URBANmedias

Of all the cosmic bodies studied in the long history of astronomy and space travel, the one that got the least attention was the one that ought to matter most to us—Earth.

That changed when NASA created the Landsat program, a series of satellites that would perpetually orbit our planet, looking not out but down. Landsat was built for public monitoring of how the human species was altering the surface of the planet. The space agency, along with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), has accumulated a stunning catalog of images that, when riffled through and stitched together, create a high-definition slide show of our rapidly changing Earth, which for the first time date all the way back to 1984.

 

These Timelapse pictures tell the pretty and not-so-pretty story of a finite planet and how its residents are treating it — razing even as we build, destroying even as we preserve.

Visit the article link to see an exclusive timelapse of climate change, deforestation and urban sprawl unfolding as Earth evolves over 30 years...

Via Lauren Moss

Projections of urban growth indicate areas where biodiversity is at high risk.

 

The AAG Smart Brief is a fantastic source of geographic news.  This is what they said about this article:  "Areas such as tropical Africa and eastern China are expected to be hot spots of urbanization during the next several years, according to researchers, who used satellite imagery and other data to project future urban expansion through 2030. 'We're not forecasting population, we're forecasting the expansion of urban space,' said Yale University geographer Karen Seto. Their efforts could be used to assist conservation initiatives, Seto noted."

 

Tags: AAG, urban, sprawl, land use, urban ecology, biogeography, unit 7 cities, environment.

Via Erin Miller

On ne sait pas bien imaginer l’avenir de nos villes, comme s’il n’y avait pas d’alternative à l’extension sans fin de l’habitat pavillonnaire. La seule réponse qu’on lui oppose, l’habitat collectif, est loin de séduire la plupart des gens. Comme nous le confiait Jean Haëntjens, ceux qui vivent en maison individuelle ne rêvent pas forcément d’habitat collectif. 

Dans le domaine de la ville, on a l’habitude de dire que l’intérêt collectif rejoint rarement l’intérêt personnel. C’est ce qu’exprime l’expression Nimby (Not In My Back Yard qui signifie “pas dans mon arrière-cour”), qui désigne ceux qui veulent bien des projets collectifs… tant qu’ils n’empiètent pas leurs propres intérêts. C’est pourtant une tout autre approche que prône le projet Bimby (Build In My Back Yard, c’est-à-dire : “Construit dans mon arrière-cour”) porté par les architectes Benoit Le Foll du Centre d’études techniques de l’Équipement (CETE) Normandie Centre et David Miet du CETE Île-de-France, comme l’expliquait ce dernier lors de la conférence....

Via F|Mattiuzzo