Quest for the Killer Modeling Tool continuesBy Brian Skeele, on March 15th, 2011 The Quest is on! Ray at Infracycle recommended taking a look at CommunityViz. Coincidently, recently I’ve attended a couple of their CommunityViz’s “Community Matters” webinars…. On capturing customers for successful commercial- This article about Hershey Pennsylvania’s attempt to revitalize the town, from the ERSI site, has a good discussion on how to figure customer capture using the Huff gravity Model. I found a video on how to most accurately collect data- the Block Point method wins! on ERSI’s site, but lost the link. Having the critical numbers of residential to make the commercial successful is one of the essential pieces to a walkable lifestyle. Here’s another interesting piece I’m learning about …APIs Application Programming Interface. Different software programs create the tools to encourage others to adapt into them with their own needs, thus spreading the usage of the original software. So this says to me, I’m looking for software that has APIs that integrate into GIS and Google Earth, or maybe I’m looking for Google Earth APIs??? Hey, whatever it takes to make sustainable real! I’m thinking of creating another site where this conversation can build…. maybe a more wiki kind of online tool…I don’t have much traffic at this point, but the day will come!!… READ MORE >> Quest for the Killer Modeling ToolBy Brian Skeele, on March 13th, 2011 I’ve been focusing on the “functions” side of the smart modeling tool that will help neighbors in retrofitting their community sustainable, all the while hoping the world will have developed a video game or software that can be adapted to suite my needs. As Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera put it, “Envision how you want it to work, and then remove the barriers”. Last night, as I was brainstorming with one of my partners who knows the video game world, I had a slow dawning awareness. Creating the Killer Modeling Tool may not be so easy. Evony’s “platform” isn’t set up to import a real world neighborhood. So I’m cruizing the internet, looking for a tool that is ready to go off the shelf. I looked the Sims, and SimCity. As “games with no objective” I’m fascinated these are the most popular video games of all times, but how easy can they import Google Earth?? On a tip from friends, I heard about Intracycle. Now Infracycle crunches numbers to establish the “financial sustainability” of a project; life cycle costs, community services cost, etc., certainly an essential component to the Killer Modeling Tool! Maybe Ray E will have some ideas… On the quest to make sustainable real!… READ MORE >> FOUND? Killer Modeling ToolBy Brian Skeele, on March 12th, 2011 I happen to talk to one of my partners about my latest blog on the Killer Modeling Tool, and he directed me to “Write this down. EVONY”. So I did, and later last night I went to the web site, remembering the advice he’d given me, “Don’t let the way they built the game distract you from the platform. We can get it built however you want it” Well, here’s my questions… Can I go to Google Earth and put my own neighborhood into the playing field? Can I add stories to existing buildings? Can I reshape blocks, creating a new cross street in a long block? Could a stand alone be turned into a row house of three homes, for instance? Wow, I’m running out of hurdles. Other configurations seem doable. We can plug in numbers for the number of residents it takes to support a corner grocer, for instance. Stephen Mouzon was saying the other day, that the usual numbers quoted are 1000-1500 residents, but there is a neighborhood of 350 that is really committed to shopping at the local store, hang out, and it is thriving apparently. I think it is Waters, near Montgomery Alabama. 1/4 mile radius is the typically quoted “how far Americans will walk to a service, with the exception of 1/2 mile to a transit stop. I bet those numbers change when gas goes to $4.50/gallon! Stephen said something else I found awesome. Five years ago he moved to Miami, into the second most walkable neighborhood in America (South Miami Beach), and has lost 60 pounds. He showed a map of all his haunts, the work out place, the bookstore, etc. The map of his world… that’s what I want this Killer Modeling Tool to be able to do! Download your neighborhood, and see what it takes to make a sustainable lifestyle REAL! For more of Stephen’s years of experience, go to OriginalGreen… READ MORE >> WANTED: Killer Modeling Tool to Sell Sustainable Urban Villages! Part 2By Brian Skeele, on March 10th, 2011 Continuing the walk thru of my take on the Killer Modeling Tool… As the amount of input from the Charrette (design) process builds, the needs and desires of the future residents, landowners, finance people, city planners, designers, the school district, neighbors, etc, are collected. People are starting to get excited. The question is “How can we tell how close we are to achieving a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable lifestyle? ” or in other words “Where’s the Killer Modeling Tool??!!” We can convert the demand and jump-start the emerging sustainable economy, if we can make all the numbers and qualities of life real (or at least a reasonable facsimile). Future residents will be assured of the quality and cost of moving in. The development/lending community will be reassured of the strength of the demand. The City will see the increased tax revenue vs the costs of infrastructure, etc. How much residential does it take to make the commercial successful?… READ MORE >> WANTED: Killer Modeling Tool to Sell Sustainable Urban Villages! Part 1By Brian Skeele, on March 8th, 2011 1/3 of the Boomers want to move in. 88% of the Millennials want to move in. The problem is, Sustainable Urban Villages don’t exist! Well they do, between my ears and in my heart, but we need a great modeling tool so all the future residents, landowners, finance people, city planners, designers, the school district, and neighbors can see what there are signing up for/signing off on. Then the resuscitation of the construction industry can begin in earnest, the emerging sustainable economy can…emerge! As this is the ultimate sales tool, we are building the neighborhood on paper, so the future residents can say, “Yes, if you build that, I’ll move in!”