Friday 5: What I’ve found interesting during the past week

Five of the best articles and blog posts I’ve read over the past week.

• Curing Sprawlitis. How to fix fixing 50 years of urban sprawl. Provided a good overview of the policies that led us to our current situation, and recommendations only how to return to a more rational urban form. While the recommendations are directed at Lansing, MI, they will help to ‘cure’ any sprawling metropolis, including Phoenix.

Retail Districts for Creatives. Image from Cooltown Studios.

• The Opposite May Be True. A short, but intriguing video of ‘opposites’ and how much cultural assumptions guide our underdatnding of the world, even though the opposite may also be just as true.

• Retail district types for creatives. An interesting discussion on the differing retail preferences of the ‘creative class’.  Summary: more corner stores and neighborhood centers and less big boxes and regional centers (aka malls)

• What’s wrong with Dubai? An investigation into the design flaws that are plaguing Dubai. The key take away (that is also applicable to Phoenix): “All that Arab culture learned in a thousand years about adapting cities to great heat—high-ceilinged buildings along narrow streets which provide shade and short distances to walk outside—have been forgotten or ignored.”

• MacAlpine’s a Valley time machine. A fascinating historical review of a midtown Phoenix gem: MacAlpine’s Soda Fountain.

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