Unhealthy Neighborhoods in Baltimore

Brace yourself, because things are about to get really exciting.

Well, maybe not but I did really like what I was doing today until about 1:30 when it started to get a little bit boring. Not so much boring as underwhelming but I'll get to that. Today, my job was to continue finding local links for a presentation called "Framework for Healthier Neighborhoods". Thus far I've been doing mostly doing marketing research and organizing elements of their marketing campaigns (like resizing images) which has been cool. It's a really interesting presentation that deals with five different focus areas for a grass roots approach to urban community building. The five focal points are environment, architecture, economy, agriculture and society. So, I've been searching the web since about 9am this morning for sustainable infrastructure in the Baltimore area and I've been decidedly underwhelmed by the result. I've been searching the web for topics ranging from water and air quality to bike routes and local farming indexes and Baltimore has a long way to go before they fit into the framework set-up of this presentation. Actually, this presentation is really similar to the "Cradle to Cradle" model developed by Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart which I find intriguing. I've had so much fun today signing up for all these obscure eco-friendly, environmentally minded e-newsletters and such. I mean, there are a lot of fun things to do in and around Baltimore I just wish that transportation wasn't such a huge issue.
Finally, for my random note of the day, I have spent a lot of time eavesdropping on the various calls and conversations of everyone beneath me. As I described yesterday, I spend my time on the second floor so I can sort of listen to everyone all the time which is fun but also makes me feel a little bit like a creep. Like, one of the houses that we are working on is having serious issues with the windows and ArchiCad keeps acting up. I think that tomorrow I'll see in Rob has anything more architecturally oriented for me to do. I'd sort of like to know the process start to finish of what at architect actually does. Actually, on second thought, that is more of a Monday morning staff meeting topic for conversation. I think I'm going to make a running list of interesting things that I overhear that I want to know more about. Like who is Olmstead? I think I'll use the rest of my time here today to research more of Baltimore's architectural history.

I'm about to take a walk for some coffee, then I'll re-tackle the never-ending search for a sense of community in the Baltimore area.