To see more pictures, including those of our staged home, visit the Watch tab on Mixson’s website!

Filed under: I'On Group, Mixson, Videos & Photos on August 8th, 2008 | No Comments »

The Post and Courier reported today that Norfolk Southern, a shipping and transportation company headquartered in Norfolk, VA, has donated 12,488 acres of the Brosnan Forest near Dorchester, SC to the Lowcountry Open Land Trust in a conservation easement, which will forever protect the land from development.  It’s the largest single donation of land in the LOLT’s history, and probably in South Carolina’s too - to give you some idea of just how significant this is, 12,488 acres is bigger than the Charleston Peninsula. 

Photo from the Lowcountry Open Land Trust website

A long-leaf pine forest and habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, the Brosnan Forest is ecologically highly significant; so, not only does this transaction protect open land, which is a victory in itself, but it also will help preserve plant and animal species that need all the help they can get. 

Filed under: Charleston SC Green Living, I'On Group, Mixson on August 5th, 2008 | No Comments »

No surprise here: while home prices are falling pretty much everywhere, they’re falling less in neighborhoods that don’t come with a long commute. In fact, according to this NPR report , home prices have even been rising slightly in the once-avoided downtown and in-city sections of cities like DC, LA, Philadelphia, and Boston. That rosy suburban picture is fading quickly as the bright green lawns become unkempt and overgrown, the white fences go without painting, and one of the two cars sits at home all the time because gas is on its way to becoming unaffordable. CNN reported back in June about the suburb of Elk Grove, California, which has suffered from thousands of foreclosures and a spike in crime, including several busts of abandoned homes inside of which were growing massive crops of marijuana.

It’s not hard to see which way the trend is heading. According to this Wall Street Journal article, baby boomers and “millenials” (people born between the late ’70s and mid-’90s) are finding themselves in sync when it comes to where and how they want to live: it’s not way out in a subdivision with a big lawn to worry about and a two-car garage, but in urban centers where transportation is easy. With these two generations’ numbers peaking in 2015, the demand for urban housing - which incidentally is also much better for the environment in terms of carbon footprint - will just keep on rising. After all, who wants this:

when you can have something like this:

Thanks to Smart Growth America for pointing out those articles!  Visit their blog to learn more about smart growth in American communities.

Filed under: I'On Group, Urban Sustainability, Videos & Photos on August 1st, 2008 | No Comments »

That last photo, you might have noticed, is a sneak peek of our staged home, which should be done by next Tuesday (8-5). It’s got an awesome clean, modern look - stop by and visit any time!

Filed under: I'On Group, Mixson, Videos & Photos on August 1st, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Ever hosted an outdoor dinner party?  How about one smack in the middle of your sidewalk or street?  Well, this article in today’s New York Times Home and Garden section says that many New Yorkers have literally taken their entertaining to the streets, hosting everything from “backyard” barbecues to lavish dinners on 18th century tables in what New Urbanists (hence, we at the I’On Group) call the outdoor room: those public spaces in our communities bounded by streets, buildings, and hopefully a good number of trees, in which the buildings form the walls and the trees provide a natural roof. 

Of course, outdoor rooms vary as much as their indoor cousins, especially in a city as diverse as New York.  A couple of guys hold a casual dinner party at the Manhattan-side tower of the Brooklyn Bridge; one woman regularly converts the loading dock in front of her apartment building (a former warehouse) into a front porch with chairs, her laptop, and a dog bed for her pooch; the owner of an antique shop remembers hosting elaborate hibachi dinners on the sidwalk outside his shop, complete with antique tables, chairs, and golden torcheres.  As this elegant entertainer, Mr. Maurice Margules, says so, well, elegantly, “the streets are your own fantasy.” 

What an extraordinary concept for most places!  Can you imagine a group of people sitting at a card table brought out for the occasion, eating together, on a sidewalk in downtown Charleston?  Now, in New York as in everywhere else, gatherings such as these can’t interfere with other citizens’ use of the public space - but, as long as people can still make their way around, use of the streets and sidewalks is perfectly legal, and is even welcomed by the NYC Dept. of Transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan.  It’s called the “rule of reasonableness.” 

I don’t know whether we have such a rule here (I will find out), but for some reason, I can’t see an outdoor sit-down evening with friends being welcomed by the passers-by, not to mention the law enforcement community, in quite the same way.  Maybe it’s Charleston’s old Southern resistance to anything “unseemly” (in other words, different).  Such a thing would indeed turn heads, and not necessarily in a good way.  But honestly: wouldn’t it be fun? 

Maybe we can put together a streetside meal in Mixson, after our first residents make the big move (starting in August!).  What better way to welcome people home, than by celebrating not only their single houses, but the whole community: its streets, trees, sidewalks, buildings, and most importantly, the Mixsonites themselves.  After all, that’s what makes Mixson, Mixson - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  And I’m not just saying that because it’s an easy cliche that sounds nice.  It’s absolutely true. 

