Pittsburgh: UPMC Tower, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from David Watson’s photostream

Imagine a park nearly one acre in size and situated 841 feet in the air — at the highest point in downtown Pittsburgh — and you’ve imagined High Point Park. The U.S. Steel Tower is Pittsburgh’s tallest building. While it’s only ranked as the 121st tallest building in the world, its roof is “the largest, highest flat space on top of any building on earth” (mostly because unlike many buildings of similar height, it doesn’t taper in width from its lowest floors to its highest). The U.S. Steel Tower not only dominates Pittsburgh’s skyline, its roof also mimics Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. The building is triangular in shape and two of its sides align with the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers which form “The Point.” The top of it affords a breathtaking view of our region. The High Point Investigation is exploring the possibilities of transforming this underutilized asset — which was once used as a heliport, but has now sat dormant for 19 years — into a cutting edge green design, four-season, self-sustaining public space. The idea is the brainchild of David Bear (former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette travel editor and current Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry).

Here’s a satellite image by Google to give you a better idea of the footprint of the U.S. Steel Tower:

A feasibility study of the project was conducted by twelve 2nd-year graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz III College. They found that comparable Pittsburgh attractions receive an average of 268,000 visitors per year and that if High Point Park were to reach the iconic status of similar attractions like the Empire State Building and the Space Needle, it has the potential to garner 675,500 visitors per year. Furthermore, a survey found that over 40% of respondents would pay between $11 and $20 for admission to a destination like High Point — which could make it operationally profitable within 4 to 6 years.

But more than just providing another rooftop attraction — albeit one with a truly magnificent view — High Point is meant to be sustainable in keeping with Pittsburgh’s new green image. The study estimates that by harvesting wind and solar energy, High Point could generate between 50%-70% of the electricity it needs on an annual basis. It could be a model of sustainability and serve to educate the public about cutting edge alternative technologies.

You can view architectural renderings of a design concept for High Point here and enjoy the first Pittsburgh Gigapanorama (an interactive, 360-degree view of the region as seen from the roof of the U. S. Steel Tower) here. Also, following is an independently-produced documentary by Len Caric of a January 2010 Sketch Design/Case Competition conducted at CMU as part of the High Point Park Investigation.

Electric_Vehicle_Conf_100622-16, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Antonio Villaraigosa’s photostream

ChargeCar is a project of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute’s CREATE Lab. They’re hosting an open house today to unveil an all-electric 2002 Honda Civic. The car is a prototype for their ChargeCar Electric Vehicle Conversion Project. ChargeCar wants to change the way you drive by making electric cars both practical and affordable. Their goal is to revolutionize urban commuting. Best of all, they’ll start taking names today of people who would like to have their own converted vehicle. For now, they’ll only be converting Honda Civics, but plan to add other makes and models in the future. Attendees of the open house can ask questions of the ChargeCar team and representatives from local garages, take a test drive, and “kick the tires” so to speak. Councilman Bill Peduto is also scheduled to be on the program at the open house. There’s a $50 refundable deposit to get on the list and the expected cost of conversions will be discussed at the event.

According to CMU’s website, the cost of conversions won’t be negligible, but the advantages are worth it, says Illah Nourbakhsh, associate research professor of robotics and head of the CREATE Lab:

[C]onversion is a means of recycling and extending the life of older vehicles, while eliminating harmful emissions and supporting local mechanics and garages. Because each vehicle is customized, the size of the battery pack — the most expensive part of an electric car — can be determined based on the commuting needs of the vehicle owner/driver, he noted.

You can find out much more about ChargeCar at their website, including software that calculates the cost of commuting via electric car vs. a standard gasoline-powered vehicle.

ChargeCar Electric Vehicle Conversion Project Open House
Friday, March 25, 2011
3:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Electric Garage
4621 Forbes Ave (Oakland)
Pittsburgh PA 15213 (map)

Red Brick Arches, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from jschneid’s photostream

Steve Shelton owns a construction company in Pittsburgh. When he thought back on how he learned masonry, he realized that there was a lack of people coming up through the trades, nor were they learning trade skills in high school, and more trade schools were closing than opening. Seeing a need, he started the Shelton Trade Center in Wilkinsburg three years ago. Students attend eight hours a day; five days a week; for a total of ten weeks. They work with experts and learn the tricks of the trade. Their tuition is free and the Center does its best to find them employment. But, Shelton soon saw that he was doing much more than creating trained professionals with a much sought after skill for an industry — he was transforming lives.

