My Innovation Scholar Program’s Problem Statement: University of Utah Campus Lacks centralized Bus Terminal

Bus terminal is a station where all the buses plying in the city gather. It is a geographical point of connection of many different important routes. The best location of a bus terminal is the center of the city or a prime area where it can be easily accessed by a large group of people. In addition, before choosing a location for a bus terminal, a planner should consider the future of topographical circumstances. Planner cannot choose the appropriate location alone, so planner must involve people who are expected to be benefited from the project.

Typical bus terminal should have an Eco-friendly urban design. Eco-friendly place would attract people, helping in reviving the economy of the place. It would make people meet at nice place atmospherically, because the place would be free from pollution. Thus, they would enjoy gatherings at the Eco-friendly place. This by itself would call for people to come, meet, and benefit from the bus terminal. This would help friends walk together to the bus terminal. It is easier to wait for the bus with a beloved person. It will also be a good place for regular commuters to make new friends.

University of Utah lacks a typical bus terminal. Although the University of Utah campus has several bus stops and variety of bus routes that give commuter ability to reach almost anywhere in Salt Lake City, the bus stops are decentralized. Decentralization of bus stops is a hardship for commuter to enjoy and benefit from public transportation services especially the bus services at the University of Utah Campus.

Commuter would like to enjoy the opportunity of choosing number of different bus routes from one place. If a commuter wants to visit a different part of the city and there is no bus plying between his current location and that part of the city, the commuter is likely to use private transportation to save time. This would make no benefit for the city or commuter economically, environmentally, and socially. Bus terminal is an urgent and impotent need for the University of Utah campus in the upcoming few years due to geographical, topographical, and economical issues of the campus and Utah Transit Authority.

Decentralization bus system deters people from using the bus system as it is evident currently where most of the students and staff prefer using their own vehicle to commute. Lack of bus terminal is going to worsen the economic, environmental, and social conditions of the campus. It is already weak, but it is going to struggle severe fragility when train cross campus every 7.5 minutes and the number of cars get increased. The place would really face hard congestion.

The economic threats of decentralizing bus stops are wasting student’s budget for transportation costs just to reach campus faster and have the opportunity of going anywhere after school. It is an economic burden on the University of Utah student, because student already paid for public transportation with his/her school tuition and never benefit from what he/she funded for. In addition, usage of private transport causes more traffic on roads, greater chances of accident and more pollution.

If most commuters use car to approach campus, public petition could stop students from paying for public transportation with tuition. As a result of this, UTA would not be able to operate projects that got funded by the federal government. It would be unsustainable economically. It also would weaken the individual savings of student who solely depend on the UTA for conveyance. When student is limited economically, it is going to impact on his academic career also.

Decentralizing bus stops increases environmental fragility. Commuters would abstain from using public transportation and rely on car instead. Thus, decentralizing bus stops causes more pollution in Salt Lake City, which is already facing severe pollution problems due to temperature inversion. Salt Lake City was regarded as the second most polluted city in the United States of America, this winter. Decentralized bus system, excessive usage of private vehicle would further delay the time it takes to reach normal conditions after the event of temperature inversion. The decentralization impacts the resiliency of the urban ecology of Salt Lake City in general and especially places such as the campus of the University of Utah, where is located on the mountains.

Reducing the gaseous emission from the private vehicle would increase the resiliency of the urban ecology of Salt Lake City. The increased use of private vehicle leads to an increases in pollutions like Corbin dioxide (CO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), and aerosols. A place that is associated with temperature inversion gets worst pollution impact than any other place on Earth. Salt Lake City has hard time having resilience after the event of temperature inversion with pollutions.

The decentralization of bus stops would disperse the social unity and oneness between commuters on the campus. Classmates would go to different bus stops, so they would have less chance to improve the relationship from classmate to friendship. Bus terminal would gather commuters. Since there is variety of bus routes, commuters can change their plan. For example, if two classmates walked together to the same bus terminal, they would have chance to re-plan their trips. They can decide to reach any point in the city from the terminal. A scenic and beautiful bus trip would help in building a strong relationship.

Bus terminal would allow people to meet and know each other. Indeed, it is a point of connection for knowing new ones. It would be the most popular place for commuters, since it became the first place of an expected meeting. It opens the port between commuters to go along with each other. It is accessible for everybody, so students from different background will meet and have short talks. Great ideas come from accidental combination. It is expected that bus terminal would have this feature among other places on campus.

Commuter Services at the University of Utah is trying to solve this issue with lowest possible risks. Commuter Services is trying to reach the best proposal to maintain these three issues on campus at high level of sustainability. Bus terminal is the best solution. It is going to be located at the front of South Campus Drive @ 1800 East Train Station. It is proposed to demolish Buildings & Grounds and Motor Pool buildings and then develop the site with the University of Utah Bus Terminal. The two buildings are old and their contract with the University of Utah is about to end. As well, electric bus is proposed to move commuters from the Bus Terminal to Warnock Engineering Building and around campus.

However, there are some problems that are needed to be addressed to make this plan excellent. Demolishing Buildings & Grounds and Motor Pool buildings is not an Eco-friendly action. This would hurt the environment by creating waste. In addition, it is wasting of money. The community of the University of Utah would not be able to celebrate and enjoy the process of the site development. Commuters who have relationship with the two buildings are going to be relocated and forced to move due to the end of the contract. This would cause unpleasant feelings for them. However, it would be great if they can contribute in the process of the site redevelopment.

Commuter Services desire to have a café in the Bus Terminal. Cup of coffee would refresh the place. It would bring about economical betterment to the place. The taxes of this business would be paid for the site sustainability and development expenses. Therefore, it is sustainable in manner of economy. In addition, commuters would love to make a cup of coffee as their meeting linker. Thus, it would be the place where people communicate and go along. However, it would not be sustainable environmentally if the food source is not local due to lacking of local urban farms. Officially, there is no proposal for local urban farms in the Bus Terminal.

People who spend most of their lives in boxes are observed to walk more like robot and take no notice of the environment around them. Yet, many people who have deep connection with the ecology of their places are witnessed to walk sophisticatedly with special rhythms. When they walk, their hike is more associated with style of dancing exuding positive energy and charm. When a commuter gets out classroom, which is box, he/she would be packaged and shipped by a box to reach another box. Therefore, the proposal of integrating additional boxes such as cars on campus is not helpful to maintain the campus at high level of economic, environmental, and social sustainability.

I am an international student, who is a part of the University of Utah. Since the day I started studying, I am trying to belong myself to the campus. Day after day, I become more onto the campus until I could have emphasized for the place. Now, I am involved into this project of integrating a bus terminal to campus. It means high value to me, since I have experienced the joyfulness of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, UVic Bus Terminal. I loved that place, so my affection to it makes me motivated to integrate awe-inspiring and excellent ideas to my current place.

Therefore, I would like to rename the bus terminal as the University of Utah Eco-friendly Bus Terminal. The name should include Eco-friendly, so commuters awake their consciousness about their relationship with the place ecologically. Construction of the centralized bus terminal is an urgent and impotent need, because the University of Utah lacks a bus terminal that is a geographical point of connection for closing 21 important bus routes. The construction of bus terminal is going to recycle the two old buildings that their contracts are about to end. Everything in Buildings & Grounds and Motor Pool buildings is going to be recycled in order to construct the site redevelopment project. I did not accept the idea of integrating boxes on campus, because my ideology seeks integrating nature and education in the campus.

The project should be finished by December 2017. The entire Salt Lake community is going to be benefited from this project. The location of the Terminal is able to contain diverse varieties of flora and fauna. So, this opportunity should be utilized to open the port of unity between wildlife and commuters. The scale of the Terminal is going to be around 6000 Square meters, which replace and recycle Buildings & Grounds and Motor Pool buildings. Approximately, it can contain up to 21 bus stops. Also, it can have indoor four-season shelter and shadowed bike rack behind the shelter. In addition, it can have shelter for diverse varieties of flora and fauna. Sidewalks of the Terminal are proposed to contain official local gardens that feed the Terminal Café and export goods to local places.

The proposed construction is achievable, because it exists in many places on Earth. Therefore, it is reasonable to work forward accomplishing it. First, recycling buildings is easy by involving current people who have relationship with the buildings. When these people who are going to be forced for new location are involved into recycling their past with the buildings, they would have better chance to get adjusted to the new place. They would give higher effort in the new place of job. Although they had expected relocating action, they would not prefer to make new relationship with the new place. However, if they have full understanding through recycling involvement, they would get heart’s ease with the new place faster. They would be able to bring what they have recycled to the new place. For example, they could bring old office boxes and plant it with favorite vegetation.

Having straight green shadowed pathway from the Terminal to Warnock Engineering Building is better idea than having train like shipping box. If a straight green shadowed pathway is applied, it would still be walkable. Any distance is less than 0.50 mile is walkable, because it would take about 10 minutes walking. This would not make students pay more for their tuitions for train operation. It would improve our resiliency to get our lost rhythms back. Socially, it would allow commuters communicate well. Sustainable pathway is the approach to allow commuters to reach to others. It makes them go along with diverse varieties of flora and fauna. When a commuter walk and observe peacock, he/she would take from its attributes.

I am able to achieve this, because I have experienced similar terminal and I have educated. I just need engagement with the project. I planned to create the Flaneur Project for myself to engage with it. Great ideas usually come from being in peaceful and thoughtful state. When I am directionless and having numerous of great thoughts during free time, I need to record them on variety of forms. I am going to write, print, sketch, and design for the sake of the Bus Terminal. I would focus on accessibility for wheelchair, reducing urban heat island, creating shelter for variety of species, and communicable boards that make relationship between traveler and the terminal.

Observing campus from other angles would help me understand the feeling of walking from the place where I would suggest the location of the terminal to all buildings. This would make me closer to the real situation of the future of the terminal. After I involve into this engagement, my suggestions for the planning division would be supported by the Flaneur Project collections and observations. Therefore, the involvement in such project like this may change the complete ideology of smart transportation as an element in the new urbanism.

Here is the initial design of the terminal as it goes along with current surroundings in manner of urban morphology:

Mind Use and Ethical Model: A Letter of Recommendation

A person is born with many identities that differentiate him/her from other species. Human is born with love for others. Also, we come with loyalty, fear, generosity, and punctuality. For example, human would make no different between himself and other species until he experiences surroundings that tell him that he is a deferent part of nature than other parts. Thus, humankind uses his innate behaviors to explore his identities before childhood, because it is orientated by essential animal that would never goes away from him.

