Interstate Outside My Window

Now that I live in a city that lives and breathes through multiple interstate systems going through and around it, I find myself increasingly interested in how it got to be this way, and how it will look in the coming generations.

Indianapolis has access to these Inter-State Highways:

This intersection kind of looks like
one of those silly "Celtic knot" tattoos

• I-74
• I-70
• I-465
• I-65
• I-69

My apartment is "conveniently" located at near an intersection of I-65 and I-70. Ironically, the neighborhood I live in in is also one of the oldest, prettiest, trendiest, artistic and most expensive to live in within city limits. 

Who in their right minds would put an interstate through this historic neighborhood, you ask? 

...As it turns out, putting interstate highways through city centers - an legacy of the Eisenhower administration - was actually kind of an accident waiting to happen. Helen Leavitt was a step ahead of her generation when she wrote Superhighways - Superhoax in the 1970s. The link, by the way, leads to an engaging excerpt:

"During off-peak hours these urban freeways can work relatively well. But from 7:30 to 9 A.M., and from 4:30 to 6:30 P.M., drivers are likely to whiz along them at no more than 6 to 12 mph. The horse and buggy did as well.

Serenely confident, however, that the solution to automobile congestion is more concrete, highway planners now advance schemes for...ever more miles of city-adjacent highway. In theory, additional facilities should alleviate traffic jams. In reality, the new roads fill up as fast as the concrete hardens; traffic simply rises to meet capacity."

Do these roads earn their keep? Do taxes cover the ever-increasing repairs required? In Indianapolis, there are cheap or free parking meters & garages. There are no tolls on the interstates. The city's public transit system is barely functional - "wretched" might be a better descriptor. What is the price of the convenience Indianapolis affords automobile drivers?

Indianapolis, near the interstate intersection where I live.
Unfortunately I couldn't find a photo that accurately shows
the pervasiveness of the interstate system here.

• Can we measure it in pollution? 
• Obesity caused by so much sitting while driving (see below)? 
• The potential social, cultural, and economic contributions of those who live their lives outside of the city they work in? 
• Loss of city revenue due to subsidized parking lots?
• Loss of city revenue due to those who live outside of the city in which their job is located?
• Ugliness of sprawl?
• General quality of life?

Many, many individuals I know commute 40+ minutes on interstates to go to work here. They gain the benefits of a city-based job but do not necessarily contribute to the city's economy or culture. They spend 1.5 hours or more of their free time every day driving alone in traffic, or about 8 hours - the length of an average work day - per week. 

If Indianapolis had had decided to spend inner-city interstate funds instead on a metro rail system, a functional bus system, and/or even a few more bike/walkways that are separate from auto traffic, I believe the city's destiny would have been changed dramatically. Currently its public image is less than "cutting-edge," and its roads are in increasingly poor repair. 

Do you use an interstate or similarly large roadway to go about your daily business? What would it be like if it weren't there? (Some cities actually have removed interstates from the city center!) What was it like before it was there, if you remember?

The Questionable Importance of Brands

Good Magazine is another of my favorite publications. I used to get the print magazine, and I loved it. (I don't anymore because I'm part of that 20% rate of un/underemployed twenty-something age group in the US.) I suppose you could say it's a company I do care about, in the sense that I think it improves my life.


They recently posted an article that discusses upon new research:

What if 70 percent of brands in the world disappeared overnight? Most people wouldn't care, according to a new study of 50,000 people in 14 global markets performed by Havas Media, an international communications firm.

Along with urban development, I'm sincerely interested with how we as humans, individually, interact with corporations. How much does an individual corporation impact your life? In the Good article, the brands Google and IKEA topped the list of companies that people believe actually have a good impact on something, be that their own lives, the globe, or otherwise. In fact, the NYT published an article that says that iPhone users literally love the little electronic device, and Investor Place report on the many ways Bank of America regulators, investors, employees and customers hate it.


The corporations that push new technologies - Google, IKEA, Apple in my generation, and Ford, John Deere, Sears Roebuck in past generations - seem to be perceived as the most "valuable" to individuals (at least in developed nations such as the US; what about Monsanto's high-yield, DNA-patented seeds in Africa that are so controversial here?). Nevertheless, I'm sure that the firm that provides you with a job, regardless of its product or service, is pretty valuable to you. 

Corporations have been around as long as humans have been able to conceive of them.  Back in the day, even churches and governments were "incorporated" as a means to preserve the organization's existence beyond the lives of those currently involved. 

Is this research legit? Does it ring with you? What brands do you think are legitimately important? What brands would you actually miss if they were to disappear overnight?

Trendy Trash

This blog is intended to be a place where I can log things that interest me. Maybe they'll interest you as well!

Credit to Joe Henry, whose newly-released album Reverie holds a song entitled "The World and All I Know." Find out more about this dapper gentleman.

One of my favorite publications is The Atlantic, and especially their side project The Atlantic Cities. Urban development has been an interest of mine for the past few years, even though I have rarely found myself living in densely-populated areas.

The Atlantic has a fascinating photo album of photos about recycling around the globe (the word "globe" is such a nice one to describe this place, don't you think?). From grimy, gritty photos that make me feel a combination of fascination and shame...

 

...to a world away where glitz and glamour, not necessarily usefulness or longevity of a resource, reign.

What's the solution to our global trash problem? What do you know? In order for a material or resource to live beyond trendiness (let's face it, the keyboard bra isn't going to successfully replace the more functional one I'm wearing) it needs to have a degree of genuine usefulness. 

With technology advancing as fast as it has been over the past few generations, is it possible to figure out a re-use, "cradle-to-cradle" system that actually works, is affordable, and is easily accessible to folks from all walks of life? I think the technology of & desire for "new stuff" is advancing much faster than trash-mitigation technology. What do you think?