Ellen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia

http://www.ted.com Ellen Dunham-Jones fires the starting shot for the next 50 years' big sustainable design project: retrofitting suburbia. To come: Dying malls rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited, parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Ellen
• Dunham-Jones
• TEDTalks
• TED
• talks
• Retrofitting
• Suburbia
• suburbs
• design
• architecture
• urban
• planning
• economics
• green
• sustainable
• sustainability
• energy

[Cyrus992]

For New Urbanism to have HIGH satisfaction from everyone must:

- Make it Free Market Influenced Design

-Private Services including Rail

-Make Sure Everyone can still have an AFFORDABLE Detached Home & avoid boundaries

-STOP THE MYTHS that is excessive government control! NOT TRUE!! Current polices are with INSANE codes and laws that FORCED us to have junk strip malls, cul-de-sac's, isolated subdivisions, collector roads, setback requirements, use segregation, and all other crap!!

[magicpet]

Nice ideas. They won't ever happen. The owners of this country won't allow it. 

[andy4an]

I live in an apt downtown within walking distance of work. Even when I drive, it is just a 3 mi round trip. The 1/3 of the energy statistic is surprising, but doesn't sound wrong.

[misterjosh]

Too many shoulds in this talk. Stop subsidizing suburbanity and it will go away on its own.

[juliacotic]

looking forward for more.

[andreeaweed]

this project is a major demographic design ...i thing this is grate..i agree with 

[careerhuntsville]

thanks for my friend for sending this vid....

[aseohosting]

This is exactly what i was looking for. thank you for the informative post

[66ventures]

Man everything TED puts out is just marvelous

[TenderTrap86]

@jobedied Yeah. The biggest issue that I forgot to mention in my response is obviously the zoning. But, if too much property is sitting on the market for long enough, that'll definately change, I think. And, so do many others.

[jobedied]

@TenderTrap86 that is very good to hear Im familiar with our new jersey politics at local level, Im guessing about 70% of our 556 townships are controlled by the engineering development community . They pay to get their folks elected and appoint most members of planning and zoning boards . We do have a lot of farm land preservation that deed restricts farms to keep them farms paid by tax payers . But any peace of land not protected wet lands included is in extreme danger.

[TenderTrap86]

@jobedied Well, I know in Virginia (I think) they're already retrofitting McMansion neighborhoods. They're turning some of these gigantic houses into places for commercial use: salons, offices, cafes, restaurants and even movie theatres. Of course, there's a lot of talk nationwide that if the housing market doesn't pick up, most McMansions will become boarding houses or get chopped up into apartments. It was a similiar situation after the Civil War and before WWI. Just history repeating itself.