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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: Santa Monica
Growing Green in the Asphalt Jungle: Engineering Bikeability for Fun and Profit
Los Angeles is strapped for cash. Officials are resorting to the equivalent of digging under sofa cushions for change: ticketing unlicensed dog owners, cracking down with parking tickets, and raising Metro fares. But they’re going about it the wrong way — there’s gold right in LA’s streets, just waiting to be exploited. All that’s needed is a proper vision.
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Posted in Auto Independence, can bicycles save the world?, Culture, David Yoon, human scale, Livability, mashups, Placemaking, Transportation, urban design, urban planning, walkable, What if?
Tagged bicycle infrastructure, bicycles, bike friendly, bikeable, bikes, David Yoon, Los Angeles, mashups, Melrose Avenue, Santa Monica, street conversion, streets for people, Third Street Promenade, urban infill, walkable
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A Question of Nomenclature: What is a Neighborhood?
What, exactly, is a neighborhood? People on all sides of the urban conversation talk about neighborhoods, trotting them out to support everything from transit oriented development to the suburban status quo, from Smart Growth to no growth. Formal definitions vary, but few include criteria beyond a set of distinctive characteristics shared by a contiguous geographic area inhabited by people who behave neighborly. Which, despite its vagueness, sounds sensible enough. Imprecise, but sensible. And yet, when I think about the neighborhoods I’ve lived in, or spent time in, few of them fit even this ambiguous definition.
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Posted in Culture, History, Josh Grigsby, Nomenclature, Personal Experiences, Sarasota, urban design, urban planning, vernacular architecture, walkable, What if?
Tagged American urbanism, Back BAy, boston, Burns Square, Cambridge, city planning, community planning, convenience shopping, definition of neighborhood, electricity, Florida, Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, Harvard Square, Jane Jacobs, Laurel Park, Main Street, Margaritaville, Methyl Street, Mongols, Montana Avenue, neighborhood, neighborhood association, New Urbanism, Nomenclature, North End, Pacific Palisades, pedestrians, planning theory, Providence, Santa Monica, Sarasota, Siege of Baghdad, small town, Smart Growth, surburban, Tamiami Trail, tourists, Towles Court, transit-oriented development, urban, village, walkable, zoning
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Brad Pitt, Andres Duany, and Aesthetic Diversity: Why There’s Room for Everyone in the New N’awlins
The New Orleans that was swept away when the levees broke cannot be restored. A new New Orleans is rising—it cannot be otherwise. Isn’t it possible that in this new New Orleans there is room for Frank Gehry and Andres Duany? For the experimental and the traditional? For the future and the past? Can’t this new New Orleans be a city that retells the stories of its forebears while crafting new tales of its own? It has been a long time since New Orleans had anything new to add to the larger discussion of American urbanism. A long time since the national spotlight shone on it for reasons other than crime, poverty, catastrophe, or the musical achievements of the past.
History should never be forgotten, but neither should it be made into a golden calf. Cities need to breathe, they need to periodically remake themselves. As long as the people remaking New Orleans remain in service to the city’s most vulnerable residents, New Orleans wins. Architects win. Design wins. Creativity wins. Experimentation wins. A new vernacular arises alongside the old. Continue reading
Posted in Culture, History, human scale, Josh Grigsby, Livability, Neighbors, Placemaking, Response Pieces, Sustainability, Uncategorized
Tagged 2036 Seventh Street, 3105 Law Street, 3428 Dauphine Street, 409 Andry Street, aesthetic diversity, American urbanism, Andres Duany, Andrew Blum, architecture, Arts & Crafts, Brad Pitt, Brooklyn Bridge, Build Now, California Modern, Cape Cod, Chris Graythen, CNU, Colonial, community, Crystal Palace, Eiffel Tower, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, experimentation, Frank Gehry, Global Green, globalism, Hurricane Katrina, James Marston Fitch, Kieran Timberlake, Los Angeles, Make it Right, middle-out planning, Modern Green Design, N'awlins, neighborhood character, neighborhoods, New Orleans, New Urbanism, Ninth Ward, Pacific Palisades, porches, post-Katrina, Santa Monica, Scott Bernhard, Seaside, Spanish Villa, Steven Bingler, Sustainability, Sustasis Foundation, The Atlantic, Thom Mayne, Tom Darden, Tulane, ultramodern, URBANbuild, urbanism, vernacular architecture, Victorian, Wayne Curtis, William McDonough, William Monaghan
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Universal Beauty and the Responsibility of Cities
In chapter eight of Anthony M. Tung’s erudite and impressive Preserving the World’s Great Cities: The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis, there is a passage that stopped me in my proverbial tracks and hasn’t left my thoughts since. Tung is writing about Amsterdam at the dawn of the 20th century:
As parts of the inner city became slums and were threatened with clearance, and as picturesque canals were filled in to create new roads and better circulation, elements of the historic environment began to be eliminated. Growing numbers of citizens became alarmed and called for preservation of the historic center. In addition, a new ring of speculative housing began to surround the old metropolis. Numerous Amsterdammers began to ask that the expansion of the city meet a reasonable standard of beauty. Continue reading
Posted in Culture, History, Josh Grigsby, Livability, Placemaking, Rants, Sustainability, Uncategorized, What if?
Tagged American cities, Amsterdam, Angkor Wat, Anthony Tung, Austin, Babylon, Baltimore, Beauty, Bicycle Diaries, Cambridge, Camillo Sitte, Chapel Hill, Chicago, cobblestone, Craftsman bungalows, David Byrne, Denver, farm houses, Frank Gehry, google maps, H.P. Berlage, historic preservation, Invisible Cities, Iroquois Confederacy, Italo Calvino, J.R.R. Tolkien, Key West cottages, Kyoto, Main Street, McMansions, medieval cities, modernism, modernization, Mulholland Drive, municipal, neighborhoods, New England fishing village, Pantheon, Paris, parking lots, Parthenon, Peter Jackson, Petra, Plan Zuid, portland, public way, pyramids at Giza, quality of life, Ray Kappe, Rivendell, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Santorini, Sarasota, Sausalito, screen shots, Seven Generation, Shire, shopping malls, slum clearance, sprawl, Stefan Sagmeister, stewardship, street grid, strip malls, Sustainability, Tibor Kalman, trailer parks, urbanism, Varanasi, Vienna, Wonder
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