sarcher's comments

It's a mirror of the intracity highway issue. Access is improved for people who don't live in a specific location, and the externalities of this decision are dumped onto local citizens. The desirable location ends up hollowed-out, as no more geography is generated but instead the existing geography sliced away and allocated to visitors. They become destinations, more theme park than city.

It's well accepted that the highway boom of twentieth century had a negative impact on city life. That's why the Big Dig put that city-cutting highway underground in Boston, and (one reason) why the viaduct in Seattle is going underground, and why the I-93 corridor in Massachusetts became a public transit route instead. Here's a longer list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeway_removal

Transforming private residences into hotel rooms makes it easier to visit and harder to live. Acknowledging this doesn't mean people don't like Airbnb, it just means that both the positive and the negative impacts of their business model are being discussed.

I really enjoyed clicking around and virtually touring the campus - especially knowing how much work it must have been!

What a great project, glad the university recognized your effort.

I also recommend Reply-All, entertaining and gives a great window into the consumer side of the tech world.

Hangouts with James Fee is a podcast primarily about the business side of GIS, I haven't seen a new one in a long while now though. https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/hangouts-with-james-fee

There was a guest this summer who noted that unmarried and areligious people are "emasculated". The guest also received zero push-back while implying that immigrants were purposefully being directed by the government to avoid assimilation and that we should return to harsh methods for dealing with immigrants. Russ just let the whole statement slide by without comment.

Have conversations with difficult people, sure, but have a conversation, don't just let stuff like that slide by! Not sure how long I'll be subscribed if those attitudes keep receiving clear air.

You're welcome. My email address is in my profile if you have any questions in the future.

I work in residential construction. Beginner friendly, 'find out if you find this interesting' kind of books:

"This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House" by Bob Vila.

An older book, only the carpentry is relevant today, but a nice picture-driven exploration of sensitive home renovation.

"A Place of My Own: the Architecture of Daydreams" by Michael Pollan

I didn't get a lot out of this because it was a pretty simple project that was being described, but it's a good look at the challenges of design, and a good primer if you're looking to do your own small project. Plus, Michael Pollan is an enjoyable writer.

"House" by Tracy Kidder

Follows the construction of a home in MA with a lot of builder perspective. Explores the common issues associated with running a small carpentry company frame to finish. There is also "The Apple Corps Guide to the Well-Built House" by Jim Locke which is written by a member of the firm profiled in "House" - haven't read it yet.

"Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville" by Witold Rybczynski

Follows the evolution of a farm field into a subdivision.

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A little more challenging:

"The City in History" by Lewis Mumford

Best described as a "Tome" - a staple in intro level planning classes.

"building Construction Illustrated" by Francis Ching

A good illustrated primer on basic residential construction assemblies, will help with visualization of written descriptions and vocabulary.

"Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn" by Thomas Hubka

The evolution of farm yard structures, of interest if you've ever wondered about the repeating patterns you see on New England farms.

"A Field Guide to American Houses" by Virginia Savage McAlester

This book will tell you what every type of house is. If I remember right, I believe it also has a section on vernacular houses. A similar book that I own but have not read is "A Field Guide to American Architecture" by Carole Rifkind. I also like, and have read, "American Vernacular: Buildings and Interiors, 1870-1960" by Herbert Gottfried

"How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built" by Stewart Brand

A great look at what happens after construction is completed, I love this book for it's treatment of a seldom-discussed reality of the construction trades.

"Builders Guide: Cold Climates" Joseph W Lstiburek

Lstiburek is opinionated, and usually right. Find more books of this style at: https://buildingscience.com/

"The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande

Changed how I approach documenting and completing tasks - in a business like construction where it's hard to go in reverse, it's been a major component of my success since I first read it in 2011. Simple in concept, hard in practice.

I am also interested in a Nexus 7 replacement recommendation.

Totally, the scale can be outrageous. As you mentioned, Milwaukee's system is huge - but it works.

"Too Big, Will Fail" is a pretty common refrain from anti-infrastructure personalities, but when it comes to simple civil engineering projects it doesn't matter what the scale is if the mechanism is proven. Solving CSOs isn't the Hyperloop, it's just building a bathtub big enough in the right place and figuring out how to drain it appropriately when it fills up.

Milwaukee, Chicago - these are examples that prove that stormwater management is a solved problem. So let's apply that solution to places where the problem still exists.

Anyways, cool link, I didn't know about Milwaukee's system.

Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) represent a big problem that is not technically difficult to address. The issue is only money and political will.

We have a great example in Maine of how well CSOs can be addressed and minimized in the twin-cities of Saco and Biddeford. These two municipalities face each other across the Saco River and have separate waste water systems. They both have historical issues with CSOs and have been working to address them.

Saco worked quickly, spent a ton of money, and raised a lot of fees to upgrade their sewer infrastructure to minimize CSOs into the Saco River. They are largely complete with that work and total CSOs has dropped to under 1 million gallons per year[0] estimated, and only 600k gallons in 2016[1] (highly dependent on rainfall).

Biddeford has been slower off the block, to be honest I'm not sure what they've accomplished although I know they've made progress. I believe a recent large Main Street reconstruction included CSO work. Their CSO discharge rate sits around 20-40 million gallons year year[1].

One big difference is that Saco charges an CSO impact fee on new sewer volume, currently $11.27 per rated gallon[2]. I'm pretty sure that Biddeford doesn't charge a CSO fee at all, at least it's not detailed on their wastewater permit application.

A community is a reflection of it's citizen values. Care about CSOs? Talk about them, build consensus, and raise money to deal with them. There will always be someone complaining about the municipal fees to build and live in a particular community, don't let those individuals dictate the narrative and thereby the world you live in.

