Dr. Marc Abrams unexpectedly passed away Wednesday at the age of 58.  A successful physician who was a lover of history and classical music, he was known in these parts—affectionately—as the “Walking Man of Silver Lake.”  Every day he walked about 14 to 20 miles, along Hyperion, Rowena, Silver Lake Boulevard, and Sunset.

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Here are the facts when you stay in a hotel – you still are at a place where they are leaving the lights on way too much. The waste in water and food is huge. These hotels still require a massive build-out or a remodeling. And we have all experienced the disappointment of “looks great on a website, is a hole on arrival.”

The arguments over what’s livable and sustainable will always drone on; but they are screeching in Asia, where cities are reaching their tipping point. The transformation from rural to urban has had enormous consequences for the Pacific Rim; Tokyo has long been a mega-city, but the Seoul of 1950 would be unrecognizable today, and the rural poor still stream into cities like Jakarta and Manila.

I know, for months I have been saying that I was winding down my posts on GGP to 3 or so a week. Well, it has finally happened. Starting this month, I have committed to writing for Bay Area-based Triple Pundit three times a day.

An underground oil rig explodes, creating a huge ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil company executives drove themselves insane trying to figure out what to do. Industries such as hotels suffer a huge hit.

One of the Maastricht’s highlights is the Bonnefantenmuseum, one of Italian architect Aldo Rossi’s last works. Opened in 1995, it’s a great play on the senses.

To those Americans who dismiss Europe as a backward, leftist, and socialist land, I say, back off—the business leaders I met and to whom I listened at the GRI Conference would run circles around my business school professors and most managers across the pond! To those Europeans who slam America as a consumer-frenzied, overindulged society, I say, not so fast: based on the crowds I saw in the shopping areas and the lines I saw in the stores, I think both sides of the Atlantic know how to spend a buck (or Euro).

One of LA Mayor’s Antonio Villaraigosa’s first initiatives was his 1,000,000 Tree Campaign for a greener Los Angeles. The project was ambitious. By having residents take an online test and then picking up trees at various locations for their yards, homeowners would plant these trees, providing shade and helping to heal LA’s dirty air. Other trees were given away at city events and street fairs. The program, sadly, was a failure. And a visit to Griffith Park taught me why.