New York: Make Music New York (Streetfilms)

Portland: Intersection Repair (Streetfilms)

Detroit: Motor City Blight Busters

• King of the Road (Radio Show)
  Why cyclists, drivers and pedestrians can’t just get along, with three different modal advocates.
  (tags: transportation Cities planning Politics)

• Mayor Bloomberg discusses a range of topics at Google
  “Our population is at an all-time high. We’ve added more people in the last half-dozen years than live in Pittsburgh. We’re building public affordable housing for more people than live in Atlanta. We have more kids in our public school system than live in
  (tags: Politics demographics NYC Cities)

• High Anxiety - A Manhattan neighborhood deals with its changing skyline
  “For all the anger that buildings can incite, development is seldom a simple tale of good versus evil. One person’s eyesore may be another’s sight for sore eyes; one generation’s architectural debacle could become the next generation’s architectur
  (tags: nyc manhattan LandDevelopment gentrification)

I’m not sure there’s a whole lot I can say about the discussion surrounding Mike Jacobs’ switch to the Republican party today. Most of what’s out there is a bunch of meaningless political posturing and rhetoric.

But I believe there is some part of the nation that is not adequately represented by either party. Absent from Jacobs’ announcement on his new blog was any mention of Glenn Richardson. Jill Chambers’ name was mentioned twice. I tend to believe their constituents fit more within that gray area — that neither party represents their districts very well.

While the armchair political strategists of the blogosphere will debate with one another — based on meaningless numbers — the political makeup of this or that House district, it’s unlikely that either party is going to engage the people of those districts in any meaningful way. Republican = conservative; Democrat = liberal. Independent = moderate = not represented?

(I suppose Libertarian or Socialist = nutcase; and Joeventures = a complete and total nutcase)

It’s worth pointing out that New York’s Mayor Bloomberg has gone independent. Nice coincidence for all this party switching and dropping to happen on the same day. I have to wonder to what extent Bloomberg, Jacobs, Chambers, and others are of a similar mind — inadequately represented by either party. And would their ideas be strong enough (and their tent big enough) to form a viable third party?

Is it just me, or are the media wars heating up? Most recently, an interview with Andrew Keen on NPR, author of “The Cult of the Amatuer: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture.”

How about this jewel in Sunday’s AJC:

Web 2.0, the term applied to a new generation of sites that encourage interaction and collaboration, will degrade us all, warns a former president of the American Library Association. In a provocative essay last week on Britannica Blog called “Web 2.0: The Sleep of Reason,” Michael Gorman foresees a “world in which everyone is an expert in a world devoid of expertise.” He calls 2.0 an “unholy brew made up of the digital utopianism that hailed the Internet as the second coming of Haight-Ashbury — everyone’s tripping, and it’s all free.” One commenter points out that Gorman uses a Web 2.0 platform (a blog) to mount his assault on Web 2.0.

Bloggers will scream that MSM outlets just “don’t get it” (the adolescent argument). MSM outlets scream that bloggers are unprofessional (the strawman).

But what’s the big picture? These media wars are pointless because each side recognizes the fault of the other, but not their own. In the long run, new media may make old media more honest — or not. Or, maybe new media and old media will make one another more honest, but only sometimes.

But as long as there’s going to be a bunch of arguing about experts vs. crowds, for right now, the crowds appear to be winning. And the crowds are winning simply because they’re not going to go away.

So, here’s a topic for discussion:

We are moving from an era where experts are trusted too much and crowds too little, to an era where crowds are trusted too much and experts too little.

• Macon GOP mayoral candidate wants rail
  “A high-speed rail line needs to be established, but it needs to connect Macon to Savannah. Then Atlanta ‘will want to be coming to us’ with the rail line already being talked about. The city’s airport also needs new routes. ‘That will bring the jobs.’”
  (tags: macon transportation commuterrail)
• Bethel Park teachers use blogs to better student writing
  “Three teachers are using blogs to help students write — a sort of an online term paper in shorter bursts — and the group is finding it’s improving the caliber of the writing and evoking scholarly thoughts from students.”
  (tags: blogging education weblogs)
• Georgia’s standardized tests among the top 5 most dumbed down
  “SHOCKING NEWS!!!!!! The federal government has released an interesting report.”
  (tags: education NCLB)
• Using this logic, GA should sue GDOT and ARC
  “California is pioneering what could be the next battleground against global warming: filing suit to hold cities and counties accountable for greenhouse gas emissions caused by poorly planned suburban sprawl.”
  (tags: planning sprawl urban California)

• The senior tsunami: Suburbs are graying faster than big cities
  “The over-65 population in Georgia is projected to rise more than 40 percent in the decade beginning in 2010 as residents grow older, but only 3 percent as a result of migration.” Maybe it would be good for me to move to NYC.
  (tags: suburbs demographics Cities)
• Macon LTE: Many reasons midstate needs rail alternative
  “Unfortunately, a simple trip to Atlanta has become such an ordeal for folks in Middle Georgia because of traffic headaches along I-75 and spiraling gas prices.”
  (tags: commuterrail macon atlanta transportation traffic lte)

• Worst to First: Integrating the arts into the core curriculum
  Willards Elementary School in Salisbury, MD, “has moved from the lower testing range to one of the top three schools in the county,” thanks to efforts “to integrate the arts - visual arts, theater, dance and music composition - into the core curriculum.”
  (tags: arts education culture diversity)
• Hank Klibanoff’s response to criticism of AJC arts coverage
  AJC’s Managing Editor calls out WAC and ASO for “spreading falsehoods about the AJC’s actions.”
  (tags: AtlantaSymphonyOrchestra WoodruffArtsCenter AtlantaJournalConstitution arts journalism atlanta)

Tonight at 6:00, a new exhibit opens at the Museum of Design Atlanta — The Design Prescription: How the Built Environment Affects our Health.

I was very lucky to have an opportunity to contribute to this exhibit and encourage you to check it out. My contribution is a short documentary created by myself and Cathy — 4 Commuters. The documentary chronicles the daily commutes of four people, each of whom use one of four different modes of transportation — a car, transit, feet, and a bicycle.

Over time, we’ll be building the 4 Commuters website to document how 4 average, real or hypothetical commuters come into conflict with one another, and what urban design elements can be used to alleviate those conflicts. We may even get really trendier-than-thou and ask whether, in some cases, it’s a good idea to alleviate modal conflicts.

But in the meantime, go and stop by the MoDA gallery space at Peachtree Center’s Marquis 2 building and check out this new exhibit.