Cheap labour is good, but free labour is even better. With the emergence of ever evolving social media platforms, many of the world’s industries are formulating creatively inexpensive strategies for optimal gain. However, when it comes to the tourism industry, the utilisation of platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are either non existent or tepidly innovative. [...]
CityCamp events are considered by many urban enthusiasts around the world as one of the best opportunities to meet different actors that work for the improvement of urban space. CityCamp evolved from its Buenos Aires edition into a larger, open-sourced community focused on promoting an exchange of experiences and establishing guidelines for coordinated work between [...]
Gonzaga University (GU) has been in the same location across the river from downtown Spokane since its opening in 1887. GU is within a 20-minute walk from downtown, and maintains a balanced mix of park-like campus setting with just a few urban touches thrown in. Gonzaga University has grown and evolved with the city, and [...]
Does the design of your environment, the man-made structures and infrastructure that permeate nearly every aspect of your life, influence behavior directly related to your personal health? The government of Kane County, Illinois thinks that it does, as this is evident from their new comprehensive plan, the “Kane County 2040 Plan: Healthy People, Healthy Living, [...]
In a European Capital, one imagines that people from all demographics would be entitled to contemporary resources and basic services. However, in the Southern European country of Macedonia around ten percent of the capital’s population consists of a Roma community that is practically economically and socially excluded from the first world. The Romans have origins that [...]
Xintiandi was once a quiet residential neighbourhood located in a rapidly developing inner city district in Shanghai, China. Between 1999 and 2001, however, the area underwent a massive redevelopment project. It involved the displacement of 25,000 households and 800 work units, including 3,800 households and 156 workplaces in just 43 days. This was done in [...]
Let’s begin with a bit of word association. When you hear “Honolulu,” you probably imagine palm trees gently swaying in the wind along sunny beaches abutting the clear, cool ocean. While Honolulu is renowned for its lovely beaches and, of course, the famed Mai Tai, it is also notorious for its traffic. Bleary-eyed commuters are often at [...]
Affordable housing is scarce in the city of San Francisco. Low-income residents and students a-like struggle to get by in a city that is so full of opportunity, yet so economically biased. One viable option towards solving this crisis is utilizing secondary dwelling units, aka “in-law units,” as a way to provide living opportunities that [...]
The new regulatory master plan for the metropolitan area of Athens/Attica 2021 is a ten-year plan of interventions and urban policies founded on the basis of three major pillars – Economy, Society and Environment, while complying with the European directives for cities with compactness. On the other hand, during the last three years, under the [...]
Ultimately, the real strength of The BLDGBLOG Book is Geoff Manaugh’s skills as a compelling storyteller. As Manaugh delves into the world of Landscape Futures in the fifth and final chapter of his book, the reader is simultaneously immersed in the floating canal city of London A.D. 2109 and in the Cloud City that hovers [...]
The main slogan for this past August 29, 2012 event was “Towards the Buenos Aires of 2030;” and for now Megaciudades is the most important conference regarding Urban Planning and Sustainability taking place in the city on an annual basis. In its third year, the event was organized by the German-Argentine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, [...]
When a city is selected to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, it undertakes a great responsibility to accommodate athletes and their teams, as well as thousands of people at appropriate infrastructures. Athens, Greece hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2004. It was an event undoubtedly well-organized and appreciated globally. The total cost of [...]
Completing my semester-long stint in the Netherlands also means saying goodbye to The Grid. Writing here has helped me to navigate and distill the sometimes-complicated experience of living and participating in a new social and urban context; for this I am grateful. A blog can be a sounding board for a writer, an opportunity to [...]
In 2012 Pennsylvania passed Act 13, an act which mandated that local governments must allow drilling in all zoning districts and cannot ban or restrict gas development. Act 13 limits local government control and allows only individuals who own land and mineral rights in counties to participate in drilling decisions that will affect their communities. [...]
In Spokane, WA, the hot button topic of the moment is something that affects everywhere from rural Wyoming and Montana, to the US/Canadian border city of Bellingham, WA,, to China: coal shipment. Essentially, the region is at least 3-5 years away from having a final environmental impact statement, let alone the approval for the port [...]
If the act of naming something validates its existence, the Dakota War of 1862 is overwrought with meaning. That same conflict, one that killed hundreds of whites as well as Native Americans, is variously referred to as Little Crow’s War, the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, the Sioux Uprising, the Dakota Uprising, the Dakota Conflict, and [...]
Whenever flying into developing Latin American cities, one cannot help but notice the characteristics of the peripheries of the city. The city may be fringed by informal dwellings where evidence of infrastructure trails off as you peer further away from the city centre. Equally, it may be located within a valley where an agglomeration of [...]
In September, two coal-burning power plants on the Southwest side of Chicago closed down operations, leaving the nearby communities with the pressing question of how best to re-use the combined 132 acres. The Fisk and Crawford coal plants have been decommissioned by their owner Midwest Generation in response to increasing pressure from community groups and [...]
Crafted to accommodate world-class artistic performances facilitated to the highest acoustic standards “Democracy is a necessary kind of compromise.” …”To create ‘democratic air’ is kind of a contradiction, because art has to be free.” … “A symbiotic result is a good compromise.” – Jan Christiansen, City Architect of Copenhagen Architecture is seductively scaled to its [...]
For over a decade, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has given professionals and students in architecture, landscape, and urban design the opportunity to compete across multiple categories for the annual CNU Charter Awards. The Charter Awards honor a select number of winners, honorable mentions, and two grand prize winners: one professional and one [...]
