last week I said that I wasn't gonna put up anything that has to do with the catastrophy in Haiti... sorry I couldn't resist; Here's an article a friend of mine wrote with his partner about Haiti's future, needless to say, very crucial...
My man Matias Echanove is an urbanologist and has been working all around the world in some very sensitive places (Tokyo, New York, now in India) he knows what's up when it comes to structuring and rebuilding urban landscapes.
As we consider how to rebuild Port-au-Prince, we can find an alternative to the usual top-down redevelopment model in postwar Tokyo. The Japanese government didn’t have the money to rebuild housing and so focused instead on roads, sewage and rail transportation. It also encouraged lenders to give families money to build homes. A decentralized and highly participatory urban redevelopment process produced areas of low-rise, high-density structures built with local skills and material. This not only strengthened communities but also stimulated the local economies.
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