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- Today's Moment of Idealistic Naivete: Wikileaks: http://wp.me/pCprU-mB 1 year ago
- Ending the War on Drugs: http://wp.me/pCprU-mw 1 year ago
- Twilight Of The Suburbs, Now Home To One-Third Of America's Poor http://huff.to/bGZP7F 1 year ago
- U.S. Subways Harness Kinetic Power To Recycle Train Energy http://huff.to/bVsXvR 1 year ago
- America's Walk Deficit http://yhoo.it/dijIvg 1 year ago
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Recent Posts
- Today’s Moment of Idealistic Naivete: Wikileaks
- Ending the War on Drugs
- The Most Walkable Cities in the World
- It’s Where We Live
- Can Cities Feed Themselves?
- French Street Artist Wins TED Humanitarian Prize
- Dimanche Sans Voiture
- Are Brussels and Los Angeles Sister Cities?
- Masdar begs the question: What exactly is meant by “a sustainable city?”
- Is Generation Y Passing on Cars?
- Can Cities Make Us Crazy?
- Stranger Studies 101: Cities as Interaction Machines
- Does New Orleans Have an Identity Crisis?
- Three Urban Interventions in Two Hours: NYC
- Cargo Bike Spotted…
Tag Archives: New York
Portland: Overrated?
Is Portland overrated? I’ve tried pitching the following words to the New York Times and the LA Times as an op-ed column, over the last few weeks. Needless to say, neither of them wanted it—they’re too busy running “Ra Ra Portland” pieces. And why not, when it sells advertising?
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Posted in Culture, Livability, Portland: City or Scene?, Rants, Uncategorized
Tagged Bohemian street life, California, creative class, green rooftops, hipsters, Matt White, media-induced smugness, Modest Mouse, native Portlanders, New York, Oregon, overrated, passive aggression, portland, Portland Mercury, Sam Adams, Sustainability, tech boom, The Shins, xenophobia
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Picture-Perfect Portland?
Portland is one of the most-praised cities in contemporary America. But is the hype real? To some extent, it actually understates the case.
Portland didn’t invent bicycles, density or light rail — but it understood the future implications of them for America’s smaller cities first, and put that knowledge to use before anyone else. The longest journey begins with a step, but you have to take it. Nobody else did. In an era where most American cities went one direction, Portland went another, either capturing or even creating the zeitgeist of a new age. Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Placemaking, Portland: City or Scene?, transit
Tagged 8664, Aaron Renn, bicycles, bike lanes, built environment, Chicago, density, JC Stites, light rail, Los Angeles, Louisville, microbreweries, national imagination, New York, OregonLive, portland, portland hype, reclaimed waterfront, San Francisco, small city, urban planning, West Coast, zeitgeist
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Beauty Kills—A Self-Rebuttal: Or, Why Joel Kotkin isn’t Always Wrong
In my recent post, Universal Beauty and the Responsibility of Cities, I argued that beauty is an essential element of urbanism. Forget all of that for a moment; here’s the other side of the coin: beauty kills. It can turn cities into lifeless museums animated only by tourists, inhibiting creativity and innovation while exacerbating segregation and homogenization. Look at any interior design magazine spread; room upon room of artful still-life orchestration. These are rooms that pose, not rooms that are lived in. Look at fashion models, their faces inscrutable and eyes vacant. True, this is not the sort of beauty I was advocating, but an emphasis on beauty can quickly lead one astray if untempered. Beauty is essential, yes, but it can be as intoxicating as drugs, and potentially as destructive.
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Posted in Culture, Josh Grigsby, Livability, Placemaking, Rants, Response Pieces, Sustainability, Uncategorized, What if?
Tagged Amsterdam, ancient Athens, ancient Rome, art, Aspen, Auckland, compact cities, Copenhagen, creativity, cultural diversity, Economist Intelligence Unit, European cities, Florence, Forbes, Geneva, growth, Helsinki, homogenization, Houston, inventory of the possible, Islamic Baghdad, Joel Kotkin, Livability, London, Los Angeles, low birth rate, Melbourne, Mercer, Monocle, Mumbai, Munich, New Geography, New York, Palm Beach, Perth, pollution, poverty, quality of life, Renaissance, Rene Descartes, responsible urbanism, segregation, Shanghai, social dynamism, sprawl, Sustainability, Switzerland, technology, Toronto, universal beauty, urban tension, Vail, vancouver, Vienna, Zurich
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Small Town Urban Rooftop Farming; This is Not an Oxymoron
While big cities such and New York and Montreal embraced rooftop agriculture a few years ago, Dessberg is setting this green trend in Sarasota on a commercial scale. Pipes transport water and fertilizer above a dizzying maze of green. Clusters of ripening strawberries and fat green tomatoes dangle from hearty vines. Heads of lettuce and leaves of broccoli and arugula burst from a soil of coconut husk and perlite. Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Livability, Placemaking, Sarasota, Shout Outs, Sustainability, What if?
Tagged fruits, green, hydroponic farming, Kate Spinner, Main Street, Montreal, New York, rooftop farming, Sarasota, Sarasota Downtown Farmer's Market, Sarasota Herald Tribune, Sustainability, urban agriculture, urban farming, vegetables, Vincent Dessberg
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