Archive for Diversity
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% [?]
July 9, 2010 · Filed under Authenticity, Creative Cities, Diversity, Economics, Industrial, Revitalization, Waterfronts
Maybe Richard Florida has promoted the wrong creative class. In his model, artists beget coffee bars that make formerly dreary neighborhoods attractive to real estate developers, who lure lawyers and accountants into luxury loft buildings with names like “the Shoe Factory.” Maybe there’s another model, one that sucks a little of the class bias out of the formula and privileges artisans over artists, blue-collar jobs over white-collar ones. Give enough people who are passionate about making things the stability to invest in equipment and hire workers, and you might slow, or even reverse, the death spiral.
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Popularity: 31% [?]
June 15, 2010 · Filed under Authenticity, Big Box, Cities from Scratch, Diversity, Happiness, Master Planning, Pedestrians
If You Lived Here, You’d Be Urban By Now: The case against a “walkable urbanism” that is neither walkable nor urban.
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Popularity: 46% [?]
May 14, 2010 · Filed under Children, Diversity, Families, Grassroots, Happiness, Housing, Resilience, Social Networks
Imagine a community where you like your neighbours. You share meals and your children grow up together.
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Popularity: 39% [?]
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 Creative Cities, Diversity, Economics, Master Planning, Planning, Real Estate, Revitalization, Urban Structure
The forces shaping our cities today are not municipal agencies but private organizations such as park conservancies, downtown associations, historic-preservation societies, arts councils, advocacy groups, and urban universities. Entrepreneurship also plays an important role. In projects large and small, real estate developers have replaced city planners and bureaucrats as the chief players on the urban scene, restoring neighborhoods, attracting residents to downtowns, helping to create the amenities that keep them there.
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Popularity: 30% [?]
April 6, 2010 · Filed under Active Transportation, Authenticity, Beauty, Creative Cities, Cycling, Diversity, Great Streets, Happiness, Nature, Public Life, Social Justice, Social Networks, Uncategorized, Urban Design
Happiness itself is a commons to which everyone should have equal access.
That’s the view of Enrique Peñalosa, who is not a starry-eyed idealist given to abstract theorizing. He’s actually a politician, who served as mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, for three years, and now travels the world spreading a message about how to improve quality-of-life for everyone living in today’s cities.
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Popularity: 63% [?]
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% [?]
March 16, 2010 · Filed under Authenticity, Creative Cities, Diversity, Happiness, Retail, Zoning
The District of Tofino near Vancouver Canada wants to keep its unique charm by keeping out franchises like the golden arches, Starbucks and Tim Hortons. Council made a motion Tuesday directing staff to draft a bylaw that would ban franchises in Tofino utilizing a section of the official community plan which discourages future development and location of large-format retail chains and fast-food chains that do not reflect the character of Tofino, according to Coun. Stephen Ashton who proposed the motion.
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Popularity: 36% [?]
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