Go forward in time to February 2010.
So you live in an apartment? Permaculture for renters seems like a good resource. Grow fish and strawberries and a worm bin out of table scraps, in under 2m².
"A Pattern Language", by Christopher Alexander et al, is the book that I have been preaching around with patterns for architecture and urbanism. See the full online version.
(That online version is a bit weird; you have to click on the leftmost vertical frame to access the page for each pattern. Other than that, it seems to work mostly fine.)
If you are into that sort of thing, the Emergent Urbanism blog is excellent. It takes Alexander's ideas and tries to mathematize them, while exposing a plethora of examples and insightful results.
You may want to read an introduction to that blog in its introductory essay.
And by the way, a lesson on usability based on these principles.
The New York City Department of Transportation has a very enlightened administration these days. See their new Street Design Manual for some great information about how to improve streets with gradual changes: geometry, materials, safety, bicycles, trees, pedestrians, etc.
Go backward in time to December 2009.
Federico Mena-Quintero <federico@gnome.org> Wed 2010/Jan/20 13:59:02 CST