mark your defect

Respectable example of map-based (low tech but effective) collaborative data capture to address an urban defect. (except that the Globe can't keep it live)

laf-central buildout

OK, no one calls it this yet, but pretty soon the new Lafayette Square Park will be done and the Central Square Theater will be up and running and (especially if there's comedy there) Laf-Central will just seem like a natural name for it.

Anyway, this is precisely the area I was talking about in that post about the sloppy Central Square parking situation. Check out the unsightly rash of hideous blue parking lots in the top image looking down Main Street and Mass Ave toward MIT and Boston (these are the same polygons used in this map).

And then imagine it with about 2 million extra square feet of residential and commercial development, building on nothing but existing asphalt.

Yeah, I hear you. This is the kind of massing monstrosity that inspires rage in planners and local traditionalists, but it looks cool in google earth. And think about the energy this would introduce - not to mention continuity with Kendall - Portland Street and Prospect.

The Lafayette-Central Buildout should serve as the pilot project for creating Boston's Emerald Spine.

By the way, all of the little brown buildings are accessible via the good work of the Virtual City Collective and MassGIS. Thanks guys, for keeping mapping fun.

life with rattus norvegicus

Living in the city means sharing space with rats. I know this and don't have a big problem with it. If every once in a while I see a rat ambling along the curb or poking its pointy little nose out from behind a dumpster, oh well; small cost of dwelling in the urban context.

At some point though, the happy prospect of peaceful coexistence is no longer appropriate. In Cambridge, or at least my part of it, that point has been passed.

Look - I have a great deal of respect for the rat as a marvel of nature and one of evolution's great success stories. Urban rats are consummate generalists, experts at adaptation and making the most of meager resources, and they are tireless workers. But too much success frequently begets enmity, and in my neighborhood the rats are too successful.

I have seen them dance across Washington Street in pairs in the morning, I've watched them capering near uncovered trash cans in bright summer sun, and I have chased them from my small vegetable garden upon discovering their assaults on my tomatoes at dusk. On garbage night they are legion. It is a genuine problem and I am not the only one who has noticed it.

So: If we could just see a map of where they are, what they are doing and when they are doing it we'd be well on the way to controlling this problem. To that end I've posted a collaborative map that can be used to track sitings of these busy little devils and their handiwork. If you go here you'll be able to add your information and help grow this map into something genuinely useful for understanding the scope and specifics of this problem.

a plague of parking

What's with the all of the parking lots in Central Square? I mean, look at this:


View Larger Map


All of the blue areas are bulk (more than 10 spaces) surface parking. Red areas are parking garages. Hit the Sat button to get confirmation of what's actually under these shapes.

It's a blight, really, and no one seems to notice it. Some of the lots have nice young trees planted at the curbs and medians to pretty things up a bit. Some of them are public lots. A bunch of them are owned and used by Quest Diagnostics - which is all well and good. But really now - what a ghastly waste of urban land.