From the age of childhood the person would develop and direct behaviors based on personal experiences. The person uses himself to show empathy and observe the income of this action. Based on the income, the person would modify behaviors. Also, when a child reads story, the characters of the story would play a role in his behaviors. Therefore, families try to pick peaceful stories for their children. Experiences would alter the human’s personality, because it is  observations. Although it is observations, it is not yet realization.

Purposefulness is made by person’s desires and patience. Goals are reflections of person’s desires that are achievable. Also, patience is the ability of resisting frustrations. When these two are companied, you must know that the person has unexploded energy. Essential animal and the quality of his virtue is going to explode it sustainability. Thus, before exploding his desire with patience, human has to scale them on community needs, governmental law, and culture.

Thus, his decisions are going to mange the use of surrounded resources for new experiences that would impact on his behaviors. This process may take long time, because the experience require certain age, class, and health. Before going into a new experience, our fear should tell us about its behavioral modification risks. Based on our observation and experiences we roadmap our lives. We chose the trace that we want to leave out of purposefulness. We need to know the purpose of every deed we commit and be conscious about it.

Top Ten

There are ten big problems that really need to be fixed in order for me to love a place and have a relationship with it. If they got fixed, I am fine. Besides, I will be fine and the environmental, economical, and social manners of my community will be sustainable. We need benefit the following opportunities:

1. Higher quality of life
2. Better places to live/work
3. higher/stable property values
4. Diverse, smaller, unique shopping
5. Less traffic/congestion
6. Less driving
7. Less walking
8. Less sprawl
9. Greater neighborhood character
10. Financial savings

In order to enjoy the above dreams, we need to “fix” the following issues:

1. Walkability: Missing destinations within a 10-minute walk of home or work
2. Connectivity: Our community needs interconnected grid of street and pedestrian systems
3. Mixed land-relationship and Mixed People: love to have mixed land-relationship such as offices land-relationship, residences land-relationship. Also, the relationships with the land should be with different  ethnic groups. So, we have multicultural community
4. Mixed Housing types: in every community we should have single family, multiple-family, apartments, lofts, and Homestay
5. Quality architectural and urban design: Creation and connections that emphasize a “Sense of Place”. Quality human-scale architecture that doesn’t have to hostile to humans.
6. Traditional neighborhood structure: Need to have discernible neighborhood center and edge.
7. Increased density: Love to have clustered density that is better for health, walkable, and efficient. It is not for everyone
8. Smart transportation: I (myself) need multi-modal transportation options
9. sustainable community design: our community lack to energy efficiency, less use of finite fuels, eco-friendly/resource friendly technology
10. Quality of life: Humans are complex, integrated creatures who respond to their environment. Environments which are holistic, diverse, and promote contact and interaction are habitat for whole human beings. It takes us from Nature deficit disorder (NDD) and living in boxes inside boxes to a quality of life that maintains our healths at livable enjoyable rate.

Values and Goals

Value is the worth of importance and preciousness of entity. Everything in a person’s live is going to be shaped according to his/her values. Our observations create values that we respect. Then, we appoint goals upon our values. Goal is a pair of values linked by purposefulness. The goal is a clear testimonial statement of the needs you want to impact at any geographical point in the plant. It could be physical or spiritual.

It is important for every single person to have a goal, because it adds objectiveness into the actions of human. In fact, everything in this plant has a goal. All animals have goals. For example, one of the animal’s goals is to sustain the ecosystem and the cycle of the wildlife. Moreover, inanimate objects own goals. For instance, scientifically, mountains have a goal to be a stick on earth. How come some humans have no objective goal?

In fact, human is one of the most creations has hard time figuring, achieving, and making goals and values. So, the first struggle for human is to know what he/she values. Sometimes, they mix between cultural values and personal values. Cultural values are costmary codes that need to be used to communicate and live in a community.

Personal values are the one’s desire. Personal values usually do not against cultural values. So, figuring out personal values that go along with the community is the first struggle. Then, linking these values to obtain a goal is the second fight. Next, achieving goals is not essay with failures around. Finally, sustaining the achievement at a certain level and quality is the hardest stage for all humans.

Sustainable achievements are the goal for every goal you make, because it means that the goal is successfully made. From my experience, my goal is to change the habit of procrastinating and enhance my personality with punctuality feature. I can be on time for a week, but this does not mean that I made my goal successfully. Because this goal does not maintain at the length of the rest of the semester or season as well as the punctuality during one week, it is not successful. Therefore, the goal should be sustainable, measurable, observable, objective, achievable, specific, and is powered by personal purposefulness.

There are so many strategies and skills a person can apply to help him/her obtain a successful goal. Self-discovery is the first tool that every single animal uses toward successful goal. We can appoint some of our essential animal behaviors as values. Then, we link these values to be purposes. After we know the purposes of our actions, we can easily know our real desires. Thus, the desires can be flipped into goals. However, we need to make sure that the desires are flappable from longings to realistic existences.

After we appoint longings that meet the conditions successful goal, we work toward this goal on regular bases. First, we have to understand how to be patient. Patience is quality and ability of holding out struggles and pains on the way to the successful goal. Patient faces struggles with full of hope and quietism. Moreover, patience is completely linked with optimism and entirely depends on the beliefs.

Our goals reflect our achievable desires and surrounding observations. Thus, through renewed daily planning and constant effort, hopes turn into work we do and live with. At the end, we should be very careful with our goals, because sometimes we think it is a good impact and in fact it is not. Therefore, our goals must be virtue and done through humane manner. Virtue is models of desires, thoughts, and actions that are based on high ethical standards. A virtue person [Fadyle person] is the one who is free from impure thoughts, desires, and behaviors.

New York: Climate Change

New York City. USA is facing climate change as any other city in our Home. The city has an approximate population of about 8175133 people, with a density of 27532 square miles and the surface area is about 468.9 square miles. The climatic weather conditions are that of sub tropical with humid conditions, at times experiencing hot summers with cold and damp winters. The environmental issue of climate change has the following effects: temperatures are expected to increase by 3 degrees in the year 2020 and 7.5 degrees by the year 2080 which reset to move frequent heat waves. In 2080 it is expected a 10% precipitation will occur which cause severe storms creating will major flooding.

The sea level will then expect to be 12 to 13 inches in 2080, when will be endangering over 600 miles of New York City coastlines. The remedies and adaptations have been put forward to address the environmental issue including preparing for a large population today, increasing public transit options and bike lanes, making open forum communications between climate experts and other government officials, and establishing a climate change monitoring programs. Each citizen of the city has been asked to decrease greenhouse gas emissions in turn save money on oil and gas use.

There have been a number of activists who have to proclaim an increase in tree planting in parks. The environmental conditions in the city have exposed the city residents to a number of new hazards and a number of heightened risks. These risks are due to increase. The only solution to the problem in the city is to reduce green house gases in the atmosphere. The city with its authorities came with the NPCC (New Panel Climate Change) to identify crucial vulnerabilities and come up with adaptations strategies and a number of recommendations, which will foster effective climate programs.

Climate Change

Climate change has elicited numerous debates on its causes, problems and solutions. While the effects of climate change are often viewed to be negative especially in the contemporary world, there are some climate change effects that have brought forth positive aspects of the process. This scenario is depicted by the Arctic sea ice loss. The loss of sea ice in the Arctic is a negative effect of climate change. However, the impact of this on the surrounding environment has presented a positive aspect of that negative effect.

The loss of sea ice in the Arctic is attributed to climate change. Even with this, the Arctic sea ice loss has provided a lucrative opportunity for the exploration of oil resources. Ice meltdown in the Greenland, Kara, Barents and Chukchi regions have enabled drilling and exploration of oil (McClintock, 2011). Oil is a crucial resource and a primary source of energy. Although these regions maybe characterized by a degrading sea environment, the underlying benefits of oil in the regions cannot be ignored.

The urban environment surrounding these regions is bound to benefit from a consistent and reliable energy source. The economic performance is further expected to thrive, amid the oil exploration activities. Also, the exploration is likely to boost employment opportunities in these regions, thereby raising the standard of living of the surrounding communities. This urban setting is also bound to benefit from international trade, in the event that the extracted oil is exported to other countries. Alongside these realizations, there are underlying negative aspects. The oil drilling and exploration activities are likely to trigger continued environmental degradation, over and above Arctic sea ice loss. This is due to the fact that oil extraction is likely to cause environmental pollution, from extraction to refinery. This adds up to the already existing problem of Arctic sea ice loss.

Reference

McClintock, J. B. (2011). Arctic: Sea-ice loss sparks oil drilling boom. Nature, 479 (7374), 478.

Shortage of Water

shortage of water occurs hard in Mexico City, located in Mexico State, with a population of approximately 8 million people. The weather is not conducive because it is characterized with hot summers and high temperature winters. The city is also built beside the lake on top of Tenochtitlan, which is the ancient Aztec city, and has a lower elevation on the surrounding lakes. It is a place of several water issues. There are no adequate water resources, and increase in maintenance costs of water supplies. Also, there is the problem of poor sanitation facilities. This has made the city authorities and local people to out-source these facilities. In the country, only 39% of its population access clean waters and with some 74% of population accessed to acidic free drinking waters. With the changes in weather, the city is faced with floods and sinking.

The condition is the same in Bangladesh, which is over populated, resulting into in adequate social infrastructures and services. The issue in the city is due to the shortage of water and other infrastructures, which results into many people in the city not getting enough basic infrastructures. The poor drainage systems have made water supply in some places to be dirty. This has prompted the country to get ground waters and put pumps so that piped water is available to the city residents. The water problem is compounded with business people selling water using water trucks, forming cartels. The authorities of Mexico have tried to come up with measures but to no avail; it still remains an environmental issue to the city

The environmental issue of shortage of water is also characterized in Las Vegas where water shortage is seasonal. Las Vegas has a population of about 583756 people. It is located at about 2028 feet above. The sea level with a surface area is about 135.82 square miles. This makes the majority of its land to have desert characteristics. It does depend on Exotic River with nearly 90% of it coming of River Colorado and Lake Mead. The Colorado River has extensive networks providing waters to other seven western states. An approximation of 325851 gallons of water is received per Acre-foot, which shows how shortage of water has prevailed in the city.

The positive issue in the city is the availability of ground water, which can be dug. Hydro scarping can also be done easily. The state authorities have planned to implement programs to promote efficient living, the solution is that Southern Nevada water authorities have proposed to build a 285 pipeline that will pass groundwater and six valleys in the eastern Nevada; this will help in providing 50 million gal of water to the local residents.

