Decius wrote:

This Korean website is selling the umbrellas from Blade Runner! How cool! I have to say, I could see people using these in Seoul. They wouldn't seem strange there. Of course, that might be just my perception, because everything there is slightly alien to me. However, the density of the city somehow makes this seem easier to imagine than in, say, Atlanta, where if you're walking around with an umbrella you're usually walking to or from a car. Perhaps these would be good in Manhatten.

I am Memestreams. I do Unicode!

Acidus wrote:
I am Memestreams. I do Unicode!

Um, werd.
Truth be told it doesn't work as well as it ought to.

k wrote:

However, the density of the city somehow makes this seem easier to imagine than in, say, Atlanta, where if you're walking around with an umbrella you're usually walking to or from a car.

Stupid, stupid Atlanta. I'm so tired of driving everywhere.

I want one of these awesome umbrellas, and a place to use it. Atlanta, as you say, is NOT such a place.

Anyway, the company calls it a "Light Saber" umbrella, but Tom's correct, I think it's better if i think of it in terms of the Blade Runner umbrella, to the right. More information, and pix of a restored original, here.

I like how the fact that the headline is in Korean, we have made up whatever we want for this thread!
These don't seem too practical to me. I think the light would actually just glare in your eyes. The last thing you want when walking down a dark wet street is glare. It would be better if the light were directional and pointing away from your face.
Besides, studies have shown that younger cities such as Atlanta, aren't well built to accommodate mass transit. They were designed for the car, which is why they promote the car. Even Washington DC is not very mass transit friendly thanks to the loop.

flynn23 wrote:
These don't seem too practical to me.

Oh yeah... they're totally form over function. I still want one.

Besides, studies have shown that younger cities such as Atlanta, aren't well built to accommodate mass transit. They were designed for the car, which is why they promote the car. Even Washington DC is not very mass transit friendly thanks to the loop.

I don't disagree. In fact, I agree wholeheartedly. That's why I'm angry. City planners have continued making conscious choices to defeat mass transit and favor the car. That's the whole fucking problem.

I can't believe anyone on earth would prefer this nightmare of 10 and 12 lane superhighways, these swathes of hot, smelly, unsightly pavement, endless delays and annoyance and, most of all, lack of freedom. People claim to favor the car because it promotes freedom, but I see quite the opposite. I find it harder to go out socially, because having to find a place to park, and deal with my car, and curb my drinking is a massive disincentive to even try to go out and have fun. It's depressing as hell. And living in town doesn't help either because you can hardly walk anywhere. This is a city -- like others, as you say -- which completely destroys the concept of the town as a community in favor of this network of awful roads. I think it's a travesty.

Obviously being a single 20-something puts me in a different mindset from others, but what the fuck do i care about them... they've forsaken the city and moved to the burbs, lobbied to separate themselves in order to deny the city their tax revenue, and still pressure the city to expand roads so that THEY can have an easier time polluting the air and making life worse for those of us who'd really like to have a real urban lifestyle. It's not bad enough they've got to turn the landscape in every direction into a calamity of ugly subdivisions without trees, endless chain restaurants and grand edifices of Wal Mart. They've gotta ruin it for me inside the perimiter too.

I'm bitter at the entire lifestyle and it sickens me that people behave in this way. -k]

k wrote:
I don't disagree. In fact, I agree wholeheartedly. That's why I'm angry. City planners have continued making conscious choices to defeat mass transit and favor the car. That's the whole fucking problem.

I can't believe anyone on earth would prefer this nightmare of 10 and 12 lane superhighways, these swathes of hot, smelly, unsightly pavement, endless delays and annoyance and, most of all, lack of freedom. People claim to favor the car because it promotes freedom, but I see quite the opposite. I find it harder to go out socially, because having to find a place to park, and deal with my car, and curb my drinking is a massive disincentive to even try to go out and have fun. It's depressing as hell. And living in town doesn't help either because you can hardly walk anywhere. This is a city -- like others, as you say -- which completely destroys the concept of the town as a community in favor of this network of awful roads. I think it's a travesty.