It's easier to see your impact in a small community (like Saco, ME) as compared to a large community (like San Francisco, CA), I get that. Don't get discouraged, keep working.

[0]http://courier.mainelymediallc.com/news/2017-11-09/News/Saco...

[1]http://www.maine.gov/dep/water/cso/2016_status_report.pdf

[2]http://www.sacomaine.org/departments/water_resource_recovery...

You've summarized only the first four paragraphs of the Santillan's story (which starts in paragraph 7) and covers up to 2009.

The meat of the story covers their recovery, 2009-2017, and is contained within the 20+ paragraphs after your summary ends. It is a story about how, without stable living conditions, life is difficult. It's difficult for workers, parents, children, students, and everyone in-between. It's a story about how broad economic recovery sometimes still leaves people 'behind' their peers in wealth, education, and personal security.

Agreed. Largely I am protected from the worst impacts of the 2018 tax plan, but I'm not an island - the tax plan does my community no favors.

It not only favors the wealthy over those who really could benefit from tax relief, but it steals from the future by increasing the national debt to pay for it (I have no problem increasing the national debt for services and infrastructure, but giving the wealthy tax relief is neither). What a catastrophe.

I think the 'tradeoffs of the paradigm' are largely inherent in the concept of GIS software that's useful for a ton of different use cases. Digging into just symbology functions showcases this - it's a broad toolset that fits most needs, but I still run into micro-cases where I can't quite get something done (I still struggle with rendering polylines which have ends that touch other polylines where colors/width don't match - ie, an issue with rendering priority. The next comment here is probably going to be pointing me towards a perfect solution).

I assume the issues you find teaching QGIS are also found in teaching Arc, but my last experience with Arc was version 9.x so I'm a little out of the loop.

Perhaps our experiences are different, I've noticed the opposite. There will always be a strong role for GIS applications, but I rarely see geospatial problem solving these days that doesn't require some amount of code.

I still do 50%+ of my work in QGIS and find the embedded python interpreter to be essential. There are very few projects where I don't open it up, or otherwise have organized/cleaned the data beforehand (often with python, I'm a one trick pony).

In 2017 so far only one project has not required some coding, and that was a print map for a small transit agency. All the data could be easily hand-digitized.

I agree with you. That being said, it's a go-to tool for me when I'm cleaning road networks and for the subsequent network analysis. And that's a hugely underwhelming use-case, I'm touching a fraction of what GRASS does.

Very helpful community as well.

I see some comments noting that the EPA needs "serious trimming" and "some serious cleaning" and is an agency that needs to "focus on its core mission" (the implication being that the EPA is currently NOT focusing on it's core mission).

I spent about half a decade working in the solid waste/wastewater residuals industry (2008-2014) where the EPA plays a significant oversight role on facility operations. Further, the EPA plays a significant role on new facility development and design (my focus).

I found that the EPA staff I worked with were almost invariably helpful, well informed about the potential environmental impacts of our proposed activities, and adept at navigating the variety of systems/approvals required to comply with EPA regulations borne from laws passed by our representative government.

I was not always happy with the requirements imposed, but this was almost always because of a difference between the EPA and myself concerning risk assessment - and I can't blame the EPA for being less risk tolerant concerning environmental damage, that's their job.

More recently I have had a wonderful experience with the EPA's hazardous materials program which provides guidance and some funding for the identification and remediation of hazardous materials in old buildings. In the case of buried petroleum tanks, common here in New England, they even assist monetarily to get these environmental hazards removed when discovered (many have been abandoned for decades, unmarked). This program is invaluable for small, old communities who have the legacy of poor environmental decisions made during our industrial revolution literally built into their environment (lead, PCBs, asbestos, etc.).

If you have had direct contact with the EPA and it's gone poorly - share your story. But generalized mudslinging at EPA staff seems mean spirited and likely the product of several decades of media narratives aimed at destabilizing our country's already limited focus on environmental protection.

Good for Amy's, just figured I would plug another vegetarian fast food chain worth eating at: https://www.cloverfoodlab.com/

Thirteen locations in the Boston area.

Nice catch, I should have included the HERS Index. It's a decent standard with wide adoption.

Generally, an easy way to figure it out is to look at where the glass intersects the frame. On a single pane window you'll see the interior frame, a gap (the glass) and the exterior frame. On a double pane you'll see a gasket between the frames that separates the two panes. On a triple pane you'll see two gaskets separating the three panes.

The gaskets maintain an airspace between the glass panes, which is responsible for most of the thermal performance. On new windows this can even be filled with a transparent gas (like argon or krypton) to increase performance.

There are a couple of certification programs out there that are well regarded (with vary levels of real-world usage):

Energy Star: https://www.energystar.gov/newhomes/

Zero Energy Ready Homes: https://energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home

Passive House: http://www.phius.org/home-page

LEED for Homes: https://www.usgbc.org/cert-guide/homes

And my favorite, the Pretty Good House: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/guest-blogs/p...

Honestly, if you're buying a new home and the builder hasn't ponied up for Energy Star, you've got to wonder where their priorities are - it's not a difficult program to achieve. You can find Energy Star builders here: https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=new_homes_pa...

I agree, there is little transparency on the home-buying front, largely because adherence to one of these certifications is still pretty rare. Also, it's rarely taken into account in the appraisal process.

Most likely your house has double glazed windows - I only see single-glazed windows in antique wooden windows these days (but perhaps it's different outside of New England).

Good triple-glazed windows are expensive, but there are some vinyl triple systems that are reasonably priced. Anderson and Pella both have triple glazed options, for example.

There is also a relatively inexpensive (compared to imported European windows) option for tilt-turn windows now available: http://logicwd.com/

I haven't installed them myself, but I've bought other systems from that vendor and have been happy.