Most of the men and women who come to the Center have spent time in either prison, juvenile centers, or rehab facilities. Most grew up without a father. The Center gives their students more than just trade skills — it also offers them life skills. The Center and Hosanna House (which donated the space) also helps the students navigate things like getting a GED, opening a checking account and obtaining a drivers license. It provides many with their first legitimate work experience (they even utilize Port-O-Potty’s to recreate real job conditions). In a piece on the Center done by WQED’s Pittsburgh 360°, they recount one of Shelton’s most memorable students. He was 31 years old when he graduated from the Center and Shelton hired him for his own company. When Shelton handed him his first paycheck from his new job, it turned out that it was his first paycheck ever — he had never held a legitimate, legal job in his life.

The Shelton Trade Center currently mentors about nine people at a time. Steve Shelton would like to both expand the number of students and the number of trades that they teach. First, opening the school up to all of the trowel trades — concrete, plastering, and tile setting — and eventually adding other trades such as welding, plumbing, HVAC, metal smithing and carpentry. Councilman Bill Peduto met Steve through his son on Twitter. After seeing all that the Shelton Trade Center has to offer, he’s committed to finding them the space they need to succeed in the city of Pittsburgh.

You can learn more about Shelton Trade Center from the following short documentary and they welcome the involvement of employers, financiers and youth programs.

Complete absorption, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from glindsay65′s photostream

Pittsburgh is Kidsburgh because a group of Pittsburghers are dedicated to making Pittsburgh “the best place for kids on the planet.” As Executive Director of The Grable Foundation, Gregg Behr, puts it, “In one word, “Kidsburgh” conveys an idea and sensibility that Pittsburgh is committed to improving the lives of children.’ Kidsburgh is a portal for all the best that Pittsburgh has to offer to the children in this region. You can go to their website to find “Cool Things to Do with Kids in Pittsburgh,” or news stories of particular interest to parents, or even a slide show of striking images of the next generation of Pittsburghers. You can also sign up there to receive their Kidsburgh is Pittsburgh quarterly newsletter and visit the Kidsburgh page at Pop City.

Kidsburgh was recently featured on an episode of WQED’s onQ. The program took a look at the Kids & Creativity movement. Just as Pittsburgh’s own Fred Rogers used the latest in technology 50 years ago (television), today’s tech leaders are finding new ways to engage kids using the very latest in digital technology. This is not technology for technology’s sake. Rather, it’s a recognition that many of today’s kids are already swimming in a digital sea and that we need to both find a way to keep up with those who are and to ensure that all are well prepared for the jobs of the future. This is technology as a means to an end — to put together the right brain and the left brain and the artist and the technologist.

Please share Kidsburgh with anyone you know who cares about the well-being of kids in our region.

Hendricks Looks For Action, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from clydeorama’s photostream

There’s hockey for a great cause on Saturday, March 19th. The Pittsburgh Emergency Medicine Foundation (PEMF) Pucks and Sticks Charity Hockey Game will feature the Pittsburgh Celebrity Hockey Team vs. a team of EMS All Stars joined by The Hanson Brothers (of Slap Shot fame). The evening will also feature a silent auction, raffles, Chuck-A-Puck, and more! Pucks and Sticks will take place at the RMU Island Sports Center from 7:00 pm – 9:00 PM and tickets are just $10.

All proceeds from this event will benefit PEMF emergency medicine research and education including: basic and clinical research in emergency medical care, the promotion of education and training for medical personnel and the lay public, and support for the research and educational activities of residents and fellows of the University of Pittsburgh Affiliated Residency in Emergency Medicine.

Councilman Bill Peduto will be playing for the Pittsburgh Celebrity Hockey Team. He’s played hockey for 38 years including playing in the State Championship game for Chartiers Valley and playing during his Freshmen and Sophomore years at Carnegie-Mellon University when they won the regional collegiate championship.

Come and watch Peduto vs. The Hanson Brothers and give to a great cause!

You can purchase tickets to the game here and find out more about the Pittsburgh Celebrity Hockey Team here.

