Dystopia Report: The I-710 Corridor Aesthetic Master Plan

...reeway builder’s utopian promise of speed and liberty delivers, instead, exurban sprawl, congestion and waves of urban decay and gentrification. That utopian vision of Freeway building is personified in mid-century figures like Robert Moses and the city fathers of early 20th century Los Angeles. But Jameson goes on to question, “does anyone believe in progress any longer? . . . are the architects and urbanists still passionately at work on Utopian...

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Saturday Linkages: Forklift Furniture and Pickled Turnips

...t-dog-encrusted shrimp tempura pizza, with mayonnaise: http://boingboing.net/2013/02/06/pizza-hut-chinas-hot-dog-enc.html … Yuckylicious: Salami Bouquet http://yuckylicious.blogspot.com/2013/02/salami-bouquet.html?spref=tw … Urban Farm Magazine owner BowTie sold – Business – The Orange County Register http://www.ocregister.com/articles/bowtie-414242-fancy-company.html … For these links and more, follow Root Simple on Twitter: Follow @rootsimple...

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Fruit Tree Update: Flavor Delight Aprium

...hat is hardy to zones 6 to 10 and requires less than 300 hours below 45°F, making it ideal for warm climates. It’s one of many hybrid fruit trees developed painstakingly over many years by Zaiger Genetics. In terms of taste and appearance it’s more of an apricot than a plum. If you live in the right climate I highly recommend this tree. * Note from Kelly: In our defense, we didn’t plant trees because we didn’t think we had room. Back then we didn’...

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Transcendental Taggers

...g the amenities of rural life, i.e. nature and agriculture, to our lives here in this somewhat ugly but interesting place we call home, the City of Los Angeles. In short, we intend to put the Urban in Urban Homestead. By the way, to the transcendentalist gangbangers who did the tagging – nice handwriting – you are obviously not the product of the same public schools we are....

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How to Make a Hexagonal Raised Bed

...ine that supplied the clay for our adobe oven. Our landscaper has proposed making this part of our yard a rain garden. More on that project later in the year. One disadvantage of beds with this odd shape is that they are harder to critter-proof. I don’t consider this a deal killer, but it’s something to think about if you have the hoards of marauding mammals that nightly assault our backyard even in this very urban part of Los Angeles. You can see...

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