Friday 5 - Yurbanism

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists

My weekly curation of news and views for urbanists:

A Bicycle made of Lego. (Click on image for link)

The Value of Transportation Enhancements; Or, Are Walking and Cycling Really Transportation? An important current policy debate concerns whether the next U.S. federal surface transportation reauthorization should require spending on “enhancements,” which finance projects such as walkways, bike paths, highway landscaping and historic preservation. (Planetizen)

Planned Communities Are People, Too: The future of planned communities will involve lessons learned by the industry’s greenfield pioneers that can be applied to smaller, denser, and more complex projects in the urban core and inner ring. (Urban Land Institute)

The Canadian Government’s New Web 2.0 Guidelines: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly: For those uninterested in reading the 31 page, 12,055 word guidelines document here’s a review (David Eaves)

The Lure of the City—A Review by Edwin Heathcote: This collection of essays edited by Austin Williams and Alastair Donald mounts a defence of life in urban space. (Financial Times)

Building diverse communities: ‘Ethnic enclaves’ are raising concern all over the world, but can they be good for a city? (Calgary Herald)

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists [October 15th-21st]

Here is this week’s selection of news and views for urbanists:

It Takes a Village to Raise a City: Redevelopment in existing communities requires communication, co-operation and consultation to find common ground. ( Open File Calgary)

calgary%20redevelopmentjpg Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists [October 15th 21st]

Photo by C Law via flickr

How Cities Should Work: The director of “Urbanized” talks about the universal issues cities face and how Twitter is changing filmmaking. (Imprint – Salon)

How Europe Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Skyscraper: Although, the growth pattern of tall buildings is a bit different, European cities aren’t short anymore! (Forbes)

As America Ages, NIMBYism Could Increase: Surveys show older people are more likely to actively oppose new development (Atlantic Cities)

Rereading: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs: Jane Jacobs’s book captures not just the rich density of urban life, but the craft of fiction. (The Guardian)

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists [September 3rd-9th]

Here is this weeks slate of articles for urbanists. It seems that kids weren’t the only ones going back to school this week. journalists and bloggers also picked up their game! It was really hard to keep it to just 5 this week.

Photography: Josie Withers | via Broadsheet Melbourne

A Dispatch from the World’s Most Liveable City: Melbourne, Vancouver, and the social benefits of an undefined identity. (Broadsheet Melbourne)

A cultural civics lesson: In order to change today’s gridlocked public dialogue, Gregory Rodriguez suggests skipping the town hall for the concert hall. (LA Times)

Reconsidering the City Since 9/11:An important lesson we can take from the history of 9/11 is that towns and cities are resilient. (Planetizen)

People Are Pedestrians By Design: People’s bodies and minds are designed to participate in a pedestrian lifestyle. (DenverUrbanism)

Demographics as Destiny: The new demographics are found in two generations deeply influenced by suburbia.

What was your favourite article this week? Please let me know in the comments.

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Friday 5: Long Weekend Reading for Urbanists

This week’s news and views for urbanists:

Where is the Center of a City? By blowing Google’s red markers up to “life-size” and physically planting them in real places, German artist Aram Bartholl brings attention to the blurring between real and virtual space. (Architizer)

MIT’s Place Pulse: A “Hot Or Not” For Cities, To Fix Broken Blocks: A website uses crowdsourcing to convert people’s perceptions of streets into a quantitative benchmark for measuring fuzzy qualities like how safe, rich, and unique a city feels. (FastCo Design)

A Vision of How People Should Live, From Desert Revelers to Urbanites: Rod Garrett, who laid out Burning Man, the annual festival of self-expression in Nevada, drew accolades for his approach. (New York Times)

How garage & basement apartments help people, neighborhoods and the environment: One of the best ways to accommodate growth (as we must) without either exacerbating sprawl or disturbing the character of existing communities is by using so-called “accessory units.” (NDRC Switchboard)

Pop-up placemaking and next gen urban neighborhoods: If there ever was a time to experiment with forward-thinking placemaking, the time is now. ‘Pop-up’ placemaking allows just that by enabling allow cities to try out innovative placemaking without much if any taxpayer commitment. (Cooltown Studios)

Hope you have a great long weekend!

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Friday 5: Scientific American on Cities

The week, I’m bringing you a special edition of my Friday 5. The award-winning magazine Scientific American has recently public a special edition on cities. The magazine believes that the city is a solution to the problems of our age. With this in mind, this issue of topical articles focuses on how cities can become better, greener and smarter.

While you will need to buy a hard copy from your favorite magazine dealer to get the full content, the magazine has published several web exclusives. Here are 5 of my favourite:

The Smartest Cities Will Use People as Their Sensors: [Video Essay] By networking people and their gadgets, urban apps will tell inhabitants what is happening all around them, in real-time.

Case Studies on Urban Revitalization: Economist Edward Glaeser explains why some U.S. metropolises have bounced back from adversity–and why others will not.

Bold Solutions Make Real Cities More Efficient: [Interactive] Municipalities worldwide are introducing a host of creative solutions to cut energy consumption, water use, waste and emissions, while also making it easier for people to get around.

