Author Archive

May 23, 2014

Portland’s Boil Water Notice May Prove the Case to Close Mt. Tabor’s Open-Air Reservoirs

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This morning, the city of Portland issued a boil water notice for 670,000 customers of the Portland Water Bureau after finding traces of E. Coli in two of Mt. Tabor’s open-air reservoirs. This is significant in light of the city’s controversial move towards covering the reservoirs. Would this E. Coli incident have happened if the city had discontinued its open-air reservoirs over 6 years ago when the federal mandate to do so was issued? Portland is currently in the process of shutting down the use of the open-air reservoirs on Mt. Tabor and is constructing new covered reservoirs at…

May 13, 2014

6 Reasons Why Businesses Should Favor Bike Infrastructure Over On Street Car Parking

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet When the city of Portland was getting community feedback on its 20s Bikeway Project, it ran into a lot of opposition from businesses along NE 28th Avenue, north of Burnside for adding bike lanes along that stretch. Their beef was with the fact that the added bike lanes would eliminate on-street parking in front of their stores, thereby putting off potential customers. Unfortunately, the mistaken business owners got their way and the new proposed route for the bikeway is two streets over on NE 30th. Be careful what you ask for I say, those very bike lanes they railed…

May 06, 2014

An Introduction to Subversive Transportation

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet The Wikipedia definition of subversion is: “an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy. Subversion (Latin subvertere: overthrow) refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place, are contradicted or reversed.” In some parts of the world, just going to school is a subversive act. In others, two males holding hands is subversive. When you think about it, even something as innocuous as buying your produce at a farmer’s market is an act of subversion. These acts may seem small and insignificant, but they are…

April 20, 2014

What Frank Lloyd Wright Houses Teach about Views, Siting and Designing from the Inside Out

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet “Frank Lloyd Wright went to great lengths to make sure his houses never faced north,” said Robert McCarter, a Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, on Friday at his lecture for the Gordon House Conservancy called The Evolution of the American House. McCarter also said that Wright liked to use drapes in homes not only to cut the draft but to create visual privacy while at the same time maintaining auditory connectedness. The architect was particularly sensitive to how occupants of his buildings experienced sound. The Gordon House This weekend’s lecture was…

March 25, 2014

Lessons in Organic Urbanism from India

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Here in the West, we have countless meetings, a rigorous permitting process, permission-seeking requirements, and all sorts of hoops to jump through before we actually make a move in the public realm. Recently, I visited three extremely vibrant cities in India where people practiced organic urbanism. They set up their vendor stalls in available nooks and crannies, they appropriated public space in ways that suited them and in general made the public realm a reflection of the everyday needs of the people. In other words, the city was a teeming, living organism, constantly changing and morphing with things that…

February 10, 2014

How Can we Revitalize Urban Neighborhoods without Gentrifying Them?

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This is an excerpt from an article I wrote today for Firefly Living: “While you all are dining out at fancy restaurants, some of us are struggling to find a cheap meal,” says Dannette Lambert, a community organizer and resident in Oakland, California. This pretty much sums up the problem of gentrification, which is when wealthy newcomers completely transform a lower-income urban neighborhood into a yuppie or hipster haven, pricing out and pushing out original residents, who made the place interesting in the first place. Gentrification is the major issue facing urban core revitalization today. As urban living becomes…

February 07, 2014

5 Ways Weird Weather Brings People Together

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Weather is something that transcends all categories of people, that’s why talking about the weather is so popular – because we ALL experience it! The weather doesn’t discriminate, that’s for sure! In Portland, we’ve had what I call a freak snow storm that has left 6 inches of snow on the ground and is expected to bring another 5 inches today. I was so bowled over by this weather event I sat entranced in my apartment for four hours staring out the window at the snow falling and being blown around by the wind. One of the amazing side…

January 29, 2014

Livability 101: Nolli Plans of Phoenix Suburb Depict Isolation and Car Dependence

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This is the fifth installment of the Livability 101 Series. A Nolli Plan is a figure/ground representation of the city. It depicts the figure as white and the ground as black, allowing you to immediately visualize the relationship between, say buildings and open space. The most famous Nolli Plan is that of Rome, captured in the lead photograph. I’ve been staying in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler on and off this past year, visiting my parents. Every time, the enormous distances between destinations, the wide roads and the sea of parking in front of every shopping center strike me…

December 12, 2013

Livability 101: Living Without a Car in the Freezing Cold

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Today’s post is the third installment of the Livability 101 Series. Check out installments one and two if you missed them! What do you do when it’s below freezing, the streets are icy and you don’t own a car? This is a true test of livability in your city. For me, as a newcomer to Portland and never having biked in the snow and ice, the frigid temperatures put a wrench in my normal commuting patterns. Why biking is out and that’s OK Biking in below freezing weather when there is snow on the ground is out for me…

December 02, 2013

What You Should Know About The ROW Development on 2nd Street and Roosevelt in Phoenix

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet I am often the first to criticize real estate developers, especially if they are so focused on the bottom line that they are willing to cut corners in ways that negatively impact the community. There are a lot of profit-focused developers out there that have detracted from a healthy and vibrant urban fabric. But, there are good, conscientious developers out there too who do projects with the community in mind. In the Phoenix metro area good developers who’ve done projects that greatly benefit their communities include Venue Projects, Sloane MacFarland, and Desert Viking Companies, to name a few. Fairly…