Urban Ecological Inspiration

Urban ecological inspiration is every influence that is thrown into my spirit during the time I remain alive in metropolitan area. I could list more than 1oo1 things that inspire me. However, in general, the ecology of place has the most ability to inspire me. Because I and most people on earth live in urban area, I care about urban ecology. Nature is the best inspirer for human, since human is a part of nature. The phenomena the physical world includes plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the continental crust, opens the port of unity between the human and nature.

This opportunity makes me recognize the oneness between myself as part of nature and other parts. Asphalt, concrete, tree, human, water, and air are parts of nature. Some parts physically injure others. Asphalt injures me, because it cooks me when I walk on surface in casual urban area. Therefore, I like any part of nature that is friendly with me to exist around me in urban area. The ecology of place inspires me when I desire to accomplish an innovative idea. So, the outcome of my accomplishment would have ramifications of the place’s ecology where I have done the accomplishment.

Friendly campus ecology makes me think, study, and socialize better. When I think of UVic, I remember it as an educational resort. The Ring Road goes along the camps in ring shape, so library and most classes are inside the ring. Continuing studies, students union building, bookstore, bus terminal, student housing, and other buildings & field are located right outside the ring. In addition, half of the campus is surrounded by Mystic Vale and trails. Thus, Mystic Vale is home for verity of species.  I used to see rabbits every single day of my experience over there. Countless of species make a love story between myself and everything on campus.

A campus that lacks verity of species and accessibility is not the best choice for a student to live in. I have experienced frustrations in numbers of campuses as result of their urban ecology. They do not have the ability to inspire people work, study, and live in it. One of the most elements that bother me at the University of utah is urban heat island. University of Utah is a big campus. Since it is too big, there are shuttles going around the campus. This issue is irresistible during summer. Imam University solved this problem to make most parking on the first floor and whole campus on the second floor. Imam is almost as big as University of Utah.

Copenhagen: Offshore Winds

Offshore winds is an environmental issue on a number of farms in Copenhagen, is a coastal city in Denmark. This city has a population of about 1.2 million with majority of the climate being oceanic. The oceanic climate is characterised by a low pressure zone with quite a number of unstable winds, dominated by Atlantic low pressure systems hence winds blowing with high magnitude. The increasing wind blows have then resulted to land and sea breezes which balance in sequence or alternatively. In Denmark, the city experiences a total of three off-shores per week. This environmental issue has beneficial consequences. The residents of the city are able to enjoy cheap energy. About 20% of energy is derived from wind-power. Another advantage is non-obstructed views. There is also an offset of harmful atmospheric pollutants. The environmental issue is advantageous to the residents of Copenhagen farms.

New Orleans City: Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina mainly occurred in New Orleans city. Geographically the city has a population of about 343,829 people with a surface covering about 169. 42 square miles. The weather conditions in the city are mainly humid with slight sunshine in certain period of times, which gives the city a sub- tropical climate type. Hurricanes are characterised by tropical cyclones with a wind power of about 74 miles per hour, which moves in counter clockwise in the north hemisphere.

It also has thunderstorms, which raises the oceanic climate temperatures to 82⁰F and atmospheric pressure becoming low. In 23-30^th august 2005, the city encountered a hurricane, which was named Katrina. It was measured at category five. The wind at that time was at a speed of 125 mph. There was a top increase of warmer waters and atmospheric pressures of about of 902 MB. The effects of hurricane have lasted for a long period and they have been experienced in the entire city. The flooding that occurred in the place was because New Oleans lacked the Levee systems. The effects did prompt the authorities to make or stimulate significant changes in the community into urban planning to cover the national disasters.

The environmental issue had the following environmental effects. 80% of the lands were flooded with water. Millions of acres of wetlands were lost, 7 and 9 million oil spills and million gals were lost. These resulted into a number of impacts to the environmental conditions of the city. Air pollution increased from the burning debris. A rise of waterborne diseases increased. Microorganisms did suffer due to salinity levels increasing, and lastly it damaged a number of salt marshes. This environmental issue made other coastal cities and countries to revaluate their dike systems.

Infrastructure Planning & Design

SimCity

Urban planning is my major. I picked it after four times of trying other majors. My first major was information system, because it was the best major in Imamu University. It was not what I needed. Then, the second major was electrical engineering at University of Victoria, but I did not start the program, because I changed my mind. I chose it, because I innovated Taragheli™ Clothes Infolding Machine after the 12th grade. As result of that innovation, I completely ignored the infrastructure design of Agrabah, which is based on hexagonal plan. I start planning for it since I was in the 11th grade.

One day, I told my friend Ahmad Altwajry about the town design, he like it and energized me “Why do not you make it you academic major and life & afterlife goal?” Then, I did more development to the design to make it more sustainable and reasonable. Then, I liked it very much and realized that I have been a planner since I was playing SimCity 3000 with my cousin. After, I decided to change my major from electrical engineering to civil engineering.

Therefore, I went to Pullman, WA to study civil engineering at Washington State University, since this major was unavailable at the University of Victoria. I finished the last two months of ESL at WSU. Then, I was about to start civil engineering. However, I looked at their textbooks and curriculum then I found that most of their studies are about “concrete and construction”. It was not what I wanted and expected.