So, next time you decide to host a party, whatever kind, consider thinking outside the house a little - if you live in a pretty place, you might find that a sit-down dinner under the stars is just your thing.  It’s like Critical Mass for food and party lovers - think of it as your way of taking back the streets! 

P.S. Check out this video of Jackson Heights in Queens, which has decided to close down a street for 20 consecutive Sundays for children and families to play in!

 from Streetfilms.org

Filed under: I'On Group, I'On Village, Mixson, Morris Square, Videos & Photos on July 31st, 2008 | No Comments »

Many of you may have come to the weekly open mic events at Kudu and East Bay Coffee House, hosted by Charleston Poets, but did you know they have an event in North Charleston too?  It’s the last Friday of each month at Sonia’s Manila Grill and Lounge, at 3381 Ashley Phosphate Rd.  Open mics don’t work all that well without contributors, so if you have a story, song, poem, rant, whatever…let it out! 

Filed under: Events, I'On Group on July 31st, 2008 | No Comments »

You can still make the last day of presentations on proposed projects to redevelop the old Romney St. landfill into a downtown arts district: from 9:00 am to 11:30 am there will be an open house, and the public presentation will run from 11:30 to 12:30. The event will be held at the Charleston County Public Library. So far, the area is set to include an amphitheater, gallery space, a Ritz-Carlton hotel, high-end housing units, retail and rehearsal space…the list goes on. Conspicuously absent from the the list of proposed developments, however, is housing that artists could actually afford. And what’s an arts district without artists?

Filed under: Events, I'On Group on July 30th, 2008 | No Comments »

We’ve been hearing from a lot of you about how you’d like a Whole Foods in North Charleston, which is great - now you just need to tell them!  E-mail the store here by clicking on the “Suggest a New Store Location” link. 

Filed under: Charleston SC Green Living, I'On Group, Mixson on July 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

It’s one of the coolest gadgets to hit the world of electricity in quite some time: it’s the Kill a Watt, a electric device that tells you exactly how much energy your energy-guzzling items are, well, guzzling.  Or sipping, if you’re lucky and/or smart enough to have more efficient appliances in your home.

You can see how it works in the picture; you plug the Kill a Watt into the wall, and then plug whatever electric thing you want to measure into the Kill a Watt.  It then tells you how much energy your computer or television or blender is using in Kilowatt hours (among other things), and from there you can calculate the daily, monthly, or yearly cost of each item.  What’s even better, perhaps, is that you can monitor things like how much power it takes to keep your computer on standby all day, or keep your stereo plugged in - they’re still sucking up energy even if they’re off (which is why they’ve been called vampire appliances, as Alys told me this morning).

I found Kill a Watts for sale all over the Internet: Amazon, eBay, ThinkGeek, not to mention the first one I linked to in the post.  And they’re only about $25 - can’t beat that.  I’m thinking that one might not be out of place in our staged Mixson home…

Filed under: I'On Group, Mixson, Urban Sustainability on July 25th, 2008 | No Comments »

The Our Region Our Plan community forum happens tomorrow, Saturday, July 26, from 8:30-3:30 pm at the Charleston Area Convention Center.  Participate and make your voice heard!  Here’s all the information you need, from the Our Region Our Plan website:

Please join hundreds of your fellow citizens from across the tri-county area at the Regional Forum on Saturday, July 26.  Participants will come and talk together to look for answers to some important questions about our communities and our region.  How will our communities continue to grow without lowering quality of life or damaging our natural resources.  What can we do to ensure job growth continues and benefits everybody?  What can we do to restore some of our critical natural resources and better protect ourselves from future natural disasters like hurricanes?  What is our vision for the future of this unique but changing region?  What do we need to do within our individual communities to be good neighbors in the region?

Participants will spend most of the day talking in small groups with the support of a trained table facilitator to discuss questions like those above.  Each table will have a diversity of people from across the region.  Participants will look for areas of agreement and to better understand each other in areas where they might disagree.  Ideas from all tables will be gathered and summarized into a report that will be available shortly after the meeting is over.  These results will help set the goals and strategies for Our Region, Our Plan.

Individual voting keypads will be used by all participants to answer questions throughout the day about their preferences and priorities.  The hundreds of participants will respond to various questions and immediately see the results for the room.  This will further help identify areas of agreement and disagreement and what are the top priorities for the group as a whole.

At the end of the Regional Forum, participants will be given opportunities and encouraged to stay involved in Our Region, Our Plan and to get more involved in other local activities that address the opportunities and challenges in their community.

Elected officials and other decision makers from across the region will be involved in the July 26 Regional Forum.  They will participate themselves and hear the voices of the people.  They too will be asked to make commitments to stay involved in Our Region, Our Plan and work more closely with their neighbors and regional partners.

Registrations for the Regional Forum will be closely tracked and every effort will be made to get the full diversity of the tri-county region fairly represented in the room on July 26.  Please register today and encourage your friends and neighbors to get involved.

Filed under: I'On Group on July 25th, 2008 | No Comments »