Why are we discussing Food Taxes and Federal Subsidies for Food Production? Because

the federal government already has a tax policy affecting what we eat, and it dramatically distorts the price of our food … and the size of our waists.

… as a discussion of some of the pros and cons of “big box” vs. “small box” government.

• Replay: An Examination of City-County Consolidation

This piece will serve as a warm-up to a forthcoming series on the downsides of the consolidation of US city and county governments

• Downsides of Consolidation #1: Neighborhood Redevelopment

• Downsides of Consolidation #2 – Cost Increases, Dilution of Urban Interests, Deferred Problems

This article addresses the geography of the earliest forms of Human mark making. I’ve recently posted several similar issues on Human Geography.

• Correlation Between Genetic and Geographic Structure in Europe
• Understanding Climate’s Influence on Human Evolution

I need to get out of my cave more often.

I had a brief chance encounter with Theaster Gates today. I found myself sitting in the University of Chicago Booth Business School cafeteria this morning working on the Graphic for the previous post. While working I overheard pieces of a conversation behind me. I thought I heard the gentleman talk about issues he was grappling with between being an Artist and an Urban Planner. Oh, this caught my attention, and I couldn’t help but interrupt his conversation and introduce myself. It turned out to be Theaster Gates. For some reason I couldn’t remember his name, until later when I realized that I was recently looking at his work at the 2010 Whitney Biennial and did a post about the “Newly Revitalized” Whitney Biennial.

• Audio: Artist Connect Lecture { The Art Institute of Chicago } November, 3, 2007
• August 2, 2009 Interview with Kathryn Born of Bad with Sports

I plan to plot the more than 600 contributers of contamination

Why would any community agree to such extreme negative costs to its land, water, air and residents?

Is there any doubt that East Chicago should be the epicenter for the dialogue on environmental justice and stewardship?

Simple thoughts:

• If we solve the environmental problems for fence-line industrial communities like East Chicago we solve the problem for middle-class America and the causes of global warming.
• When negative costs outweigh positive benefits is there justification to revoke the responsible party’s “Land Use” privileges?
• Does the Law of the Commons apply?

[ EPA's EnviroMapper ] [ Grand Calumet River Area of Concern ]

via [ Post-Trib ] Region’s sewer: Grand Cal faces long recuperation
By Gitte Laasby

Dredging is the remedy

Water quality has slowly improved in the river since the federal Clean Water Act in 1972 restricted the amount of water pollution that facilities could discharge, but pollution has taken its toll on the ecosystem.

Locals agree that dredging the river to clean up the toxic sediment is key to restoring the health of the river.

“If you don’t address that, it takes a whack at it, but it doesn’t address the problem,” said Mark Reshkin, professor emeritus of geology and public and environmental affairs at Indiana University Northwest. “You want to restore the environment to what we consider natural. That might take 30 or 40 years because nature doesn’t restore that quickly.”

Among the companies that polluted the river were Atlantic Richfield Co., BP, E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co., Exxon Mobil, GATX, Georgia Pacific, Ispat-Inland and U. S. Steel, which paid a combined $56 million in damages.

As part of a legal agreement with the EPA, U.S. Steel dredged 786,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from a 5-mile stretch of the river — a $57 million project completed in 2008.

The EPA and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management are undertaking another dredging project that will address another 2.4 miles of the 13-mile river.

“Until we address the legacy sediment, we won’t have a river that can restore itself and is safe for all, for the ecosystem and for human health,” said Dorreen Carey, director of the department of environment with the city of Gary. “But in the meantime, it’s always been my position there’s lots of things we can do to contribute to cleaning up the river.”

Stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows to the river need to be reduced, she said.

More projects proposed

Several Northwest Indiana entities have submitted grant proposals to EPA that would help the Grand Cal although they don’t involve dredging.

Joe Exl, coastal non-point coordinator with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ Lake Michigan Coastal Program, said the city of Gary has submitted a grant proposal that involves using plants to reduce runoff from the city’s paved areas to the Grand Cal by about 4.5 million gallons per year.

IDEM also submitted grant proposals. The agency is in charge of preparing a plan to clean up the river. IDEM has worked on the plan since 2001, but did not provide information on the plan despite several requests from the Post-Tribune.

The impairments of the river were established years ago, before many of the improvements in recent years. The Post-Tribune asked IDEM when the Grand Calumet was last sampled and how many of the impairments are still current. IDEM did not answer the questions by deadline.

But Reshkin knows one thing.

“The Grand Calumet is better than it was. The water quality is better,” he said. “Can you re-establish species that existed before the industry? I know that you can.”

Region’s sewer: Grand Cal faces long recuperation :: Local News :: Post-Tribune.

Marktown - East Chicago Indiana

[ Marktown Historic District ]

As proposed, the federal budget would slash funding for National Heritage Areas by 50% and completely eliminate two key preservation programs – Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America. The reality is this funding matters now more than ever, and not just because these programs protect and preserve our national heritage.

Saving America’s Treasures
.

Not too long ago, we were bemoaning the fact that the president still lectures at his State of the Union–rather than illustrating his points, like any good communicator, with some handy infographics. And we pointed out that infographics could sway politics mightly, given their unsurpassed power to convey messages that people remember.

Obama’s coming around: He’s just appointed the father of modern data visualization, Edward Tufte, to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. Thats the group of people that confer with the White House about the $787 Billion stimulus fund.

Presumably, Tufte will be using his expertise to find charts that illustrate how the stimulus is being used, and what effect its having on the economy. Thats brilliant news, for anyone overwhelmed by the blather surrounding political debates.

And its not just a token appointment. Tufte says that hell be going to Washington several days a month, and teleworking regularly.

Infographics Win Obama Appoints Data-Viz Demigod to Chart the Stimulus | Design & Innovation | Fast Company.

I have always been fascinated by a spatial understanding of “who we are” and “what we know.” In my mind there is an innately spatial component to both “Climate” and “Evolution”

[ Correlation Between Genetic and Geographic Structure in Europe ]

Description:

The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The geological record suggests that some of these evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the intriguing possibility that key junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected or controlled by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. However, with both a sparse hominin fossil record and an incomplete understanding of past climates, the particular effect of the environment on hominin evolution remains speculative. This presents an opportunity for exciting and fundamental scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped to shape our species, and thereby to shed light on the evolutionary forces that made us distinctively human