Jun. 8th, 2013

[personal profile] ron_newman
Somerville, MA -- Density Without Tall Buildings - by Matthew Yglesias in Slate, June 1, 2013
...some very dense cities don't have much in the way of very tall buildings. Paris often comes up in this regard, but a better example for the American context is probably Somerville, Massachusetts where I happen to be at this very moment.

Somerville, a highly urbanized "suburb" of Boston contains over 18,000 people per square mile making it somewhat denser than San Francisco. And yet it has few tall buildings and certainly no skyscrapers. The key to that happening is that it's very literally dense. The streets are narrow, there's very little parkland, there are few office buildings or hotels. And most of all, the dwellings themselves are small. It's no coincidence that this town is in the oldest-settled part of the United States. Over the years as America has gotten wealthier people have tended to live in larger and larger spaces, but Somerville is full old structures that fit two or three households into apartments that cost more than the average American dwelling but have less square footage than the average American dwelling.

Read the whole thing here, including a huge number of comments (probably 20 times as much text as Yglesias's story)
[identity profile] nomacmac.livejournal.com
HUGE MULT FAMILY YARD SALE IN DAVIS SQUARE
Sunday June 9th 9am-4pm
39 CHESTER STREET – ONE BLOCK OUT OF DAVIS         
 
Household items: Pots, Pans, Glassware, pottery, dishes and more…
Home Decor: Pictures, mirrors, art, baskets, lamps, lights and more…
Furniture: Desks, bookcase, dressers, chest, high-top table and chairs, tables, stools and more…
Children’s Toys, Kids’ furniture, mini soccer-foosball table, games, puzzles, groovy girls, dolls, electronics, baby gates, crib bedding, bikes, skates, helmets, soccer cleats, clothing, costumes, instruments and more….
Books, DVD’s, CD’s, Tools, yard items, and more…
(not my sale...posting for a friend)
[identity profile] mindstalk.livejournal.com
Biked for the first time since the heat wave, to Alewife TJ. (I did not salmon this time.) Don't think I passed more than 6 other bikers, if that. Definitely at least 3 of them were running dark.

What I learned: passing under the big trees on Linnaean Street you really are nigh-invisible, even to a biker (me) with headlight 20-30 feet behind you. I could see him and the six-pack of beer he was carrying in one hand, but I think it'd be totally possible to not notice him if a tad distracted.

I think he technically had a tail reflector, from a few red photons that came glimmering back when I got really close, but it sure wasn't obvious. Granted, my bike light is not a car headlight. Still, now I wonder how many bikes are running with tail reflectors that are at too bad an angle, or some other flaw, to be effective. I guess you could try testing it with a flashlight, but it's a bit more involved than seeing if a tail light is visible from a distance. Hmm, new project.

(followup to my last thread on ninja bikers)

ice hockey

Jun. 8th, 2013 10:33 pm
[identity profile] coffeekitty.livejournal.com
can anyone pass along info on local opportunities for playing ice hockey?
bonus if they will deal gracefully with a nearly 40 year old woman with zero previous experience.

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