Commencement Processional , a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Earlham College’s photostream

Did you know that the average debt load for the two-thirds of college students who take out loans to pay for college is $24,000 by the time that they graduate — and that this is up 6% from just a year earlier? Now couple that statistic with one by the Corporation for National & Community Service which ranks millennials as having the lowest rate of volunteerism and you begin to see a bigger problem. Millennials are saddled with huge debts which prevent them from giving the time to service projects and civic engagement that they would like to do and that their community needs.

Enter SponsorChange.org. SponsorChange.org believes both that non-profits deserve the best talent and that higher education should be accessible to everyone and they’ve found a way to make that happen. Their motto is “You Serve. They Sponsor. Change Happens.” It works like this: SponsorChange.org finds donors to raise funds to sponsor service projects at non-profits, they find non-profits who have a need for skilled college graduates for projects, and then they recruit college grads to complete service projects in exchange for student loan payments.

It’s a Pittsburgh-based organization founded by brothers Raymar and Robert Hampshire. They have four main goals:

- Promoting financial literacy among young professionals

- Working together with faith-based organizations to help mobilize its congregations to serve

- Partnering with corporations to create customized employee volunteer programs

- Assisting elected officials in mobilizing young volunteers to government programs

CNN recently aired a piece on SponsorChange.org. It looks at Gretchen Jacobs’ story. SponsorChange.org connected Gretchen with CommuniTeach — an organization which helps people share their skills with their neighbors and learn new ones. CommuniTeach got a motivated college grad who they could not have afforded to hire on their own and Gretchen received valuable professional experience in addition to direct payments to her college loans. A win-win situation.

You can go to SponsorChange.org’s website to sign up to be a donor, a participating recent grad, or a non-profit organization.

P1120468, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from wyliepoon’s photostream

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) is the regional planning agency serving the Pittsburgh area (Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland counties). Its responsibilities include planning and prioritizing the use of all state and federal transportation funds allocated to this region. Federal mandates include the publication of a 20-year plan, establishment of a 4-year improvement plan and development of a “unified” planning program which identifies all transportation planning activities currently underway. SPC offers the public an active role in the development of these plans and programs. To that end, they have a Public Participation Plan which outlines how they foster proactive participation in their process. They’ve recently updated their Public Participation Plan to “reflect the enhanced use of technology.” There’s a 45-day open comment period for the draft plan which began on February 28th and which will close on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 4pm (you can view the official notice here).

A presentation of the updated plan will be held at a meeting which is open to the public:

Thursday, March 24, 2011
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Xplorion Lobby
Regional Enterprise Tower
425 Sixth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

They will accept comments there. If you cannot make this meeting, written comments can also be made:

Via Email: comments@spcregion.org

Via Mial: SPC Comments, 425 Sixth Avenue, Suite 2500, Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Via FAX: 412-391-9160

You can view the actual draft Public Participation Plan here (.PDF).

VO!CE of the Region

Here’s another way to voice your opinion. VO!CE of the Region is an online community of residents in our tri-state area who participate in polls, surveys and forums on local, regional and national topics of interest. Recent topics have included “Allegheny Riverfront & Mellon Arena site development; pros and cons of a City/County merger; Marcellus Shale: drilling, regulating, and educating the public on the facts and their rights; public transportation shortcomings and alternatives, and options for balancing the state’s budget. ” Participants include regional government, businesses and organizations. You can sign up to get started here.

INTA Communities of Competences

Lastly, INTA is a global effort to open up conversation. It’s an “association of public and private policy-makers and urban practitioners to share knowledge, experience and tools for integrated urban development.” The ultimate goal is to ensure that urban areas in the future will be more sustainable and more cohesive. The following Communities are currently active:

Urban Development in the New Economy: Workspace urbanism – co-animated by Larry Barth (Architectural Association, London), Charles Lin (NCTU, Taiwan), Rémi Feredj (RATP, Paris).

Innovative Metropolitan Development – co-animated by Paul Gerretsen (Deltametropolis, The Netherlands) and Abel Enguita (CEIM, Madrid).

