This year for the annual Hardscape issue we venture from the twisting, artistic "ribbons" hardscapes at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, to Lacey, Wash., just east of Olympia, to view the Hulscher Courtyard at St. Martin's Abbey and University. Traveling southeast, we stop in to see the mix of attractive hardscapes designs at a private residence on the Provo River in Utah, before crossing over into Colorado and visiting Steamboat Springs, no, not to ski, but to take in the Burgess Creek promenade and the terraced stone and water feature. Finally, we head southeast to Wilkesboro, N.C., along the south bank of the Yadkin River, to see the attractive plaza design for Lowe's Customer Support Center.

In this issue you'll also find a few interesting news items (not involving hardscapes) that caught our attention. One is the Obama initiative to fund "Promise Zones," in which Los Angeles could receive as much as half a billion dollars over time (p. 88). This initiative is Obama's corollary to Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty pronouncement 50 years ago. Ultimately, the plan espouses helping 20 struggling cities/towns. Yes, L.A. is struggling, or as the 13-member Los Angeles 2020 Commission reports, "barely treading water." Such large infusions of federal dollars will certainly benefit landscape architects.

Water is also in the news. While large parts of the country are shoveling snow and hassling icy road conditions, southern California has experienced summer like conditions for the first month of winter. The National Drought Mitigation Center reports California is entering its third year of draught. Brad Rippey, meteorologist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of the Chief Economist, reports that of California's 154 intrastate reservoirs, which were "collectively brimming with water (125 percent of average storage) on Nov. 30, 2011, storage fell to 97 percent on Nov. 30, 2012, and 74 percent on Nov. 30, 2013."

 

Of course, arid southern California skews the draught conditions in the Golden State, plus takes a big gulp out of the state's water resources, long an incentive for northern Californians to "secede" from its southern half. Speaking of redrawing state lines, check out this 1973 "Proposed 38 United States of America" map (mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/2008_38-States-800.jpg), a reshuffling idea from George Etzel Pearcy, then a professor at California State University. It's based on geographic zones, and probably makes more sense that the current configuration, but it will take some getting used to telling people I live in San Gabriel (southern Calif.).

Lack of water resources, of course, is a prevalent issue throughout the Southwest. A court recently blocked the Southern Nevada Water Authority from piping billions of gallons of water from rural areas into Las Vegas (p. 90), at least for now.

As for the nation at large, Rippey reports "33.22 percent of the contiguous 48 states are in drought, up from 30.95 percent a week earlier, and up from 30.28 percent on Dec. 10, which was the least area in drought for any week of 2013, and the smallest drought coverage since Dec. 27, 2011."

Speaking of Vegas, the Downtown Project group, which is helping transform Vegas' old downtown, the Fremont District, has come up with a good idea to foster entrepreneurial start-ups. As most entrepreneurs can't afford the overhead of renting commercial building space, or building their own store, the city has created Container Park (p. 84), a site where shipping containers are repurposed as retail outlets. Cre8play has also installed a playground there using shipping containers . . . a unique play space LASN will feature this year in our Playground issue.

Also check out a few research items: the latest in tree research (p. 96), which reveals we've underestimated the carbon sequestration of those big, studly old trees in our forests; and how Australian researchers are tracking the activities of bees to better understand colony collapse disorder (p. 98).