Berkeley, CA
An evening with Peter Calthorpe hosted by Livable Berkeley. Calthorpe, a renowned architect/urban planner lives in Berkeley and was discussing some of his projects in Chicago, Salt Lake City, and L.A. He is both a thinker and a practitioner. Starting his career in architecture he began to see that house by house influence was "putting sails on the freight ship" and therefore not accomplishing as much as could be possible by turning that freight ship into a schooner! Regional planning needs to be addressed in order to encompass the network of interactions that occur within urban frameworks.

The four main principles:
1.Diversity and Balance
2.Human and pedestrian scale
3.Conservation and Restoration-the "great" american grid may not be the answer because it disregards the natural aspects of place such as wetlands, streams, etc.
4.Connections and interdependance-no healthy community is in isolation

"Cities survive bad architecture if they have good urbanism"

There was discussion about what can be done in Berkeley to create more neighborhoods (blockades try to reduce traffic by being a hassle, but I've heard people end up driving more because they go in circles!) Redevelopment is happening in old buildings, on old industrial frieght yards, and within the existing structure of the city. A good point was made that cities need to be able to keep their diversity and some "dirty" city streets to the older generation are in fact the lure for the younger generations.

Berkeley is a progressive and liberal city filled with excited students, transients, and the grown up "hippies" with money. A very interesting conglomeration of people.