Innovation, Services and Territories with sub groups on Tourism and Heritage, Health, Retail – co-animated by Pascal Carré (group ING), Christine Lor, Marc Bechet (Rhône Alpes Tourism) and Joseph Tossavi (OGOLD, Benin). [In French]

Innovative Habitat – co-animated by Maurice Charrier (International Laboratory for Popular Habitat), Marek Bryx (Warsaw School of Economics), Mohamed Mbarki (Agency for the Eastern Provinces) and Marc Brabant (Logistransport).

snail, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Reggie Alvey’s photostream

Slow Food is the opposite of fast food, not so much in terms of time, but in spirit. While the hallmark of fast food — as well as much processed food — is rigid standardization, mass production, a reliance on factory/corporate farms, and ingredients that are anything but local; the Slow Food movement is dedicated to high quality local production, reliance on community, and striving for sustainability. For example, did you know that a typical fast food burger can contain meat from up to 1,000 cows spanning from five countries? Now think about how much energy is spent getting that single burger patty — or that frozen dinner — into your hands and how that impacts on our environment.

The New York Times recently took a look at how Pittsburgh is fairing in farm-to-table dining and they liked what they saw. They review a number of markets and restaurants that emphasize Slow Food (or local food) and feature Susan Barclay, a leader of Slow Food Pittsburgh. Slow Food Pittsburgh is part of the international Slow Food organization which now has 1,300 groups worldwide. Locally, Pop City had a feature on the Slow Food movement. In it, they quote Virginia Phillips of Slow Food Pittsburgh, who stated “We’re looking to support a food supply that is healthful for the planet, the people and the animals that live on it. We want people that grow food to get a fair wage for their work. And we want to support taste education.” She also noted the importance of biodiversity, “Losing varieties makes you vulnerable. But we can save varieties by eating them. It’s happening all over the world.”

The most important component of Slow Food in a city is urban farming. Groups that help support urban farming in Pittsburgh include the Sprout Fund’s Engage Pittsburgh (which emphasizes community and land revitalization) and Grow Pittsburgh whose projects include The Edible Schoolyard (which integrates garden activities into regular classroom curriculum) and Braddock Farms (Grow Pittsburgh’s largest production site and Braddock’s single source of fresh produce). The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s article on Grow Pittsburgh noted that, ‘An online search of terms such as “urban farm,” “sustainable food” and “buy local” shows how robust the movement is in other cities. Interest here has skyrocketed.’

Also helping this movement is the city of Pittsburgh. City Council passed new regulations for urban farming last month that relax some of the old rules. From the Post-Gazette:

To operate a full-scale farm — with some combination of bees, crops, poultry and livestock — the owner’s site must be at least 3 acres. The previous minimum was 5 acres. The planning department said the change “will open up new areas of the city for farming as a primary use.”

Chicken coops and other farm-related structures must be at least 50 feet from a property line, down from a 200-foot distance requirement before.

And, from SmartPlanet on the changes:

And most importantly, for the beekeeping community, the practice, which code previously ignored, is now permitted. For community gardens, the city was also silent on the legality of selling produce, but now it’s now legal to sell produce on-site once gardens go through a variance process.

Finally, if you want to see what may be the ultimate in sustainable urban farm practices, take a look at the Science Barge in New York City. It uses greenhouses, re-circulating hydroponic systems, renewable energy sources, and rainwater collection.

Carnegie Library 2, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Sean_Marshall’s photostream

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (CLP) will be hosting a series of community meetings in five neighborhoods (North Side, Lawrenceville, Beechview, East Liberty & West End) during the month of March. CLP wants to share information on their funding status and discuss how together we can sustain and grow our libraries. Space is limited and registration is required for these meetings. You can register by contacting Maggie McFalls at mcfallsm@carnegielibrary.org or at 412-622-8877, or you can register online at the links provided below.

Thursday, March 3, 2011
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
CLP-Allegheny / North Side (map)
1230 Federal Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15212
You can register online by filling in the form here

Monday, March 7, 2011
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
CLP-Lawrenceville (map)
279 Fisk Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201
You can register online by filling in the form here

Wednesday, March 16, 2011
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
CLP-Beechview (map)
1910 Broadway Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15216
You can register online by filling in the form here

Tuesday, March 22, 2011
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
CLP-East Liberty (map)
130 S. Whitfield Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15206
You can register online by filling in the form here

Wednesday, March 30, 2011
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
CLP-West End (map)
47 Wabash Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15220
You can register online by filling in the form here