. And of course, the numbers have to work for everyone involved. Let me give you a walk thru of “the Killer Modeling Tool” as I conceive it…. READ MORE >> Life Long Learning+Innovation= Reinventing Ourselves SustainableBy Brian Skeele, on March 7th, 2011 To me, waiting our car-dependent, sprawl suburbia economy to rebound is like waiting for the Easter Bunny to show up. Wisely renovating, retrofitting, redeveloping our neighborhoods and communities is the base of our future prosperous economy. In other words, we are going to be studying and applying what works for the rest of our lives. Learning isn’t just for kids any more, learning is a way of life. I’m reading Creating Learning Communities-Models, Resources, and New Ways of Thinking About Teaching and Learning, edited by Ron Miller. 24 years (as of 2000) of innovation has created a learning atmosphere that is “systemic or comprehensive” rather than piecemeal change, “transformational learning outcomes,” “real world linkages” for learning through experience, “learning experiences…that are child-centered, life-centered and brain-based,” Personal Learning Plans,” “elevating the position of teacher to ‘facilitators of learning,” “students viewed as powerful resources and participant in decision making, vigorously involved parents,” partnerships with other entities in the community, CLCs as “headquarters for learning for the community” and programs based on needs that are “family centered and family supportive.”… READ MORE >> Sustainable neighborhoods as popular as cell phones!By Brian Skeele, on March 3rd, 2011 Over the years of studying what works, and looking at all the impending bummers coming from our sprawl, car dependent lifestyle, I continue to conclude that the cure, the silver bullet, is “Mixed use, mixed income neighborhoods, with lifelong learning and open space……everywhere”. Even though I’m so sure these sustainable neighborhoods are the antidote to the vast majority of what ails us, a quick response time is everything. The rate of carbon building up in the atmosphere, and the forecast outcomes, require the developed nations to get to sustainable lifestyles pronto. Talk about jousting at windmills….. I’ve set the intention that sustainable neighborhoods become as popular as cell phones, and get implemented around the planet. I take heart from Margaret Mead’s “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does”. The times call for a paradigm shift, transforming our car-dominated economy to a knowledge-based economy; from fossil fueled, polluting, wasteful overconsumption to renewable, non toxic, more efficient, lowered consumptive living. As we get good at clearly defining the benefits, the popularity will soar. Mixed use, mixed income neighborhoods with lifelong learning and open space are the way we are gonna make sustainable real!… READ MORE >> Hard Times, Impending Bummers, and Resilient CommunitiesBy Brian Skeele, on March 2nd, 2011 As I was leaving Trader Joe’s parking lot today, I glanced at the homeless guy as he raised his cardboard sign. I only caught the first word on his sign “hardtimes….”. For several blocks I mulled over going back and giving him some money. I was also thinking of my friend, a metal worker, who was angry about a couple of recent bills for emergency doctor’s office visits; Ten minutes, $250 and $325. ”and I have medical insurance!” he exclaimed several times, outraged. Turns out February is a slow month, and the go-go days of the construction industry seem long gone. He has a wife and two kids and pays $780 a month in health insurance ( up $45 as “he had a birthday” said the insurance company recently). The recent unprecedented cold weather froze lots of pipes around town, and as a general contractor, I got a month of good work putting a couple of condos back together. All of these thoughts came together, precipitated by the homeless guy’s” hardtimes”, and reminded me of all the possible bummers we face; Peak oil and rising gasoline demand worldwide, honey bee’s dying off en mass, fracking water contamination,… READ MORE >> Resurrecting the Economy…Sustainable!By Brian Skeele, on March 1st, 2011 In my last blog “What to do about the Economy?” I was saying “we need ‘sustainable mixed use, mixed income neighborhoods, with lifelong learning and open space…..everywhere’ “. Let me explain that a bit. In 2006, Arthur C Nelson has been warning that the over supply of large lot suburban homes will be 22 million by 2025. Currently, $1.2 trillion dollars of commercial is underwater, with leases due to renew between now and 2013. Much of this commercial, as I understand it, serves the outer reaches of suburbia, the very same neighborhoods where the majority of residential foreclosures have occurred. So with all this oversupply, you might ask, how can I claim “We need sustainable mixed use, mixed income neighborhoods, with lifelong learning and open space….everywhere?” Well, simply put…”It’s the Boomers, and their children, the Millennials!” Turns out in surveys, 1/3 of the Boomers (24 million or so) want a simpler, walkable lifestyle. And 88% of the Millennials (27 million???) want a more vibrant alive urban kind of lifestyle. If all these demographic surveys are accurate, all we have to do to Resurrect the Economy is build higher density, vibrant alive, mixed use, mixed income neighborhoods!… READ MORE >> What to do about the economy? Go Sustainable!By Brian Skeele, on February 28th, 2011 The thing to do these days is get a more affordable lifestyle. Lower your gasoline bill, lower the monthly heating bill, lower the housing payment, lower healthcare costs….you name it…make it lower. The problem is gas prices are going up! and that makes everything more expensive. It’s time to get creative. It’s time to go sustainable. This is where we are as a planet, in the middle of reinventing ourselves… We need an affordable lifestyle…..one that is economically sustainable. Coincidently, there is a good chance our more affordable lifestyle is going to live lighter on the planet too. So this reinvention, this retrofit, this more sustainable living is going to be good for the polar bears as well. President Obama brought it to our attention in the State of the Union address… Americans have always invented themselves, and the time is here again…. READ MORE >> |