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. [...]
The Phoenix Metro area has seen a steady increase in ridership on the Valley Metro Light Rail.The surge in riders to almost 50,000 a day has prompted Phoenix Metropolitan area policymakers to accelerate the engineering, design, and completion of extensions, in some cases by seven years. Phoenix has made a valiant effort to provide access [...]
For a city of nearly 180,000, Kelowna, Canada boasts one of the most extensive bike networks in the country. Spread across the city are over 300 kilometres of bike lanes, multi-use paths, and greenways. Infrastructure projects such as the Mission Creek Greenway and Rails with Trails corridor show Kelowna’s dedication to encouraging cycling as a [...]
Spokane, Washington is proud of its enormous waterfalls smack dab in the middle of the urban core, surrounded by Riverfront Park. It’s the only park in Spokane that encourages non-park uses such as movie watching at an almost 50-year-old originalwrap-around style IMAX theatre, riding classic amusement park rides like the tilt-a-whirl and ferris wheel, and [...]
As part of a $2.1 billion Regional Transportation Plan, the modern streetcar project in Tucson, Arizona costs an estimated $196.8 million. The project was approved by Pima County voters in May 2006, and is currently under construction. The 3.9 miles long streetcar line connects the city’s major activity centers including the University of Arizona, Downtown [...]
Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), also known as a tourism tax, bed tax, or hotel tax, is a tax levied on tourists in return for the use of local services and infrastructure. The tax is collected as a percentage on top of the cost for a hotel room, camping site, or other transient facility. In tourist-based [...]
There is a strong paradigm shift in the literature recently, on how rural development and urban development affect one another. The conventional wisdom of the last three decades suggests that urban and rural developments are separate and compete with each other for resources. However, a closer looks reveals that this is far from the truth. [...]
The subway system in New York City is one of the most extensive public transit systems in the world. Nonetheless, the number of people living, working, and traveling through the East Side has been steadily increasing since the 1940’s and the Lexington Avenue Line (4, 5, and 6 trains) is now operating beyond its capacity. [...]
As a Cornellian, I was very excited back in December to hear about Cornell University’s winning bid to construct a technology and engineering campus in New York City (NYC). NYC will provide 10 acres of land on Roosevelt Island and $100 million in infrastructure improvements for the campus, which will exemplify the cutting edge of [...]
The Downtown Ithaca Alliance has released the Downtown Ithaca 2020 Strategic Plan, which seeks to revitalize Ithaca, New York’s downtown business district and reposition the Ithaca Commons as a sustainable transit-oriented development (TOD) by upzoning the downtown area, adding more housing, and redesigning the Commons itself based on plans from the urban design and architecture [...]
Two weeks ago, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) Board voted to award a nearly $130 million dollar contract to ACS Transport Solutions Group to install a modernized fare system for Philadelphia’s public transportation infrastructure. The move is seen largely as a response to the city’s “outdated” fare collection system, reliant heavily on tokens and [...]
The discussion of alternative modes of transportation has pervaded comprehensive planning as we strive to create more sustainable communities. Bikeable, walkable communities, improve health, increase civic participation, reduce carbon emissions, and much more. Alternative transportation has become more important to us. Cutting edge websites that calculate the walkability of places now allow us to compare [...]
Less about urban planning and more about the forgotten interstitial margins created by architecture, this article links scattered reports about fishing in basements beneath New York City with the cisterns of Istanbul, the home of Global Site Plans’ principal, Renée van Staveren. Istanbul is home to several hundred ancient cisterns that, when built during the [...]
As technology becomes increasingly mobile, city residents are constantly in demand for information on the go. But aside from their desire to Facebook and tweet anywhere, anytime, users are looking for ways to improve their commute, quicken their pace, and reach their destination faster. Public agencies and private developers have responded to the call, creating [...]
