April 2011
29 posts
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Reading the Evolution of Places | Sustainable... →
This essay is a virtual collaboration with Ana Maria Manzo, a Valencia, Venezuela architect who frequently writes in English and Spanish at the place of dreams and el lugar de los sueños, respectively. Although we have not met, we were compelled — by shared and determined optimism during a time of upheaval in certain world regions — to combine perspectives on how best to read...
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Gordon Price on Why Cities Matter →
A new site called – Citytank asked for short essays on why cities matter. I really like the response by Gordon Price, a former Vancouver city councillour and urbanist, about the hope and future of the suburbs (it also fits with the ideas expressed in my recent blog post). Here is his…
thiscitylife:
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By the City/For the City - Urban Design Week 2011 →
From April 11-30, we’re gathering up your ideas: from improving local parks and streets all the way up to rethinking whole systems, like transit and trash disposal. You can explore, discuss, and debate everyone’s ideas right here. In May, we’ll rally urban designers around the world to imagine the future of New York City based on your suggestions.
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Blue Urbanism: The City and the Ocean
Florida State University researchers sample water near the Deepwater Horizon spill in June 2010. [Photo by Dr. Oscar Garcia via Flickr] On April 20, 2010 — one year ago this week — the Deepwater Horizon, a massive drilling rig operated by BP off the southeast coast of Louisiana, exploded, opening a sea-floor gusher that began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The disaster that unfolded —...
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The most vital element for the future of our cities is that the bicycle is an...
– - Kasey Klimes, The Real Reason Why Bicycles are the Key to Better Cities
via underpaidgenius
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110 readings on smart cities →
I have just completed a series of posts about the smart city reviewing the most significant elements: the conceptual confusion between its energy and environmental management approach and issues related to digital apps and data, the role big companies are playing to market their urban technological solutions, new urban developments that are self-proclaimed smart city, the ability of these...
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Will London’s New Wayfinding System Get More... →
If you’ve walked through Covent Garden, Southbank or Oxford Street recently, the chances are you will have stumbled across the funky new Legible London pedestrian signs installed by Transport for London (TfL). These sleek, stylish ‘monoliths’ have been sprouting up all over the capital during the last year.
Each monolith is strategically placed and has:
An easy-to-read map that is...
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CITY BREATHS: Store Front: New York's Disappearing... →
citybreaths:
Ideal Hoisery, Grand Street at Ludlow, Manhattan (2004) Great article at Brainpickings about the displacement that comes with gentrification. In Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, photographer duo James and Karla Murray bring the same lens of retrostalgia to New…
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15 Beautiful and Informative Urban Planning... →
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Awesome "guerrilla urbanism" ideas for... →
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Edmonton is among the smartest cities in the world when it comes to the...
– Edmonton Wins in IBM “Smarter Cities Challenge” :: City of Edmonton (via mastermaq)
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Five Benefits of the Crowd-Sourced City →
With the rise of affordable consumer electronics and the explosion of the information age, the gap between professionals and amateurs has narrowed. In nearly every sector, the average Joe may have ideas and talents that are as good — or better — than those of the “powers that be.” When professionals give an open call to an undefined crowd, opening up policies and plans to receive their ideas...
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Short film by the Congress of New Urbanism, an advocacy group for more pedestrian friendly neighborhoods and diversity of housing types, highlighting instances where highways have decreased quality of life and property values for communities, and removing them vastly improved, well, everything. I would say, they do have a point - unless you’re travelling interstate, highways don’t always speed...
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Urban + Relations: Neighborhoods Go Green: Scaling... →
eastlakeview:
Today, the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) “Neighborhoods Go Green! Scaling up Sustainability” exhibit opened in Washington, DC. The exhibit uses LEED for Neighborhood Development as a framework to explore the key elements of a sustainable community. Co-curated by USGBC, the…