Morning Walk to the Farmers’ Market

Welcome back!

This morning I arose to all sorts of work to do for clients.  Speech to write, newsletter to edit and a few reports to complete. As I had just returned from a 1 1/2 day Seminar that was great but included lots of eating and sitting, I felt I was overdue for a good walk.

So…I pulled on my runners and set off for our neighborhood farmers’ market.  This local market is only open from May to October.  Our neighborhood essentially closes a portion of one of our streets (one that conveniently runs off of Main St.) and invites farmers, bakers, and other vendors to sell their fresh foods and goods. In addition to tasty, locally grown food, there is also live music. A great example of our community’s efforts to create a sustainable community where residents can buy local!

I picked up some pears and tomatoes this morning.

I thought I’d share my walk to the market with you today…

50-year Experiment with Sprawl is Ending

Well I’m excited.  Co-founder of the Congress of New Urbanism, Peter Calthorpe, has been hired by my town to design something he described to the Toronto Star (May 25, 2009) as being “the highest manifestation of transit-oriented development” that he has been involved in.

Wow.

“We’ve had a 50-year experiment with sprawl. Now it’s over.  Everything’s changing. There’s a huge demographic shift happening.  If you include externalities and subsidies, sprawl is not affordable.  The key to unlocking the potential is transit,” he adds.  Amen.

The new development, called Langstaff, is a new urbanism community that if all goes as planned will be built on a 140-acre parcel of land directly by our newest transportation hub.

That transporation hub is currently in existence and I use it from time to time when my husband needs the van (we are a one vehicle family).  It’s great for getting into the city and back home with no fuss or traffic.  The one problem is that it’s all bus transit.  What we really need is to extend the subway to this hub and that is in the works.

“If you want to get people out of cars,” says Calthorpe, “you’ve got to get them close to transit.  And transit must be there to support walkability, not the other way around. Destinations have to be nearby.”

As I always say, we want to live near to where we work and we can only work where there is affordable, clean transit to get us to and from home…FAST.

The new development Calthorpe will be designing will have 360 homes/units per hectare. Approximately 23,000 jobs will be located within this transportation hub community, once it is fully completed.

Just the thought of 23,000 jobs being created in the years ahead for this one pocket of my town seems almost unbelievable as we trudge through the current economic crunch.  But I’m not disputing the figures.  I absolutely see the possibility and it’s not just because I live in this growth community.

Smart developments that are sensitive to the environment and the needs of working people, attract more working people and more businesses!!

Where will many of these new employees live? Well, Lansgstaff will feature a new urbanism styled living community, laid out in small blocks with green parkland filling in the center of the development. Buildings will include a variety of popular living styles from townhouses to condo towers. This is similar to the higher density communities in our city to the south (Toronto).

I can’t wait for this to get going.  Time for me to start attending town meetings again sot hat I can put my voice behind the push to keep things on schedule (and on target).

Pictured in this story is my daughter and a friend in one of the wondeful new urban styled squares that were added to my end of town in recent years.

Urban Farming No Longer a Fad

I’ve been reading a lot lately about urban farming and the dream of consuming locally grown food.  Of course I like the idea but struggled with the notion that this was more a fad than a way of life.

My question has always been around the issue of sufficiency.  There doesn’t seem to be enough vacant land and roof tops to grow sufficient amounts of food for the local population of many urban centers.

The Hartford Courant just published an article that sheds some light on the issue of “sustainable” urban farming and the steps being taken to make the dream locally grown food a reality for resident’s of cities and towns across the county.

Read here.

Music and Food – The Spice of Life

I haven’t posted in the longest time and I apologize for that.  With one child at college, the other in high school, my job and business in over drive, and the beautiful city I live in giving me much to do, I haven’t had the time to share.

I’m correcting that today. I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who never fails to inspire and energize me–not with anything in particular, just with her life in general. Her husband, Levon Ichkhanian, is a former optician who decided to follow his life’s passion and become a musician and he is truly an amazing artist. Not only is he a successful recording artist but he is currently performing in the live production of Jersey Boys, which is playing in our city.

His music absolutely takes me away – to other countries and time zones, different periods in my life – just all over the place. If I sound a little spacey, I’m sorry but take a listen (you’ll hear different songs on the home page, so be patient) click here.

Last week another good friend of mine joined me for dinner at this lovely east Indian restaurant in our city.  One of the items on our menu was Sag Paneer.  I love this dish.  Basically it is a mixture of spinach and ricotta cheese that has been prepared with east Indian seasonings.  If you’re interested in spicing up your menu this week here you go.

Enjoy!