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 [...]
In December 2011, a former Grid blogger, Yosef Robinson, wrote a piece about the reconstruction of the Turcot Interchange, a major highway junction in Montreal, Canada. The original proposal came about as the aging infrastructure was beginning to crumble. The project faced fierce opposition, as it planned to widen the interchange (going against everything we [...]
A tremendously ambitious book, A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein attempts to create a language that developers and urban planners can use to shape our environment. The author’s intent is to create a universal language that can be applied to all development projects, in an attempt to encourage the creation of [...]
Combining infrastructure and public art is something I’m passionate about. It just seems so obvious, both aesthetically and financially, to combine the two harmoniously. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho has accomplished just that. Coeur d’Alene (“KOR-duh-LANE”) Idaho is about a forty-five-minute drive East on I-90 from Spokane, Washington. The two cities and their suburbs are considered the same metro area [...]
In 1903, landscape architect John Charles Olmsted wrote that “Seattle possesses extraordinary landscape advantages in having a great abundance and variety of water views and views of wooded hills and distant mountains and snow-capped peaks. I do not know of any place where the natural advantages for parks are better than here. They can be made very attractive and will [...]
Maybe one of the biggest surprises you’ll find in Detroit is the presence of a great bike culture. This is surprising for two main reasons: Detroit is the Motor City: a major part of your associations with Detroit deal with the auto industry here, and the impacts of the industry’s elite on transportation and infrastructure [...]
American Legacy Tours – located at 1218 Vine Street in Cincinnati’s historic Over the Rhine (OTR) – has continued to gain popularity, media attention and distinction since their opening in 2008. The company, founded by a small group of friends, offers a diverse range of engaging walking tours through Cincinnati Heritage, legend and folklore. These [...]
The city of Lincoln, Nebraska has strived to become a top green community within the Midwest region. One way that Lincoln has successfully shifted toward sustainable thinking is through its implementation of the Cleaner, Greener Lincoln Initiative. The Cleaner, Greener Lincoln Initiative has encouraged “green” living within the city of Lincoln and has been implemented [...]
The summer of 2012 saw a drastic uptick in the number of shootings and murders across the city of Chicago, Illinois. While many metropolitan areas, including New York City, have been experiencing historic lows in their homicide and violent crime rates, Chicago saw 532 murders last year, a number higher than troop killings in Afghanistan. [...]
