Some who live in Morgan Hill like the ‘small town charm’ or cherish that it’s ‘a great place to raise a family’. Others may say, we’re isolated, far away from services and culture. Add a third layer to this mix: we have the ability to get news, culture, information (and publish it, too) from around the world in a single click. As a hyper-connected parent of two kids, I’ll say yes to all three. First, it’s certainly a nice, quiet place to live. Secondly, it’s also lacking everything culturally that I want my kids to be exposed to (and me as well). Thirdly, because of being a hyperconnected family, my kids have grown up in a world, with inter-connected relationships around the globe.

For everything around us– the Outlets in Gilroy to the vastness of San Jose to the north– does being a small town hurt us economically? Does it hurt us culturally? Does it risk us becoming de-incorporated into a sprawling outland of civilization? Does it prevent businesses from wanting to be here (and cause tax money to not be generated here?) Or does none of this matter, because we have the ability to be mobile? Does it not matter how isolated a place is when the means to travel ‘away’ exist? Is it good for reducing our consumption because we have limited access to immediate services.

Oftentimes I wonder about the residents of small towns that are part of a contiguous metropolitan area. Take, Campbell, CA, for example. Roughly the same population as Morgan Hill, it is technically a small town, yet surrounded by other small towns and cities. Does Campbell have an identity? Or is it the victim of lack of homogeneity? (Quick, where’s Westgate? San Jose? Campbell? Or does it matter where Westgate is, since IT is a geographic point of reference– you just know, but not care, where Westgate is.)

All of these musings lead us to that question.

What does ‘small town’ mean in the 21st century?

This laser-scanning technology first made its appearance as part of the DARPA challenge, for the Velodyne Team Digital Auto Drive (D.A.D.) Toyota Tundra, part of a robotic challenge of self-driving vehicles. Link: Video (Team D.A.D. starts at 14:15 in).

While Velodyne is known for audio speakers, the LIDAR system continues to evolve. Here’s Velodyne’s Bruce Hall explaining the system in an interview with SciVestor Insight:

Recently, Bruce Hall spoke at the Where 2.0 conference, May 2009.

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This is part of an on-going series about technology in our own backyard.

Even for those not down with the taste of mushrooms, an abundance of varied food choices prevailed. Garlic, oysters, burgers, calamari, fries– you name it, the choices were seemingly endless. Refreshments were no different, with the selection of beverages ranging from soda and shaved ice, to Bud, Corona, Modelo, and wines.

All around the Bay Area (and then some)

Some of the food and merchandise booths were from various local businesses, while others came from far away. Some were merely from the next town over: these fine gents, (pictured at right) were Duane Rasmussen and Phil Quast from the Gilroy Elks Lodge, served up a variety of scampi– my choice was the Mushroom Bowl, seasoned with garlic (of course), combining the best taste of both neighboring cities.

Mushroom Twitter Gras (groan)

More inspiring was the invisible Mardi Gras participation by way of Twitter. A loosely-planned Tweetup started at Hot Java on Second Street on Saturday– far enough away for a seat at a table, yet close enough to stroll up to Depot. Others simply posted while en route to Morgan Hill, unaware of the small, yet growing, new media crowd here in town. Below is a screen shot of real-time results of mentions of the Mardi Gras from Twitter.

Real-time conversation from Twitter.

For more pictures from the Mushroom Mardi Gras, visit our Flickr group pool: http://flickr.com/groups/morganhill (more to come)

Also see: Morgan Hill Times has ongoing coverage of the event.

Local photographers who use Flickr have the option to place their images on a map for the public to see. This is called ‘geotagging’, which provides a slick way to see the city through others’ lenses. Photographers of all stripes can virtually find each other on a map, perhaps meeting up at a local photography club. And, for those not local to 95037, geotagged photots provide a human peek into the city through the lenses of its residents.

Here’s an example of what the Flickr map of Morgan Hill looks like so far, with the most recent pictures shown: (click to zoom)

To visit the Morgan Hill, CA page on Flickr, visit this link. Photos can be searched or browsed by recent postings or most interesting/popular.

The PDF version the City of Morgan Hill generates might print out nicely on large format printers, however, it’s of no practical use to citizens, businesses, and others who wish to access and utilize the data freely and openly.

Original map here.

Instead of letting the (and I’m so totally stealing this phrase) Temples of Consumption rot along the countryside, efforts are underway to transform these 100,000 sq ft monstrosities into something better. [see: Don't Trash Big Boxes, Repackage Them!]

I began with Google Maps, creating the Downtown boundaries. I imported that map into Google Earth, and created four more ‘districts’ in town. First, is the Cochrane Business District, followed by Civic Center, Tennant, and Recreation Park. If you’re familiar with landmarks of Morgan Hill, the following map should be easily understood:

If we had distinct neighborhoods

Here’s where the fun begins. Everyone can use Google Maps, and create a map of their own, by simply tracing parts of the city with the shape tool– give it some color, give it a name, save it– and done! Take the city, make it your own, and share the link in the comments of your Morgan Hill Makeover. This is virtual– anything goes.