As result of this, I talked to a professor about the urban design I made and he told me that it was exactly urban design and planning. So, I did deep research about urban planning and design major. I found it exactly what I wanted. I need urban planning and design majors to make myself able to develop Agrabah with the most sustainable, reasonable, and livable urban layout. Indeed I need it to meet the new urbanism qualifications.

Urban Design

Cartagena, Columbia

Aleppo, Syrian Arab Republic

Urban design would entail the whole process of arranging and designing public spaces, buildings, transport systems, and other social amenities. This process involves giving form, shape, and character to particular groups of buildings, to the whole neighborhoods, as well as the entire city. The urban design orders and organizes the elements into a network of streets, squares and blocks. In addition, this framework brings together architecture, landscape architecture and city or town planning, so as to make urban areas relatively attractive and functional.

Generally, the art of urban design is meant to make connections between people and places, as well as movement and urban form, its nature, and the built fabric. The process brings together the several elements of place-making, environmental stewardship, the social equity, and economic viability into creation of places with distinct beauty and identity. Urban design creates a vision for a given town setting coupled with development economics, available resources for planning and urban policies. Moreover, the limited resources and skills are employed in realizing the vision of the given town.

There are several towns and cities across the globe that has typical urban designs. These designs would include all the three aspects of an urban design setting comprising the infrastructure, architecture and the public spaces. These three aspects must be prioritized in any urban design.

Know Thyself

There are signs in everyone. Through them we can distinguish our own identities. Thus, each one of us could differentiate him/her self from the other. We develop our identities that we were born with. Then we act upon those identities in the childhood age. Later, we stop for some time to know ourselves.Our personalities reflect the society we raise in. Having opposite point of view from the society is also a reflection.

Usually, it is not ease for people to themselves. However, it was not hard for me to know and identify myself among others. I have had difficulty to decide what I want and who I am only one time. When I was teenager, I used to go to a sport club where everyone has sport interest except me. So, I asked myself that what was the best geographical point at the sport club? The answer was the Cafeteria, because people meet, eat, and talk. I loved the talks.

I look at my friends get excited when they play soccer, but I was not excited at all. We we meet and talk, I was the most one who get excited and get into the topic. There was a great storyteller. Hammdy Alamri used to tell us about innovators and innovation, so I used to search for them online as result of his talks.

Big Island

Big Island environmental issue is prevalent in Hilo city in Hawaii. The city has a population of about 175784 people who are living in surface area of 4028 square miles. It has a climate that varies with the seven regions, which show distinctive features, its youngest islands is about 800000 years old. The regions have different hotspots that can be used to produce geothermal energy. Such hotspots have the following characteristics, hot spots occur under oceanic and continental crests and are anchored deep in the lower mantle, and these spots remain fixed relation to moving tectonic plates. Tectonic plates move slowly over hot spots have become beneficial in producing geothermal energy, which comes from the earth’s interior. This is a renewable resource with minimal pollution; this can produce heat, which can produce electricity through turning turbines.

The city-states authorities came up with Puna geothermal venture a plant that produces about 31% of Hawaii renewable energy. Its  located in a low profile which is about 24 feet high and has no emissions the plant uses the binary cycle geothermal plant in its production. The plant is well designed with a closed loop circulation system that traps the excess gases and fluids escaping into the air. The environmental issue is very useful to the city and country residents. This comes similar to geothermal energy that is produced in Makati city in Philippines .The city has a population of 510400 occupants, which gives it position 44 in the world in terms of density, which gives an approximation of 18654 people per square kilometre part of Metro Manila. The Makati city has the following features: it is located near Manila bay with a tropical monsoon climate where there is little temperature change with high humility with it having short dry season and long wet seasons which appear during some specific times during the years.

The town produces hydroelectricity in a number of places where is produced using dry steams; the advantage is that it reduces fossil fuels and carbon emissions. The town is a small tiny settlement in South Australia. Another case is in Innamincka city where is located in Australia that supplies 10% of Australia power. It has lasted for a period of 50-100 years; this is a result of heat bed under the fields of Innamincka. This has enabled the city to supply as little or as much electricity that can necessarily meet the residents’ demands. Case two is about Onamia, which is a city in Minnesota, located at about 80000 square feet. Education place is using geothermal energy pumps with 1.75 million BTU for heating and 230 used for cooling. It then utilizes energy in the underground feet. The city residents are now able to replace traditional heaters with the use of hydro electricity after they have implemented them at home.

Chicago: Heat Wave

Heat wave is an environmental issue in Chicago. Chicago with a population of about 2.7 million has been losing its population due to heat waves. The heat waves are characterized by a rise in temperatures in the hemisphere and ozone regions. The waves occur when the high-pressure air systems become stationery, with unusual moist ground conditions and no wind blows at same time. Individuals are then faced with open skies and urban heat island effect. The heat per person is higher (heat index), as a result of these; deaths per week have risen due to the extreme weather patterns. The environmental issue presents a factor of major concern that needs to be addressed.

Vancover: Urban Heat Island

Urban heat island is characterized with higher than average temperatures in the urbanized regions as compared to the rural and suburban areas. The city buildings act as mirror maze where an incoming radiation hit the buildings and then gets directly conducted into building materials resulting to increase in temperatures, humans induce air pollutions, which condense in the clouds causing artificial precipitations in the atmosphere. This environmental issue affects Marine whereby it causes land breezes due to changes in temperatures between land and ocean surface temperatures.

