As our cities grow, their transport needs become more complex. If we are lucky enough to live in established suburbs that have a legacy of schools, shops, and parks, our local communities and neighbourhoods may provide us with our basic needs and services, our social and work commitments. However, for most of us, meeting all [...]
Over a decade ago, as the population of Shanghai soared, density was at an all time high and Chinese urban planners, realizing the city’s growth was unsustainable, they proposed a new solution to the problem: decentralization. The “1 city, 9 towns” project revealed in 2001 was proposed as a creative solution to the increasing urban [...]
Home to the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie Museums and Library, Phipps Conservatory, and the expansive Schenley Park, Oakland, a neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a product of the City Beautiful movement. It is a center of knowledge, art, and culture, enriched by its civic spaces and ample greenery. The University of [...]
A big Global Site Plans welcome to our newest blogger, Sophie Plottel in Shanghai, China. Sophie Plottel is a recent graduate of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and a minor concentration in Global Development Studies. A native of Vancouver, Canada, she is interested in the continuing efforts of [...]
Oakland continues to bring new development and innovation to its neighborhoods. Next up is the MacArthur Transit Village (MTV), an impressive urban planning initiative to be built in Temescal beside the MacArthur BART station. Much like Fruitvale Village, this transit-oriented-development (TOD) brings some much-needed land use planning to a space currently occupied by a massive [...]
Tourists and residents flock to Florida’s metropolitan areas to enjoy bustling theme parks, cities that spill into the ocean, and shiny downtown high-rises. Still, just beyond the city limits, the Sunshine State remains much like it was only a few decades ago: ranches, rural communities, and endless acres of citrus groves. Like any other demographic, [...]
In Greece, during the last few years, a demand for transparency around food and a need to eliminate the intermediaries, mainly due to poor quality of products in combination to high prices, has resulted in a boom of collective action concerning the production and distribution of food. On the other hand, the proliferation of movements [...]
“Great public spaces are where celebrations are held, social and economic exchanges take place, friends run into each other, and cultures mix. They are the “front porches” of our public institutions – libraries, field houses, neighborhood schools – where we interact with each other and government. When the spaces work well, they serve as a [...]
Nowadays, skateparks seem to be the new form of the traditional town squares we all remember visiting during our childhood and adolescence years. It’s not surprising that more and more people gather in this type of park to meet with their friends, spend their evening and, of course, practice sports like skating, roller-skating, and BMX [...]
We all have to make tough decisions. When it comes to city planning, there’s no tougher decision to make than the modernization or preservation of historic culture. European cities, like Berlin, have mustered up the courage to dismantle their historic gas-powered lamps in an attempt to reduce energy output for their modernization efforts. On the [...]
Milan is rich in industrial history. A nearby site includes the former Innocenti factory, most notable for producing Lambretta Scooters in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The present service-oriented economy means that many old factory sites are claiming vast swaths of land, acting as holes in the urban fabric. Overcoming such obstacles is a contemporary theme [...]
Miami has found its magic again. With the approval of Miami 21 in 2009, it accomplished an unprecedented feat and became the first major city to adopt a form-based code. With the motto, Your city, Your plan, Miami’s experiment is a solitary example of the importance of public support through outreach and marketing. Thanks to Miami [...]
In November 2012, San Francisco voters passed Proposition C, establishing a city-wide affordable housing fund on the enormous margin of 31%. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. In February 2012, Governor Brown of California, in an effort to slash the state budget, ordered the dissolution of all California Redevelopment Agencies. From an [...]
Neighborland was born out of a street art project by Candy Chang, where nametag-like stickers reading “I wish this were a __________” invited the passerby to imagine possibilities for empty storefronts. The project generated onsite civic input for improving abandoned properties in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. Today, Neighborland has grown into a website [...]
How do you achieve social equity and inclusiveness through urban planning? In order to answer this question, we must first define these terms. PolicyLink defines equity as such, “Just and fair inclusion. An equitable society is one in which all can participate and prosper. The goal of equity must be to create conditions that allow [...]
This is the third post in a three-part series reviewing and summarizing the CNU21 suggested reading list. CNU21 is this year’s annual Congress for the New Urbanism conference and will be held at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah May 29th through June 1st, 2013. The first review and summary discussed, “Cities [...]
This post summarizes the CNU21 Preview Podcast, “Thinking Globally, Building Locally.” CNU21 is this year’s annual Congress for the New Urbanism conference and will be held at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah May 29th through June 1st, 2013. For this podcast preview, John Norquist, the current President of the Congress for [...]
“There is growing concern for the issue of sustainability — whether the Earth’s resources will be able to meet the demands of a growing human population that has rising aspirations for consumption and quality of life, while maintaining the rich diversity of the natural environment or biosphere.” – American Planning Association (APA) Communities across the [...]
In 2010, Siemens and The Economist published the first reliable index ranking for green cities worldwide. Among many other indexes concerning this subject published in the past few years, this is the first one with a specific chapter for Latin America. The result of this index showed a phenomenon that was clear to everyone but [...]
Global energy demand continues to grow and tidal wave energy generation devices can provide a significant source of renewable energy. Technological developments in offshore engineering, and the rising cost of traditional energy, means that offshore energy resources will be economic in the next few years. Tidal wave energy is a form of hydropower that converts the energy [...]