Quote:

We got better at home energy efficiency but we also chose bigger homes and filled them more stuff that uses energy — a zero sum gain.

Locally, we are spreading out– build the big commerce around the freeway while retreating to our huge, cathedral ceiling houses in the hills. (And we all know the nickname McMansion). We have less and less to visit nearby and resistance to the smart type of growth that helps residents live closer to the useful parts of town.

Sadly, this may never change.

Full post: History of US since 1950 as told by energy.

Update: Seems like Morgan Hill Moms made the news.

Image: Site Design Group

Skatepark Designer(s): SITE design group, Inc.
Skatepark Size (sq ft): 12,000 sq. ft.
Skatepark Type: Concrete
Lighted Facility: No
Admission fee required: No
Park Supervised: No
Safety gear enforced: Yes

More pics of the construction here: http://www.sitedesigngroup.com/project.php?ID=219&Pro=All. Try and contain your excitement and don’t be like this guy.

BONUS LINKS: Top 20 Skateparks in California
eHow: How to Film a Skateboarding Video (When the park opens, get out there with your cameras, post those videos to Youtube and be sure to tag them ‘Morgan Hill’ and put them on the map. Maps of Morgan Hill in Google are littered with Real Estate ‘video tours’. Surely, there’s more to do in town than buy houses.)

Let’s start with a basic bullet list– mainly because I agree with it, but also, I agree with this list as applied to Morgan Hill:

Taken from: http://hhh.gavilan.edu/lhalper/MHSnapshot.htm

Challenges and needs

•Affluence exists alongside pickets of visible, semi-visible, and invisible underserved people. There is a marked income gap.

•Human needs are often less visible because the community’s self image is of wealthy, educated residents. Many county resources go to Gilroy because Morgan Hill is perceived as not needing them.

•Fewer agencies serve Morgan Hill than other cities in the county, and many that do exist don’t deal with human services so much as issues such as creating dog parks or supporting Coe State Park. Agencies such as the American Red Cross and Center for Living with Dying have had to close their offices in town due to costs. A new city-owned building will attract some San Jose non-profits in 2008.

•Existing nonprofits are often single-issue and rarely collaborate.

•Bedroom issues make it hard for non-profits to survive in Morgan Hill. People live in the community but don’t know about or support local work.

•Isolation of low income groups—low income housing is clustered in a few places.

•Small numbers of immigrants from many countries tend to be isolated in the area. There are not enough bilingual services.

•There is a considerable ethnic divide in Morgan Hill.

•The rate of domestic violence in Morgan Hill is the highest reported in the county.

• Morgan Hill schools expend $4,781 per student. The state average is around $7,800 this year. Quality of education, while high compared to that in Gilroy, does not meet expectations of bedroom arrivals, who have created opportunities for private and charter schools but to the detriment of public schools

•There is no hospital in town since the closure of the community’s hospital

•There are not enough bilingual services.

•Hate incidents and crimes may go unreported or under-reported. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youth are at particularly high risk, though a case brought by several Live Oak High School students in the 1990s established a school district’s obligation to take action to protect students being harassed for sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation. Despite mandatory training for students and teachings, students report that problems persist in the school system.

•Small businesses are concerned about the city’s recent incentives to big box store and by shoppers’ choices to go there and elsewhere outside the city. Other big box stores refuse to locate in Morgan Hill because of overlap with South San Jose and Gilroy stores.

•People generally go north for the arts. Downtown Association has addressed some aesthetic needs and parking issues but there is much to do still.

•There is a lack of “connective tissue” for various groups in community, little community feeling or participation among many people, most of whom don’t read the local paper.

•Mixed use projects downtown could address housing availability gaps and bring more people downtown.

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If you spend any time digging through the city’s online information, you’ll find it’s a trip down memory lane–to those darker, disorganized days of Internet yesteryear. Luckily, the quest for Gov’t 2.0 can be nudged along by citizens with the tools in their own hands. This simple Google map is just one such example. Simple, portable, and easy to share.

See the complete set on Flickr

From the blog “Infrastructurist’ comes an article “Big Box of Trouble: Dealing with the Coming Plague of Empty Superstores“, an interview:

The problem of retail vacancies on this scale is so new that it hasn’t really been studied yet. Perhaps the only authority on the subject of empty big box stores is Oberlin College professor and artist Julia Christensen. She has spent the last seven years traveling around the country seeking out and documenting cases of communities reclaiming abandoned big boxes and putting them to a socially productive use–for instance, as museums, libraries, rec centers, and schools.

The same might apply to vacant commercial office centers. Time will tell.

Update: Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Business Expo on 6/25/09 from 1-7pm at the old Circuit City Building at the Target Plaza at US 101/Cochrane Rd. This could be a smart use of vacant facilities–conference space. Event planners and property owners take note: you’re losing money. What are you doing about it?

This is the beginning of a new site– one that functions in a mental space halfway between an alternative weekly newspaper, and a real-time R&D project. It will evolve like cities do. And people.