“Rather than being guided, as it should be, by natural systems or human needs, the quality and placement of growth in our regions is largely dependent on the car.“-Peter Calthorpe The newly adopted Austin, Texas city plan, appropriately titled the “Imagine Austin” plan, envisions a less congested and more sustainable city. It turns the conversation [...]
The new wave in social media communication is quickly creating a method for discussing topics relating to urban planning, architecture, and community development. The social media site Twitter is leading the charge in this evolution by creating a way for people from around the world to gather in one centralized location to discuss and solve various [...]
“The water in itself adds quality to this city”, Kim Herforth Nielsen, 3XN The United Nations committee reaches worldwide, currently covering 193 member states. Its foundations were set following the end of the Second World War, when 51 countries committed to invest their power in the welfare organization. The declaration formulated in the Millenium Summit [...]
A big Global Site Plans welcome to our newest blogger, Courtney McLaughlin from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Courtney McLaughlin is completing her undergraduate degree in Communication Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. An avid traveler, her interests are public space modification in Canadian cities and sustainable urban planning. As an aspiring landscape [...]
The connected metro-regions of Minneapolis and St. Paul, in Minnesota, are at the forefront of brownfield remediation. The Twin Cities exhibit several exemplary projects that demonstrate the positive reception of toxic sites converted to public space. Urban planners, environmental lawyers, state agencies, and landscape architects each have major roles in this transformative process. Brownfield remediation [...]
If there’s one thing The Grid’s bloggers are passionate about, it’s putting people back into the urban equation. One example of this ideology is the push for pedestrian-friendly communities. We have explored car-free towns, lamented the “National Automobile Slum,” and pondered Neotraditionalist and New Urbanist design. But how can your community achieve a vivacious streetscape? [...]
Many communities go to great extremes to revitalize their cities, like destroying abandoned homes within a one mile radius, or by developing high-speed rails along the center of a neighborhood. However, what has become clear is that most future redevelopment within a city usually involves some sort of urban renewal. Thus, urban renewal is considered [...]
View over Carlsberg. Entasis Architects‘ original urban renewal proposal The whimsical financial crisis did not prevent cities like Copenhagen from enhancing their strategies for urban development and preserving their ideal for social sustainability. Responsible decisions focused on revitalizing the urban fiber. To tackle the problem of increased demand for housing units, the city stretched its [...]
In 2011, Ford closed their 122-acre St. Paul, Minnesota plant after 86 years of production. The community has developed around the plant and Ford’s impact on the area is a fixture of this cultural landscape. The closure of automotive plants in the US is not a new phenomenon: In the last 33 years, 267 of [...]
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, new design guidelines are being recognized to preserve the context and character of the historic heart of the city. Following an extensive public hearing period and intensive research, these guidelines express value systems surrounding such notions as streetscape, access to the Mississippi River, potential archaeological remains, views, and the historic integrity of [...]
The overall goal of any riverfront plan is to create river accessibility that becomes a major resource to the community; by linking it to nearby communities so that both residents and tourist can enjoy it. While many communities have a neighboring river as a potential asset to their community, most local governments are unable to [...]
The Øresund Strait links the two nations through an underwater tunnel, an artificial island and a bridge structure, totaling 8km of rail and road. There lies the Øresund region, the northern European territory around the Baltic Sea covering the southern Sweden and eastern Denmark, the most densely populated area in Scandinavia, housing 3.7 million citizens. It [...]
At the corner of 6th Avenue and Toole Avenue in Tucson, Arizona, you can find a 20-foot high kinetic sculpture, which is a butterfly with a 6 ½-foot wingspan. This fancy public art, created by Bevel Butterfly Company, is a highlight of the Tucson Warehouse Art District; it is a newly completed, two-month old, installation. [...]
Beneath the myriad accolades and honors awarded to the city of Raleigh, exists its innovative and exceptionally accessible Raleigh Urban Design Center. This past summer, pools of Raleigh’s most engaged denizens sacrificed their lunch breaks for a higher cause; the city form. On five separate occasions, the Urban Design Center hosted one-hour civic discussions on [...]
Homelessness is by in large considered both a community problem and a national problem. It is an epidemic that affects millions of Americans nationwide every day. Beyond the political battle over how to resolve the homelessness epidemic, there lies a fundamental truth about the problem. That truth is that many decision makers simply don’t know [...]
“Whether we look closely or not, great art in public spaces improves our quality of life in Minneapolis every day,” said Mayor R.T. Rybak of the Minnesota Public Radio’s Sound Point project launched in 2011. Sound Point is an engagement of people and art, a dialogue between artist and viewer, and a multimedia experience inspired [...]
Istanbul, one of the oldest cities in the world, is often considered to be amongst the most beautiful ones. The city served as a capital for Byzantium, East Roman, and Ottoman Emperors, as well as the most popular for the Turkish Republic. All along, Istanbul’s seven hills, serpentine waterside, dark cypress trees, and vertically slender minarets break [...]
Classifying neighborhoods has always been more art than science. Despite an urban planner’s best intentions, the original vision of a few city blocks doesn’t always pan out. As populations tend toward urban living and countries invest money into the construction of new cities, it’s important to shift attention not just towards infrastructure, but community building [...]
When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the current government, Justice and Development Party (AKP), will undergo the biggest project of all times for Istanbul, aptly named “The Crazy Project” by Istanbulites, no one ever thought it would be an artificial sea-level waterway crossing through the entire European side of Istanbul, connecting the [...]
Outdated, poorly maintained, and critically disconnected from the streetscape and RiverWalk, COBO Center was well on its way to becoming Detroit’s largest white elephant. At risk of losing its contract for the North American International Auto Show, State and local government leaders arrived at an arrangement regarding the Center’s management and modification. Under the control [...]
