Great Article on Urban Times

The Urban Times has posted an article on Indy's original urban pioneers in Lockerbie Square. I have a great admiration for these people that took a chance on downtown living, at a time when it was so daunting.

One part that was surprising to me was that in the 1970's, the neighborhood brought in historic structures to fill in the vacant lots. I may have to see if I can tell which structures are not native to the neighborhood on my next walk through the Square.

Spirit and Place Festival

The Spirit and Place Festival starts this weekend, and there are several programs of interest to the goals of this blog. I have added them to the calendar. I'm planning on going to the IMAGINE-Nation session, and I might add more to my personal schedule.

Hoosiers want better mass transit

Great news from a recent poll posted on the Indy Star. I actually find the numbers quite shocking.

Feedback post: What do you want to see?

I'm curious about reader preferences on this blog. Here's a mini survey. Please rate your preferences 1-5 for each topic, and go in to as much detail as you would like.

Which topics would you like to see covered in greater detail?

Alternative Transportation (i.e. mass transit, bicycles, walkability)

Green Initiatives (i.e. recycling, green buildings, renewable power)

Photo Blogs

Observational Pieces

Local Food/Businesses

Infill Development

Next, a general question:

Are there any other topics that you would like to see discussed that have not been offered on Urban Indy?

Thanks everyone for reading this blog for past year and a half.

Indy's Green Progress

Indianapolis has been ramping up Green projects lately. Here's a sampling:

• The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce has a Green Business Initiative. The Chamber is also planning a trip to Denver to study Mass Transit and Regional Cooperation.
  

• From yesterday's Star: A Downtown hotel wants to power itself with the aid of the sun.

• Our long-term bike lane plan, posted by benjaminooo over on Skyscraper City.

• A common sense solution to sewer filtration.

There has to be more out there that I'm not familiar with. I believe that there is a growing sense that we can not continue down the path that led us to this point.

*addendum* apologies for all of the different fonts. Blogger doesn't like copy-and-paste occasionally.

Randomly Miscellaneous

A few links to start the week.

• PBS has a great new series on infrastructure in America, starting with this video on exurbia vs. smart growth.
  

• Thundermutt linked me to the latest info on the Food Co-op on the Near East Side.

• I've already voted. Find out more about early voting on this page.
  

SustainIndy Initiative

The Mayor has launched a new initiative to increase the role of sustainable planning in Indianapolis. Obviously, this is great news. The Star has more details.

Urban Planning Scholar Series

Here's something I just stumbled upon: A series of panels discussing sustainable design in Indianapolis. More info here.

Bates Hendricks House

This is the 3rd of 3 unrelated picture posts. I found this by accident near the East and Lincoln intersection, as the tower was peaking up in the background just a block away. See here and here for the first 2 posts.  This is a great old house:

The neighborhood has gone under recent renovations (as posted about here.)  I found this horse sculpture made from tires pretty interesting.

East Street and Lincoln

Finally! An intersection with 4 buildings that hug the corner.  This is on the Near South Side.

Northeast Corner:

Southeast Corner:

Southwest Corner:

Northwest Corner:

Mass Ave from the Air:

This is the first of 3 unrelated picture posts.  Here's the view of 3 Mass Ave from my cubicle:

Suburban Bus Options

Both Urbanophile and Circles and Squares have recently written posts on improving Bus service in Indianapolis. Meanwhile, this article in the Indianapolis Business Journal hints on something that my wife has mentioned as a possible solution in the suburbs. You see, my wife spent two years in Guatemala in the Peace Corps. Guatemalan buses are everywhere (I went there 2 years ago and saw this for myself). Generally, they're brightly-painted old American school buses that are past their prime and badly pollute the air. Of course, the people in these rural and suburban areas really have no choice but to rely on public transportation, as they can not afford their own vehicle along with it's inherent costs. Guatemala is obviously a completely different world; however, I always look for learning options, regardless of the culture that practices them. So, I think that larger fleets of buses could be a future option for American suburbs.

The recent financial crisis has shown us that we are more vulnerable to events that are out of our control than we'd like to admit. To add insult to injury, there have been gas shortages in the Southeast. We've placed ourselves in a precarious position with regards to our current energy intensive lifestyles. The sooner we get serious about reorganizing ourselves, the more we stand on solid ground.