To mitigate the problem in Vancouver, a number of participants representing different organizations in the United States came with an update on the urban heat island pilot project which focuses on how to prevent air pollution by reducing heat produced in urban centers. A number of pilot city teams have formed in Salt Lake City, Sacramento to develop action plans while in Chicago mitigation measures have been in place to try and eliminate any urban heat island by using geographical pre-existing information. A conclusion was made to implement greener space within urban areas, so as to increase a cooler environment.

Hope for Society

Human considers home as the most important geographical point on Earth. I care about the place where I stay, sleep, invite, eat, study, play, and grow up. There are several elements in my society I hope to change. I grow up in a neighborhood where walls block homes .

I hope that every commuter can park his/her car under vehicle-vine-shed (VVS) instead the ironic and plastic shed for motor vehicles. So, they can plant any kind of cucurbitaceous such as cucumber. Moreover, I hope to replace the ground by having green ground that includes trees and palms.

I really do want to replace is the outside-wall of my neighborhood. It is the most disturbance for the look of a house. As well, it separates us from the community outside. I wish to have wood fence instead of that huge cement separated walls. Walls give us the feeling of being in an inertia status.

In order to replace the outside-wall, we have to change the customary codes of living in a house among culture that requires separation between house and street. This separation does not make the system of neighborhood visible, so it violates the system visibility in urban area. In the past, people in Riyadh, where is my hometown did not use to separate houses from the street by outside-wall and have four meters setback. Times ago, houses in that culture used to open directly to paths and gardens used to call inside-yard instead of backyard or front-yard.

This urbanism is lacking to some elements of sustainable place. So, I hope to add greenway for bicycle and then engage the society with the idea of bicycling instead of driving to the places. As well, lining up the road for safety of the society would be an encouragement for them to use to bike.

Pedestrian is the element that place is missing, so I would like to add it. Moreover, there is no vegetation on the sidewalk. There is only a cement sidewalk that the citizen builds it. Therefore, I would like to ask the government to add a law makes the city hall as the responsible for building and planting sidewalks that protect walkers in manner of health, safety, and walking rights.

In conclusion, my focus is to remove outside-wall by replacing the cultural behaves. Then, turn empty poor spaces to green and beneficial place. Try to make green as well as we try to make money for the place. So, if we want to get a rich place, road must be completed and lined up for crosswalk and greenways. Socially, our relationship should be better, so we must respect it and not take of the nature of it, which is green, and replace it with hard ground. Thus, economically, the place would make us benefit from the food that is everywhere and save our money from grocery store.

Sustainable Success

Value is the worth of importance and preciousness of entity. Everything in a person’s live is going to be shaped according to his/her values. Our observations create values that we respect. Then, we appoint goals upon our values. Goal is a pair of values linked by purposefulness. The goal is a clear testimonial statement of the needs you want to impact at any geographical point in the plant. It could be physical or spiritual.

Sustainable achievements are the goal for every goal you make, because it means that the goal is successfully made. From my experience, my goal is to change the habit of procrastinating and enhance my personality with punctuality feature. I can be on time for a week, but this does not mean that I made my goal successfully. Because this goal does not maintain at the length of the rest of the semester or season as well as the punctuality during one week, it is not successful. Therefore, the goal should be sustainable, measurable, observable, objective, achievable, specific, and is powered by personal purposefulness.

There are so many strategies and skills a person can apply to help him/her obtain a successful goal. Self-discovery is the first tool that every single animal uses toward successful goal. We can appoint some of our essential animal behaviors as values. Then, we link these values to be purposes. After we know the purposes of our actions, we can easily know our real desires. Thus, the desires can be flipped into goals. However, we need to make sure that the desires are flappable from longings to realistic existences.

Our goals reflect our achievable desires and surrounding observations. Thus, through renewed daily planning and constant effort, hopes turn into work we do and live with. At the end, we should be very careful with our goals, because sometimes we think it is a good impact and in fact it is not. Therefore, our goals must be virtue and done through humane manner. Virtue is models of desires, thoughts, and actions that are based on high ethical standards. A virtue person [Fadyle person] is the one who is free from impure thoughts, desires, and behaviors. I can tell that I am successful when I become a man of honor and virtue.

Guiyu: Eelctronic Waste

Guiyu in China is an example of the problem which results from electronic pieces found loitering everywhere. Guiyu has a population of about 150000 people with 200000 being migrant workers. The density is approximated to be about 4939 square miles with the area covering 52 square kilometers. It has an elevation of about 30 feet above sea levels with a climate that is humid subtropical, which means that there is no dry seasons and hot summers. The environmental problem of the city is e –wastes, which are waste materials that are generated from electronics such as phones, printers and appliances.

The town is the home for 5500 businesses that deals with processing discarded electronics that are known as electronic wastes. It is one of the largest electronic waste’s sites and recipient of wastes. The place has informal processing centres of the electronics. A number of truckloads dump everyday wastes; piles of electronics, creating an electronic graveyard. A number of health problems come from lead poisoning and cases of miscarriages. Environmentally, the soils have been polluted with chemicals and other elements.

