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| 2009/2/9-17 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China] UID:52537 Activity:low |
2/9 Moral of the story, never stay in a Chinese-built high rise?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/world/asia/10beijing.html?hp
\_ Moral of the story, high rises suck. I prefer my single family house
\_ Because single family homes never burn down?
\_ Moral of the story: building safety is yet another thing you
shouldn't leave to deregulation.
\_ moral of the story: not everyone shares young people's vision of
dense living urtopia. A SFH has less dependency on others, hence
is more fault resilient. Also as you get older, you realize that
there's much more than meeting new people and partying everyday
in your dense living utopia in San Francisco. Also, when you have
\_ moral of the story: not everyone shares young people's vision
of dense living urtopia. A SFH has less dependency on others,
hence is more fault resilient. Also as you get older, you
realize that there's much more than meeting new people and
partying everyday in your dense living utopia in San
Francisco. Also, when you have
kids, you really don't want them to grow up with a bunch of
crackheads and weirdos. There's a reason why SFHs in Pasadena
and San Marino cost so much. P.S. Jackie Johnson & JPL rock!
Francisco. Also, when you have kids, you really don't want
them to grow up with a bunch of crackheads and weirdos.
There's a reason why SFHs in Pasadena and San Marino cost so
much. P.S. Jackie Johnson & JPL rock!
\_ moral of the story: 80 col is the standard. Also, I'm 39.
I very purposefully do not live in a SFH. I like a vibrant
neighborhood with shops and diversions in walking distance.
Not all urban living is the projects. Get over your fear.
\_ any kid?
\_ Working on it.
\_ Stop trolling.
\_ http://www.spur.org
\_ Some hot girl from school added me in Facebook. Looks like she
just had a kid. A cute kid. A cute kid with Down's Syndrome.
Her husband is a manly alpha male Special Forces officer.
No nerds for miles. Kids are overrated. |
| 7/10 |
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| www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/world/asia/10beijing.html?hp ANDREW JACOBS Published: February 9, 2009 BEIJING -- A fierce fire engulfed one of the Chinese capital's most architecturally celebrated modern buildings on Monday, the last day of festivities for the lunar new year when the city was ablaze with fireworks. By late evening the blaze was still raging and the cause remained unknown, but it seemed clear that the 34-story structure, not yet completed, had been rendered unusable. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Firefighters, their ladders only reaching up a dozen or so floors, could do little to contain the blaze, a spectacular wall of flames eerily reflected in the glass skin of the adjacent CCTV tower. The 241-room Mandarin Oriental hotel, which had been due to open this summer, was unoccupied at the time, hotel executives said. According to Chinese television, the fire began at 8:27 pm, although witnesses said they spotted flames as early as 7:45 pm Within 20 minutes, they said, the fire had spread from the lower floors to the building's crown. Black smoke drifted across the night sky, obliterating a full moon. The authorities blocked off a thoroughfare known as the Third Ring Road, which runs adjacent to the complex. Subway cars running underneath the site were briefly halted, stranding thousands of passengers. Frantic police officers tried to shoo away huge crowds as sirens wailed and fireworks lit up the skyline. People watching noted that the timing of the fire -- coming at the end of the spring festival -- was inauspicious. While errant fireworks were suspected as a possible cause, fires of such magnitude are nonetheless highly unusual in Beijing. The city had been crackling with fireworks for the annual Lantern Festival, the final day of the two-week long Chinese New Year holiday. Witnesses said that construction crews had been working nonstop on the building but it was not immediately clear if anyone was injured. Claire Sandner, a spokeswoman for Mandarin Oriental, said none of the hotel's 60 employees were inside at the time of the fire. She said it was too early to assess the extent of the damage although the devastation appeared to be complete. A spokesman for Mr Koolhaas's firm in Rotterdam, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, called the fire "a great tragedy." The spokesman, Stefan Petermann, said the firm had won the competition for the building in 2002; groundbreaking took place in 2004, and the building was due to be completed this May As they stood gaping at the blaze, many people said the fire would be widely interpreted as a poor omen for the coming year. Fan Wenxin, 20, a waiter who works a few blocks from the complex, rattled off a litany of disasters that have shaken China in recent months. Although the past year included a triumphal Olympics, he said there had also been a spate of ominous events, among them the Sichuan earthquake, the riots in Tibet and a drought that has left Beijing and much of northern China without precipitation for more than three months. Edward Wong contributed reporting from Beijing, and Graham Bowley from New York. |
| www.spur.org Evaluating transportation economic stimulation strategies Increasing transport system efficiency is particularly important for long-term economic development. Vehicle and fuel purchases generate fewer domestic jobs and less economic activity than most other consumer expenditures. Each million dollars shifted from purchasing fuel to a typical bundle of consumer goods adds 45 US jobs, and this is likely to increase significantly in the long run as international oil prices rise and domestic production declines. KALW interview: SPUR on the downtown extension Dave Snyder, SPUR's Transportation Policy Director, talks with KALW's Ben Trefny about the extension of Caltrain to downtown San Francisco. Interested in learning about affordable housing but don't want to read? This great regional affordable housing developer is taking its work to the 21st century. Their latest podcast release is on affordable housing and the economic stimulus package. President Obama's Urban Agenda At long last we have a president interested in developing a actual national urban agenda. And let him know if you know of a good candidate for that Director of Urban Policy position! |