After a bit of deliberation, I decided to include my Friday 5 posts that I use to highlight some of the most interesting articles and posts I’ve read over the past week as part of the 28 Day Challenge.  I deliberated because it really isn’t creating ‘new material’.  I finally decided think that the act of whittling down the 1000+ articles I read each week to five is in and of itself an art, and I hope that the brief commentary provides some insight into why I selected the articles, and in turn a better understanding of where I’m coming from in my other posts.  (If you want more, you can follow my shared items on Google Reader.)

• 

  A Tale of Two Cities: The Vancouver you see, and the one you don’t: if you follow the Winter Olympics at all, you’ll be hearing a lot about Vancouver over the next two weeks.  Alas, much of it will be facile sound bites targeted at would be tourists.  This article goes beneath these cliché’s to take a deeper look, Here’s hoping that it will give you a deeper appreciation of the city I once called home (and that will always have a special place in my heart).

• For the life between buildings – some notes on the iPad: A unique take on the iPad, and one that merges my passion for public space with my love of all things Apple. The author makes a compelling case of the iPad as a ‘third product’ (between the iPhone and the MacBook) as the perfect tools for ‘third places’ (between the home and the workplace).

• Why Do So Many People Do Such Stupid Things? A quick looks at the psychology behind why we make the choices they do, even when they end up hurting not only ourselves but society in the long run.

• Racking up Support: Following last weeks Critical Mass bike ride through the streets of central Phoenix, I‘ve been pondering how we can promote cycling as a valid form of transportation in the city.  After all we are flat, have casual ‘dress codes’ and have the perfect climate for cycling (at least 9 months out of the year; even in the summer bikes provide ‘built-in air-conditioning). This article looks at an often overlooked way to help increase cycling in a city.

• The Olympics and the City: Another Vancouver Olympic related article—hey, it’s not every day you ‘hometown’ plays host to the world! This one looks at how Vancouver met the many challenges of hosting the Olympics and how it used the opportunities as a lab for cutting-edge urban policy.

This is day 4 in my 28 Day Blogging Challenge. 24 more to go.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Winter Olympics LIVE: 2010 Vancouver Games On Twitter (huffingtonpost.com)
• Concord Place – Where our community and the world will come and play (newswire.ca)
• Review: iPhone Winter Olympics guides (macworld.com)