Like many of its Bay Area counterparts, Oakland, California is a city full of diverse neighborhoods, comprised of unique identities blending and interacting to form one of the region’s primary destinations. Temescal is one such example where you can see the local history while experiencing the recently emerged culinary and art scenes that have come [...]
Miami is a melting pot not only of cultures, ethnicities, and cuisine, but also of students, professionals, couples, families, retirees, and tourists. However, contemporary housing fails to represent this diverse population by developing only single-family homes and condos – leaving few options in-between. Miami is missing middle-density building types: townhouses, row houses, courtyard housing, live-work [...]
They say that when something is meant to be, you begin to see signs of it everywhere; life begins to push you in the direction you are supposed to go. I can certainly attest to this phenomenon in my experience with urban design. Once I discovered how strong my interest was in this field, I [...]
As in many cities, Montreal has a need to create neighborhoods in which residents are able to age in place. Many of Montreal’s suburban areas are places where families settle in, children grow up, and parents continue to live their lives until they become elderly. Unfortunately, this environment may become difficult to those entering old [...]
How does time and light affect our urban parks? During the day, Spokane, Washington’s Riverfront Park is filled with children and their parents on the giant “Radio Flyer” statue/playground equipment piece, cyclists and runners on the paved paths, elderly folks watching the geese in the Spokane River which runs through the middle of the park, [...]
In the course of the last decade, American river cities have sustained continued interest from policy makers and urban planners who have worked to create targeted opportunities for significant long-term investment and economic development. In Cincinnati, this reinvestment has received national attention in terms of how the city has been able to connect environmental design [...]
Melburnians pride themselves on their food culture, and they will go to any lengths to find good food. The city’s multicultural background, coupled with residents’ fascination with global gastronomy trends, has changed not only what city goers eat, but how neighbourhoods and streets are designed and function. Ethnic Restaurants in many established suburbs such as [...]
In rapidly developing and changing cities, creative spaces are often given low priority compared with other more lucrative ventures. In Shanghai, the art district of M50 has become an international creative cluster over the years. Located along the South banks of the Suzhou River just north of the city’s center, M50 is a collection of [...]
Is rapid transit a key factor to unleashing a city’s economic potential? A new report from accounting giant KPMG indicates that this is certainly the case for Vancouver, British Columbia’s Broadway Corridor. The Corridor is a ten-kilometer stretch of roadway that spans the length between historic Commercial Drive and the largest university in Vancouver, the [...]
Science centers matter because they encourage some of the most memorable out-of-classroom learning experiences both throughout and after childhood. The imagination has an opportunity to explore itself, and ideas have the opportunity to linger in these non-profit havens. No matter how large or small, entire regions flock to these venues with reason: with each visit, [...]
During the twilight of the 1880s, Cincinnati, OH, (the Queen City) was internationally celebrated as one of the most prolific centers for beer brewing in the United States. According to Michael D. Morgan, Author of Over the Rhine: When Beer was King, Cincinnati, during this pinnacle era, was chief among the Great American Brewing cities. The city [...]
Kalamazoo Public Schools is the school district neighboring the Portage Public School District that I graduated from. Portage is a suburb of Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the most awful definition of that word, a small town established in 1963 because of white-flight from the city of Kalamazoo. Substitute teachers in the area, for some reason, felt [...]
Early on a Saturday morning, the Kapiolani Community College (KCC) Farmers’ Market in Honolulu, Hawaii, bustles as patrons compete to purchase 100% Kona Coffee, locally made honey, and Hawaiian-grown produce and flowers. This market is only one of several Saturday markets on Oahu. Honolulu’s urbanites flock to farmers’ markets in scores and often patronize weekday [...]
The coverage that natural disasters receive usually only captures an audience for a few days. While the initial visuals may shock and distress the viewer, the fast media cycle means that the recovery that follows the disaster is observed by comparatively few. The Christchurch earthquakes of 2010-2011 certainly fit this model. 181 people died, thousands [...]
The Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART as it is commonly known, is an expansive public transit system in California’s San Francisco Bay Area that has a reputation for being unsafe. Transit police is not a concept unique to just this system, but the BART Police are a strong presence throughout the 44 different stations nevertheless. [...]
Vancouver, British Columbia consistently ranks as one of the “most livable“ cities in the world. However, what is frequently ignored about Canada’s most livable city are the multiple suburb municipalities that surround it. The Metro Vancouver region is composed of twenty-two municipalities and a population of just under two million people, many of whom work and [...]
New York City, above others, has defined itself through an evolving scholarship connected to its rapidly changing street life. This broad conception of street life has been widely debated and discussed from the standpoint of urban theorists and activists such as Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte, whose respective works, The Death and Life of [...]
Bertrand Goldberg’s iconic Marina City project has been a fixture of Chicago’s skyline for decades. The unique, futuristic, corncob-shaped towers, constructed using innovative concrete pouring techniques, represented a bold expression of design in the late 1950’s. As remarkable as Marina City is from a design perspective, a retrospective on Goldberg’s work at the Art Institute [...]
In a period of rapid urbanization, many cities are faced with the challenge of reconciling seemingly contradictory objectives. One of the most pressing of these challenges is the imperative to conserve valued and significant buildings and streetscapes of the past whilst providing the infrastructure for modern, efficient, and sustainable public transport. The experience of the [...]
The Twin Cities prides itself on its diversity. Unbeknownst to many, it is home to the largest Somali population in the U.S. In addition, it has the largest Hmong population outside Laos, the second-largest Vietnamese and Ethiopian populations, and one of the fastest-growing Latino/Hispanic populations in the country. The different cultures have helped shape the [...]
