Category Archives: Josh Grigsby

Today’s Moment of Idealistic Naivete: Wikileaks

Posted on December 8, 2010 by

{image source} All the talking heads scrutinizing the whole wikileaks “scandal” are, to me, missing the point, as well as an incredible opportunity. What’s my naive, idealistic solution? Don’t say anything behind closed doors you aren’t willing to say in … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, How We Live, How We Think, Josh Grigsby, policy, Rants | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Does New Orleans Have an Identity Crisis?

Posted on September 4, 2010 by

And if so, how many other cities do as well? I spent five weeks in New Orleans in May/June of this year…it is a truly fascinating city, a completely unique place, yet for the most part it denies the fact that it is a delta city. With large tracts of the city below sea level, it would seem reasonable to expect water to be an omnipresent characteristic. But the built environment of New Orleans denies water, walls it off, instead of embracing it.

There’s a line from Jurassic Park that I’ve quoted a bazillion times: “[The scientists] were so concerned with whether they could, they never stopped to consider whether they should.” Wherever technology allows one to ignore nature, this seems to be too often what happens. Modern New Orleans was built wrongly (where it is built wrongly) because it could be. Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, Climate Change, Culture, Josh Grigsby, Placemaking, Response Pieces, Sustainability, technology, thinking, urban design, urban planning, vernacular architecture, What if? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Three Urban Interventions in Two Hours: NYC

Posted on August 6, 2010 by

Found myself in New York City the other day with a couple hours to spare, so thought I’d explore some of Manhattan’s recent urban planning projects. Two hours turned out to be just enough time to check out the (sort of) newly pedestrianized Times Square, trace the 9th Ave bike lane from 33rd to 20th, walk the length of phase 1 of the High Line, and head back to Port Authority alongside the 8th avenue bike lane.
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Posted in Auto Independence, Bicycles, Dispatches, Food for Thought, Josh Grigsby, Livability, Placemaking, Transportation, urban design, urban planning, walkable, What if? | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Neuroscience and the Buddha Mind

Posted on June 4, 2010 by

If meditation can actually make minds and bodies healthier, could the same approach be taken with cities? What if, as a supplemental process to traditional quantitative analysis, planners and urban shapers meditated on their city? What does it mean to be that city? Would such a process reveal truths typically unseen? Continue reading →

Posted in Auto Independence, Culture, Josh Grigsby, Science, thinking, urban planning, What if? | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The City of the Future?

Posted on May 26, 2010 by

We humans love to plot our existence on time lines. Make the world linear. Everything has a beginning, a middle, an end. The universe in vectors. But how often does reality comply? It seems to me that no geometric figure can accurately represent the dynamism of civilization. Sometimes a vector may well be appropriate. Other times, a triangle or a step pyramid. The closest model to my mind, however, is a helix, or rather multiple helices. Some are bent, some wrap around others, some are vertical, some aren’t. All, however, are roughly orbital. A new development (such as the automobile) creates a new ring, the course of action spurred on by that development plays out, and eventually things come back around to a new approximation of where they began.
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Posted in architecture, Culture, History, human scale, Josh Grigsby, Rants, technology, thinking, Uncategorized, urban design, urban planning, vernacular architecture, walkable, What if? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment