NJ, Corruption, Development, and the death of cities/Robert Moses

I am writing this because of Brian Lehrer's discussion about NJ/politics/corruption...

OK. First, if you've never heard of Robert Moses (whom I call the "destroyer of NY") please look at this older post I wrote last year about him HERE:

To summarize (and plagerize myself [heh-heh]):

My position on Mr. Moses comes from the fact that a great deal of Mr. Moses's foibles caused a great deal of shame and problems for New York City, that remain to this day such as:

• Mr. Moses was a racist.
• Mr. Moses was an upper class slob.
• Mr. Moses was class conscious
  

These three factors totally influenced how and where our City developed in his reign of terror and power in our city.


Given this as a starting point, I contend the following*:

1. The lack of public transportation in our tri-state (and even nationally), is a great shame.
2. This lack of infrastructure (on a national scale) has damaged our environment, our
   country, and even our competitive situation in the world.
3. The fact that development in the nation has become auto (and truck) centric, has been a terrible tragedy willed on us by people such as Robert Moses.

Now to become NJ centric, and discuss politics, and industrial development
(and 0f course corruption!):

• Urban Sprawl (unchecked development of office parks, malls, and strip malls) is killing NJ. We need a centralized (State-wide) plan. Exclusive development decisions must be removed from municipal authorities.
• Our method of administration (country-wide) and political service needs reformed.

Here's where my National plan addresses NJ:

• Similar to the tradition of military academies in our country, we need to establish political academies, and elevate the education and professionalism of our politicians. Hopefully, by making the education, and income of legislators level, we can elevate the profession of politician from political lackey to professionalism we expect from our military.
  

Other ideas:?

We need to make sure legislatiors cannot "Double-Dip", and have multiple positions, or multiple public pensions... (give the HIGHER of cost of salary or pension for a person), not both.

We need to start to enforce and arrest developers. We need to start to re-think development. NO More MALLS or strip malls. We need manufacturing again...

Sound interesting? It's a start... and I hope you listen...


*(see below this note for the footer on this message for my '10 step program' to rebuild our country.

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Try my other blog also:
It discusses:
* What I call this Depression 2.0

and
We need to do the FOLLOWING to FIX our Society:
* Create A Living Wage
* Create a National Single payer Healthcare
* Create a National 3-4 year draft (or alternate service)
* Create a Federally paid Day Care starting at six months
* Implement Tax Reform on the ULTRA Rich
* Lobbying (Political Reform)
* Education
* Infrastructure (road /bridge/rail/Systems repairs)
* Lack of Training/futures
* Truth and Reconcilliation Commission
* A new "Manhattan" project, focusing on Energy INDEPENDENCE

See my other blog: http://sos-newdeal.blogspot.com for more details.

GreeN: Ice instead of Air Conditioning in NYC

Image credit

An ice-cooling system in the Credit Suisse offices at the historic Metropolitan Life tower in Manhattan is as good for the environment as taking 223 cars off the streets or planting 1.9 million acres of trees to absorb the carbon dioxide caused by electrical usage for one year.

In the basement, three main cooling rooms house chilling machines and 64 tanks that hold 800 gallons of water each. Credit Suisse has a traditional air conditioning system, but engineers use the more efficient system first.

Electricity is needed to make the ice, so water is frozen in large silver tanks at night when power demands are low. The cool air emanating from the ice blocks is then piped throughout the building more or less like traditional air conditioning. At night the water is frozen again and the cycle repeats.

Trane, the air-conditioning arm of American Standard, also developed a system for Morgan Stanley's Westchester County offices, and just completed a new system for its offices on Fifth Avenue. A new Goldman Sachs headquarters will also have ice cooling. Credit Suisse is looking at installing the systems in offices around the globe, but nothing has been decided yet.

The technology isn't for every office space. There has to be room to install the large tanks. And costs are considerable: Credit Suisse spent more than $3 million to renovate its cooling system; and Morgan Stanley's costs were comparable, which means the technology is best suited to large companies.



Image Credit

DepressinG: space for Sale!

Wow talk about cramped! But look at the PICTURES of what someone determined they could do with it! He deserves a medal!

The BBC had a post about the MOST expensive space ever sold in London

In what was typical understated British humor, the BBC reported:

In fact, the £170,000 price tag may make it one of the few affordable properties in what is London's and the UK's costliest borough.

They did honestly report on the apartment's dimensions:

The former janitor's storeroom measures 11ft by 7ft and has a cupboard place for a shower and kitchenette area.

They then discretely mention

that the size is roughly the size of a snooker table has gone on sale for £170,000 in London's upmarket Chelsea.

Simple Simon's slideshow on Flickr