The recession has hit public transit hard. Government funding is being slashed at all levels, and rising ridership isn’t bringing in enough revenue to keep systems running at full capacity. That’s got transit agencies cutting services or raising fares even as more people depend upon them. So it seems like an odd time for Baltimore to introduce a free bus system.
Popularity: 37% [?]
“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.
Popularity: 58% [?]
“Urbanization is a vital phase of development, and if managed well, it can be a key driver of long-term economic growth in a country,” said World Bank president Robert Zoellick as his agency announced its ten-year urban development strategy. This appraisal strikes me as aloof, given the out-of-control urbanization patterns in the global south that are causing what Mike Davis famously termed a “planet of slums.” Asia’s urban population will reach 2.6 billion by 2030, according to the UN. By then Africa’s cities will more than double in size to 740 million people and Latin America’s cities will have to meet the needs of 600 million. How, given these astonishing realities, do we curb the growth of the world’s informal settlements, now one billion residents strong? What can governments do to mitigate the “push effects” of economic despair in agrarian regions that force too many people willy-nilly into cities?
Popularity: 28% [?]
On a quiet inlet of the Queens waterfront, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed putting up athletes for the 2012 Olympics, land is being cleared for a series of parks that will be the front lawn for a large midpriced housing development.
Hunters Point South, to be built where the East River meets the Newtown Creek, kicked into gear in late December with the arrival of bulldozers. The 30-acre project, beginning with park and open space design, will eventually include 5,000 apartments and a ferry landing, said Joshua Wallack, who is managing the project for Robert C. Lieber, the deputy mayor for economic development.
Popularity: 38% [?]
The troubles of Detroit are well-publicized. Its economy is in free fall, people are streaming for the exits, it has the worst racial polarization and city-suburb divide in America, its government is feckless and corrupt (though I should hasten to add that new Mayor Bing seems like a basically good guy and we ought to give him a chance), and its civic boosters, even ones that are extremely knowledgeable, refuse to acknowledge the depth of the problems, instead ginning up stats and anecdotes to prove all is not so bad.
Popularity: 46% [?]
Over the past seven years, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has presided over a historic re-envisioning of New York City, one that loosened the reins on development across the boroughs and pushed more than 100 rezoning measures through a City Council that stamped them all into law.
His administration poured $16 billion into financing to foster commercial development and affordable housing and created quasi-local organizations to promote its initiatives and blunt neighborhood opposition.
And when the economy was burning white hot, as it did for several years, the mayor’s plan appeared to be bold and forward-looking, a prescient decision to remake portions of the city in order to lure companies, create jobs and increase economic vitality.
But that vitality is missing in some sections of New York today, where developments spurred in part by easy credit and in part by city initiatives are now stalled or in danger of collapse.
Popularity: 28% [?]
Some 120,000 people work in Tysons Corner, Va., but only 17,000 live there. To transform this hotbed of suburban gridlock into a green, walkable city, a soon-to-be-adopted plan-as envisioned by our artist-calls for as much as tripling the current square footage by expanding upward, with the tallest buildings located next to four new train stations, which should be completed by 2013.
Popularity: 66% [?]
The Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project transforms the tangle of urban infrastructure cutting through Long Island City from a harsh, disorienting industrial maze into a lush, navigable landscape, a gateway to Long Island City that organizes various flows and scales while providing a refuge for residents, workers and the road-weary. The urban and landscape design unites the surrounding neighborhoods and restores the connection between the city and the river. The project spans 1.3 miles, revitalizes JFK Park and connects it to the dramatic water’s edge below the Queensboro Bridge.
Popularity: 100% [?]
Portland’s future and its past intersect at 28th Avenue and East Burnside.
A hundred feet or so from an old red brick trolley barn — long since converted to offices — workers are constructing an eye-catching, four-story condo with ground-floor retail.
Popularity: 36% [?]
Last month, artists Michael Di Liberto and Sunia Boneham moved into a two-story, three-bedroom house in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood, where about 220 homes out of 5,000 sit vacant and boarded up. They lined their walls with Ms. Boneham’s large, neon-hued canvases, turned a spare bedroom into a graphic-design studio and made the attic a rehearsal space for their band, Arte Povera.
The couple used to live in New York, but they were drawn to Cleveland by cheap rent and the creative possibilities of a city in transition. “It seemed real alive and cool,” said Mr. Di Liberto.
Popularity: 28% [?]