Archive for Density
July 16, 2010 · Filed under Active Transportation, Density, Diversity, Pedestrians, Real Estate
Jennifer and Andrew Greenberg didn’t fall in love at first sight with the 1950s ranch house they just bought in Portland, Ore. But they did feel that way about the neighborhood. They saw people out walking and noticed how close the house was to coffee shops and wooded paths. So they chose the home that needed more work over a comparably priced but more upscale option in another area. “When it came down to it, we weren’t willing to compromise on walkability,” says Ms. Greenberg, a 37-year-old event planner.
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Popularity: 28% [?]
May 14, 2010 · Filed under Creative Cities, Density, Economics, Planning, Shrinking Cities
“Are you moving poor people out of their houses?” a Detroit woman asks Jay Williams, mayor of Youngstown, at a recent symposium at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Williams was speaking about Youngstown 2010, a citywide plan adopted in 2005 that focuses on making Youngstown, a city east of Akron near the Pennsylvania border, relevant and alive. Youngstown’s population is shrinking, and downsizing, right-sizing, or whatever you want to call it, is a major component of the plan. The question of how to relocate people is huge. The thought of closing neighborhoods, cutting services and moving the widow Mrs. Jones out of the house she raised her children in touches a nerve.
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Popularity: 63% [?]
May 14, 2010 · Filed under Density, Economics, Traffic, Transit
In cities across the United States, you can find examples of “streetcar suburbs”—enclaves of mostly single-family homes built between the turn of the century and the 1930s. These are often good-looking, tree-lined places full of heterogeneous character and history, in many ways so different from contemporary suburban sprawl.
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Popularity: 36% [?]
May 4, 2010 · Filed under Architecture, Density, Diversity, Economics, Real Estate, Tall Buildings
Why in the world should there be a “proper density”? A good case can be made that cities succeed by offering a diverse menu of neighborhoods that cater to a wide range of tastes. Some people love Greenwich Village, and that’s great, but I was perfectly happy growing up in a 25-story tower, and I don’t see anything wrong with that, either.
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If you love cities, then you should want more people to be able to enjoy them, and that means embracing, not eschewing, densities over 200 units per acre.
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Popularity: 46% [?]
April 27, 2010 · Filed under Architecture, Density, Housing, Urban Design
There is no question that sustainable land use requires, among other things, neighborhood density. Smart growth based on walkable neighborhoods, transportation choices, nearby amenities and the accommodation of an increasingly diverse society is the only way we can limit per-capita impacts, and thus total impacts, to a manageable level.
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Popularity: 40% [?]
April 26, 2010 · Filed under Big Box, Density, Energy, Industrial, Multi-Level Urbanism
A large chunk of Kansas City’s real estate lies 100 feet below ground, and offers a creative solution to global warming.
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Popularity: 22% [?]
March 16, 2010 · Filed under Density, Diversity, EcoCities, Emergence, Health, Infrastructure, Investment, Parks, Resilience, Urban Agriculture
“Our beds are empty two-thirds of the time.
Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time.
Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time.
It’s time we gave this some thought.”
— R. Buckminster Fuller
That quote is 40 years old, but I continue to be amazed by the extent to which we haven’t begun to address the problem Fuller highlighted. There’s a staggering glut of empty space around the country right now, unused space that’s not doing anyone much good. That in itself isn’t new; what is unprecedented is our ability to visualize that data in an entirely new ways.
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Popularity: 54% [?]
March 16, 2010 · Filed under Density, Diversity, Economics, Gentrification, Master Planning, Planning, Real Estate, Revitalization, Tall Buildings, Urban Design, Urban Structure, Zoning
Manipulative developers, shrill protesters, and a sixteen-tower glass-and-steel monster marching inexorably forward. What the battle for the soul of Brooklyn looks like—from right next door.
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Popularity: 59% [?]
February 16, 2010 · Filed under Architecture, Density, Diversity, Information Design, Landscape, Legibility, Tall Buildings
At the newly unveiled Web site Shape Vancouver 2050, users are given a digital model of the Vancouver skyline, the ability to extrude buildings upwards, and a visual gauge of the resulting effects on the city’s downtown. As the user drags the digital towers higher and population density increases, meters at the bottom of the screen go up too—energy saved, carbon use curbed, dollars added to the city coffers.
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Popularity: 41% [?]
February 12, 2010 · Filed under Density, End of Cheap Oil, Energy, Infrastructure, Transit, Urban Design
Advanced community design models are emerging to provide some of the greatest opportunities for reducing fossil fuel use, climate-disrupting emissions and traffic congestion, while also offering affordable, high-quality lifestyles.
Envision living in a community that offers an abundance of local shopping, services and entertainment. The community is focused on a mobility center well connected to the region with transit and vanpools. The need to drive to work and other destinations is minimized. When you do drive, it is in an electric vehicle charged at your house or a fast charge station located in the mobility center park-and-ride.
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Popularity: 40% [?]
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