It is estimated that electronics of about 1.5 million pounds are being dismantled which include used or old electronics, majority being junked computers, cell phones and other devices within one year. It is beneficial for the town as it generates about $75 million per year from the wastes. But the problem is that the wastes are causing a lot of health and environmentally related problems to the city residents. This has prompted authorities to look for sustainable solution, which is to advice countries and private sectors to invest heavily in modern recycling facilities to process the e-waste at the cleanest way possible. It is also the responsibility of individuals to buy electronics from well established firms who have well established ways of recycling their old and used products, the consumer should be accountable for the electronic in use, and look for better ways of recycling wastes.

Taragheli™ Innovation Experience at the UVIC

When we are free from nature deficit disorder, we can create, thing, and success in all fields especially in manner of academic. Our educational duty schedule would not be interrupted by disturbances. I spent a year, five months, seventeen days, and ten hours around a sustainable campus empathically.

Therefore, my body felt the freedom from lack of nature. Every anatomy in my body functioned well. The quality of my awareness system used be maintainable at low level about things that are not exist, so the system of awareness used to be more in order of myself and under self control.

I could have deeper visualization of beautiful pictures of our world without distraction of high level of awareness about nothing. One day, I have complete free time during weekend, so an idea of developing a dead idea back to life. It was about infolding innovation. At that time, I was intensively studying English as a second language. So, I named it with Taragheli™ which sounds in between English and Arabic.

Innovation supported and added more love elements to my experience at the University of Victoria (UVIC) campus. Therefore, innovation can play a big part of your campus experience. It makes you in a relationship with the place. From an experience, in general it gives you self-confidence and especially at the place where you combine between two experiences like innovating and learning. Campus is the place where student get something from. So, when the student give something that related to the place in return, empathic cycle is applied.

The campus is a place that is set up to understand the feelings of a student who want to learn. So, campus’s facilities show empathy to student and provid him/her tools that feed their flames of ambition. By the time, student’s flames get fed. So, he/she uses the tools educational tools to experience innovating and give in return empathically. One hand can not clap, so two would change the level of regular sound. Innovation is always a unique item by itself. How about if it is experienced at the place of giving knowledge? What in the world could happen?

Reykjavik: Sea Level

Sea levels rise problem occurs in Reykjavik Iceland. The island has the total area of about 40000 square miles. The population is about approximately about 320000 with 99% of them living in urban area. The Reykjavik is the capital and largest city on the Island, which is characterized with sub polar marine climate type with moderate water temperatures with ice sheets giving latitudinal locations. This environmental issue has contributed to the thermal expansions of the oceans, melting of mountain glaziers around the world and retreat of a number of polar ice sheets in Greenland. The result of these is an increase in temperatures and salinity levels. There has been increase in rapid glacial retreat, which has created an average of 5.5 mm in sea levels. During the past 30 years, the visible sea ice have disappeared, it has also resulted to an increase in a number of coastal floods due to sea level rising

It is expected that 0.66m sea level will rise by 2100. The positive effect is on short term, with the energy and agricultural sectors benefitting. However, scientists have predicted a complete loss of glaziers and this will affect the eco systems and birds life. The rising sea levels have a number of human impacts on human populations and the surrounding natural environment. It is caused by thermal expulsions and increasing melting processes causes the second. The rising levels are a pure evidence to show that climate change is occurring in the city. The condition is similar to that of London where they experience flooding at Riverbanks, with sea levels expected to rise due to current barriers. In Machair, North West coastlines of Scotland and Ireland there are substantial rise in sea levels, which threatens ecosystems by damaging salts and creating erosions. The environmental issue has created a unique ecosystem of fertile grassland with high seashell content, which can support plants, insects and bad species

Naples: Volcanism

Volcanism issue is prevalent at Naples in Italy. The city has a population of about 1 million people, with a density of about 21000 square miles, its area covering about 45.28 square miles, with an elevation of about 56 feet. The country is volcanically active and has been faced with a number of volcanoes. This erupted in 1994 that occurred in the mainland of Europe, but there have been a small dormant volcano that has ever since resulted to a number of other eruptions. The city has a characteristic climate that is mild and has a distinctive wet winter and some warm conditions and having dry summers.

The volcano has the following features: It has effusive eruptions which are at times gentle and which produces enormous volumes of Lava. Secondly it has explosive eruptions resulting to magma produced blocks that conduct and pressure builds. This feature is characterized by volcanic hazards that include pyroclastic flows and surges, Lahars, structural collapse, lave flows, tehra fall and ballistic projectiles, volcanic gases, tsunamis and volcanic lighting. Majority of the volcanoes occurring on the city is caused by magma erupting and creating an upward force that pushes rocks to melt by the process of subductions to one another.

The volcano can pose a number of risks to the environment and the people but having some measures can solve this. The risk is to remove the heat that is caused by volcanic eruptions; using reinforced structures like strength rooftops and having good protections wall to deflect lava flows can regulate it. Another risk is to plan for the future. People may be fearful that volcano can erupt in future and in that case, they may not plan to build any structures. Evaluating the risk before one can embark on building any structure can solve this. More so, it may affect people’s preparedness; are the people involved ready to face or tackle any hazards a rising from a volcano? The only remedy is to educate people on a number of volcanic hazards and having evacuation plans before the volcano erupts and cause havocs. This environment issue though is not common occurrence and if it occurs it is fatal and risky and proper planning to evaluate the risk is needed.