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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: urban design
Does New Orleans Have an Identity Crisis?
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 bloomberg, canals, Dutch design, Hurricane Katrina, James S. Russell, levees, New Orleans, urban design, urban identity, water management
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Thoughts on Seaside, Sea Change
I’ve heard Seaside, Florida, lauded as the first great project of the New Urbanism. I’ve also heard it ridiculed as new-faux urbanism. So what’s the truth, at least as I see it? Well, during the scant few hours I recently spent there I saw a lot to like. Dozens of wonderful pathways for bikes and pedestrians that connect everywhere to everywhere, many of which feel like something to discover instead of simply travel. Residential roads eschewing sidewalks in favor of shared space. Relatively tall buildings on relatively narrow lots. Architecture with integrity. Loads of trees and shady places (critical given the town’s latitude). Seaside feels like it was designed by people who care.
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Transportation Engineers: Part of the Problem, Part of the Solution
Note from planologie—I saw this comment by Planetizen user ConcernedAboutWinnipeg at the end of Alex Krieger’s article, “Being Urban Minded: Three Current Debates Around Urban Design Practice,” and thought it worth singling out. It seems like in any profession a rift inevitably forms between the creatives and the technicians, and that this silo-ing is especially pernicious when it affects entire populations. I’ve spoken with several transportation engineers who echoed ConcernedAboutWinnipeg’s sentiments, namely that most of them work within the paradigm they were taught, that awareness of the old paradigm’s destructiveness is spreading rapidly, and that the younger crop of transpo engineers have “seen the light.”
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Posted in Auto Independence, Culture, Livability, transit, Transportation, Uncategorized, urban design, What if?
Tagged alex krieger, concernedaboutwinnipeg, creatives, institute of transportation engineers, neighborhood connectivity, parking generation, pedestrian accessibility, planetizen, silo, technicians, transportation engineers, trip generation, urban design, urbanism, walkability
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The World’s Most Beautiful Cities
Since beauty is subjective, we surveyed city specialists from a range of fields, including urban planning, architecture and sustainable development. Respondents include Reynolds and Michael Kaufman, an architect at Chicago-based architectural firm Goettsch Partners, as well as Raymond Levitt, director of the construction program in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, Tony McGuirk, an urban designer, architect and chairman of BDP in London, J. Hugh O’Donnell of urban engineering firm MMM International, and Ken Drucker, New York design director of architectural firm HOK.
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Posted in Culture
Tagged Amanda Reynolds, architecture, Australia, BDP, boulevards, Cambridge, Cambridge University, Canada, Cape Town, Centre Pompidou, cities of light, cityscape, cultural diversity, downtown, ecological footprint, Eiffel Tower, England, Florence, Forbes, France, Goettsch Partners, Haussman, height restrictions, HOK, Hugh O'Donnell, Ian Cumming, Institute du Monde Arab, Italy, Ken Drucker, King's College Chapel, Kirstenbosch botanical garden, London, Michael Kaufman, MMM International, most beautiful cities, natural beauty, New York City, open air, Pacific Ocean, Paris, Raymond Levitt, River Cam, Sir Francis Drake, South Africa, Stanford University, Stanley Park, street life, Sydney, Table Mountain, Tim Kiladze, Tokyo, Tony McGuirk, urban design, Urban Design Group, urban planning, vancouver, Venice
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Deep Walkability
The true test of walkability I think is this: Can you spend a pleasant half hour walking or on transit and end up at a variety of great places? The quality of having a feast of options available when you walk out your front door is what I starting to think of as “deep walkability.” Continue reading
Posted in Auto Independence, Culture, human scale, Livability, Placemaking, Shout Outs, transit, Transportation, walkable, What if?
Tagged Alex Steffen, auto dependent, car-free, car-sharing, connectivity, deep walkability, green cities, neighborhoods, sprawl, transit, urban design, walkability, walkable communities, walkable density, WalkScore, WorldChanging
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