Obviously being a single 20-something puts me in a different mindset from others, but what the fuck do i care about them... they've forsaken the city and moved to the burbs, lobbied to separate themselves in order to deny the city their tax revenue, and still pressure the city to expand roads so that THEY can have an easier time polluting the air and making life worse for those of us who'd really like to have a real urban lifestyle. It's not bad enough they've got to turn the landscape in every direction into a calamity of ugly subdivisions without trees, endless chain restaurants and grand edifices of Wal Mart. They've gotta ruin it for me inside the perimiter too.

I'm bitter at the entire lifestyle and it sickens me that people behave in this way. -k]

I'm with you 100%. I live in a 'village' area, and one of the primary reasons why I moved there was because I can walk to nearly 90% of everything I need to exist. Food. Entertainment. Shopping. Even supplies from the hardware store. In fact, I hardly drive at all, unless I'm going to a business function. As far as working, if there was better infrastructure, you'd have less commuters. There's simply very little reason why people have to drive to and from work 5+ days a week. Most of the people I know can work from home just as productively at least 3 days a week, if not every day. These are not always 'knowledge workers' either. Some of these people actually assemble or maintain physical goods.

I think there's a definite resurgence in real urban living. Even in cities that had already given up downtown for dead long ago. The housing market is partly behind that, as these are easy investments. But I also think it's lifestyle. People are too busy to handle a 30+ minute commute, which today is pretty short. That's just a huge sinkhole of unproductive time. Even if you were spending that time walking, at least you're getting the exercise out of it.

Viva city living!

flynn23 wrote:
In fact, I hardly drive at all

Sounds like heaven. I'm not being facetious.

As far as working, if there was better infrastructure, you'd have less commuters.

I have mixed feelings here. I've worked from home on occasion and found it harder to stay focused. That being said, it was being done without official blessing and without any processes in place to support it. So that's part of the problem. Infrastructure is also key, as you say... my Citrix remote desktop isn't bad, but it's not speedy and the shift key doesn't work reliably for some reason. There are a million such little things that make working from home difficult.

I think there's a definite resurgence in real urban living. Even in cities that had already given up downtown for dead long ago. The housing market is partly behind that, as these are easy investments. But I also think it's lifestyle. People are too busy to handle a 30+ minute commute, which today is pretty short. That's just a huge sinkhole of unproductive time. Even if you were spending that time walking, at least you're getting the exercise out of it.

I wish i shared your optimism. I can really only speak with conviction about Atlanta, since I'm here, but I see no such revival. The traffic has gotten much worse since I've been here and I've seen substantially more even in the past 6 months, at least for the (short) commute I make. I'm 11 miles from work, of which 9.5 is highway. It should take no more than 15 minutes, but I've had it take 45 and the average is something like 25 or 30. That's nearly a half hour to go 11 miles.

I see Atlantic Station, which was supposed to be a big urban to-do, and it's just a fancy open air mall next door to condos. With bad traffic and one of the worst movie theaters built this decade.

I see so-called "mixed use" developments with pretty nice condos on top and then nothing but chain restaurants and perhaps some token independent shop below.

I see not one single pedestrian bridge. I see intersections that actively discourage walking by their awful design. I could theoretically walk to Target from my house, but I'd have to cross both Briarcliff (not so bad) and North Druid Hills. I don't trust it. And now they're planning to flatten the DSA and the other schools there and the Park at Briarcliff, and turn that whole giant corner into some new mega-development. That should be awesome for traffic, and I'm sure I still won't see a pedestrian bridge.

I see developers razing trees not for good high density housing with a grocery store and pharmacy and maybe a bar but for 4 gigantic houses. It's probably market driven, but that merely proves the point that the market is fucking stupid.

I'm curious to know where these pockets of decent urban living are in Atlanta because i don't see one place that I'd call legitimate, if only because I won't be able to get from there to any other place without a car. Among all the things I see and don't see, I see no damn trains. Marta's a sham. I may be deluding myself about what the best-case really actually is... I don't know, I've never lived in any other actual city (Nashville doesn't count). I just feel like it should be better.

I'm pretty tired of it. Even my short commute is enough to raise my blood pressure. I'm starting to seriously think I need to get out of here, for my health and mental well being.