Making Cities Better: Answers from The Scientific American Survey: Walkable metropolises and health clubs would improve the experience of living in urban areas.

Cities in Fact and Fiction: An Interview with William Gibson: Author of the cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, William Gibson talks about the relationship between his fiction and the contemporary urban landscape.

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists [Aug 13th -19th]

Here is this week’s installment of news and views for urbanists:

Micro-Participation Connects Citizens to Their Governments: The idea is to fit civic activity and involvement into the everyday lives of the public, resulting in more small ways to collaborate and communicate. (Shareable)

Remaking Government in a Wiki Age: If we could figure out how to make government as effective as Google, ideological differences and disputes between vested interests would matter a lot less. (New York Times)

Hunter-Gatherers Show Human Populations Are Hardwired for Density: Though their societies have changed over the millennia, studying characteristics of present-day hunter-gatherers can let us peer into the past. (Scientific American)

The City Of The Future Is Already Here: The future may seem far away and out of reach, but we’re already experiencing many of the benefits of technological advances that will make our cities livable and sustainable homes. You just have to know where to look. (Fast Company)

The Exposed City—A Brief History of Mapping the Urban Invisibles: From Ptolemy to MIT, or what Edward Tufte has to do with Google Earth and the future of understanding cities. (Brain Pickings)

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists [July 30th-Aug 5th]

Here is my weekly installment of news and views for urbanists:

Tech And The City: The digitization and dispersion of the public-participation process is in such demand that some cities have created positions for technology chiefs to oversee the systems that connect the government to its people. (design mind)

The Revival of Mental Maps: Combining an age-old process with today’s technical tools. (Engaging Cities)

Transformative Social Change and Historical Urban Innovations: Past urban innovations can offer inspiration and guidance for present-day and future changes. (This Big City)

Letting go of the suburban dream: Vancouver journalist Franca Temolo-Jones and her family gave up a lot of square footage, a lot of stuff, and a brutal commute. She finds it incredibly liberating.” (Globe and Mail)

NIMBY Nation: Mad as hell and I don’t blame ‘em. For now: If you’re really about community improvement and not just about snark, you have to look at not just the what but the why. Why have NIMBYs increasingly developed an opposition to everything? (Placeshakers and Newsmakers)

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists [July 23rd-29th]

Here is this week’s installment of news and views for urbanists:

Public Space Trading Cards: A novel way of getting children interested in public spaces. (Engaging Cities)

Developers Give Gen Y What They Want: Demand for apartments is accelerating. This trend is expected to continue over the next decade, thanks to Gen Y coming of age and entering the rental market. (Urban Land Institute)

How to grow a Garden City: A book by Andrés Duany offers a blueprint for what he calls the development tool of the future: Agrarian Urbanism. (New Urban Network)

Why the U.S. Government Should Embrace Smart Cities: American cities lag behind their global economic competitors when it comes to applying innovation to improve infrastructure. Here’s how they can catch up. (Brookings)

Promising Magic, Delivering Results: What does it mean when a Planning Director of a small town promises “magic”? (Orton Family Foundation)

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Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists

Here’s my weekly selection of news and views for urbanists:

Playing Games with the Urban Landscape: In parts of the world, urban environments are being transformed into play-scapes, sites for new creative expression, exercise, or games. (The Dirt)

How the Great Reset Has Already Changed America: In the wake of the recession, cities and suburbs are being knit into giant city-states, with millions of people and billions—even trillions—of dollars of business. (The Atlantic)

The Enabling City: As cities grapple with social, financial and environmental issues of tremendous magnitude, a new approach to urbanism is emerging, based on the concept of enablement, whereby governments create favorable conditions for local actors to mobilize around a cause. (Next American City)

Open Source Urbanism: Saskia Sassen proposes that urbanizing technology can can allow people to better “talk back” to cities and make user-driven change. (Domus)

3 Simple Ways Tech Can Grow Greener Cities: We don’t need to go that far to make our cities much more energy-efficient. Urban planner Peter Calthorpe discusses the ways tech can improve the quality of life in your city. (Mashable)

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Friday 5: Canada Day Edition

In honor of Canada Day, this week’s edition of news and views for urbanists focuses on Canadian cities:

Which cities are the most “Canadian”? Check the Canuck Index: Canadians in towns and cities across the country are celebrating Canada Day. But which of those towns is the most Canadian? Which is just busting at the seams with Canuckiness? (CBC)

Celebrating Montreal Moving Day…Since 1750: Newcomers to Montreal often remark that July 1st Moving Day rush is nonsensical. But this tradition is rooted in 260 years of advocacy for tenants’ rights. (Spacing Montreal)

‘An exercise in place-making’ It’s a rare opportunity for any architect to plan a whole community from scratch… [a]nd it’s a rare thing in Vancouver to have so much undeveloped waterfront land to work with.(Globe and Mail)

Home prices and politicians: Homeowners need to press those running for office for solutions to the region’s housing affordability challenge. (Vancouver Sun)

Ken Greenberg Built This City on Walks, Not Sprawl: Walk around Toronto and you’ll see evidence of Ken Greenberg‘s efforts to make Toronto a more livable place. (Torontoist)

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