Seamus Presley
The World’s Best Green Search Engine
There is a growing segment of the Internet community searching for news, products and services that match their environmental and social values. Well, search no further for your search. “Going green has never been easier than with GreenMaven.com, the world’s best Green search engine,” says a team of Green MBA graduates who conceived of the project and launched it in late 2006 and have been riding a wave of good press and reviews ever since.
The name Green Maven came from applying the growth in the green economy to Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. “Green is the color symbolizing earth, nature and, in a broader sense, life.” A maven is “a trusted expert in a particular field who seeks to pass knowledge on to others,” ( Wikipedia.com ).
Joey Shepp, founder of GreenMaven.com, says, “People want to go green, but they often don’t know where to start or even what questions to ask. GreenMaven.com makes searching for all things green as easy as using Google. If you search for socks, you get organic socks. If you search for cars, you get hybrid cars. Our mission is to make it easy for mainstream to go green.” GreenMaven.com uses Google’s recently released Co-op Search technology to making searching fast, easy and relevant. GreenMaven.com was designed with Open Source software by a leading sustainable website development firm, Earthsite.net, makers of Urth.TV and GreenFestivals.org.
Listing in the directory search engine is free. To submit your website to the green search engine, visit greenmaven.com. — Charles Shaw
Top Eco-Community
If you have ever strolled the intersection of Foster and Clark, hit Women and Children First bookstore, eaten at the many fine restaurants, or wandered east through the parks towards Broadway, you know that Andersonville is a happenin’ spot. But the Far North Side neighborhood has now been named as one of America’s Best Eco-Communities by Natural Home Magazine.
The magazine chose the top 10 urban neighborhoods—including hotspots in New York, Seattle and Texas—that encourage a healthy and eco-conscious life. The West Asheville neighborhood of Asheville, North Carolina, tops the list, followed by South Congress in Austin, Texas, downtown Bozeman, Montana and Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City. The balance of the list includes neighborhoods in cities mentioned often in sustainable town talk—like Andersonville, and Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood—and a few that are more up and coming in the sustainability world: Denver’s Highland neighborhood and Fall Creek Place in Indianapolis, for example.
All feature environmental and/or social programs; parks, green spaces and neighborhood gathering spaces, farmer’s markets and community gardens, and sometimes alternative-energy programs and green building practices.
Criteria for selection included: community involvement; shopping, libraries and schools within a walkable area; public transportation; and locally owned businesses. Andersonville was picked for “its strong Swedish roots, a unique commercial district, and well-preserved vintage walk-up flats and apartments.” The revival of Clark Street’s business district, the mix of people and cultures, many female business owners, Middle Eastern restaurants, a thriving Hispanic commercial area, two community gardens, a dozen nearby parks, and cheap rent compared with other area neighborhoods, sealed the deal. — Ritzy Ryciak
Don’t Get Mad, Get Active
Dog fighting is one of Chicago’s most cruel and heartbreaking problems, and sadly one that continues to persist. Used largely by street gangs as a means for illegal gambling, dog fighting is also used to initiate and desensitize very young children to extreme violence. A survey of Chicago’s schoolchildren has found that students are almost universally aware of dogfighting in their neighborhood, with one out of every six children admitting that they have attended a dog fight.
Dogs involved in dog fights are often severely injured—or killed—during the fight. These fights may last for hours until one of the animals quits or dies. Furthermore, these animals do not receive veterinary attention. Losers that do not die may be tortured, starved to death or killed outright by their owners. Other animals such as owned pets or strays may be stolen and used as bait to train fighting dogs, often suffering before they die.
The Anti-Cruelty Society of Chicago has done extensive work in the community and with law enforcement to begin to eradicate the problem, so check out their website . If you’ve got a strong stomach, consider watching the tragic documentary, “Out of the Pit: Dog Fighting in Chicago,” (izzyworksfilms.com). And if you ever see or hear about dog fighting, call 911. It’s a felony, you know.
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