Cities are starting to see the thousands of miles of alleyways that line the backside of homes and buildings in a new light. Rather than dismissing them as dark, dank and often dangerous spots used mainly for trash pickup and garage access, they’re treating them as valuable real estate that can help the environment and improve city life.
Popularity: 36% [?]
After four decades of false starts, Mr. Chan, a 67-year-old engineer, is supervising an army of workers operating 60 gargantuan tunneling machines beneath this metropolis in southeastern China. They are building one of the world’s largest and most advanced subway systems.
The question is whether the burrowing machines can outrace China’s growing love affair with the automobile — car sales have soared ninefold since 2000. Or are a hundred Los Angeleses destined to bloom?
Popularity: 20% [?]
The country has fallen on hard times, but those of us who love cities know we have been living in the dark ages for a while now. We know that turning things around will take more than just pouring money into shovel-ready projects, regardless of how they might boost the economy. Windmills won’t do it either. We long for a bold urban vision.
Popularity: 38% [?]
Harvard’s massive expansion into Allston has had to be slowed down, in part because of the slowing economy. Many in the neighborhood worry that means they’ll be left with a barren landscape for way too long, instead of the mixed use development Harvard has promised. Meanwhile, in another part of the neighborhood, Boston College is battling some of its neighbors over plans to expand on the former Archdiocese Headquarters Campus.
Popularity: 30% [?]
To most, the ring of hammer on nail as shop windows are boarded up on Britain’s struggling high streets can only mean unemployment and decline. But for a growing band of optimists, it heralds a golden opportunity.
Artists and curators have begun colonising “slack space” freed up by the recession and are transforming vacant shops into “creative squats”, galleries and studios.
Popularity: 21% [?]
The mood toward public-private partnerships in Michigan does seem to be changing. The state held its inaugural PPP summit in September 2008. Attendees at the Detroit meeting included representatives from the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 324 and private-equity firm Macquarie Capital. And at the end of last year, Michigan set up its first office of public-private partnerships.
Popularity: 13% [?]
What kind of urbanism will President Obama’s stimulus billions buy? For an emerging generation of activist designers, the future of the American city lies not in top-down master plans, but in a fine-grained analysis of the existing fabric.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Urban transportation: What are we going to do about it? Fewer cars? More mass transit? More bikes? Fuel taxes?
It’s tempting to try solving transportation problems with more transportation. The sight of rush hour traffic jams in cities, or the experience of riding an overcrowded bus or train, suggest the need for increased transit capacity. As a short term solution, that may indeed be the best remedy. In the long run, however, it’s more like supplementing a junk food diet with a few healthy snacks.
Popularity: 27% [?]
This is a big question – for which there are no easy answers. Some cities are quite resilient: places like NY or London seem to be able to remake themselves seamlessly for new economic times. Others falter and never bounce back. But reading stories this weekend on two of my favorite cities - Pittsburgh, where I lived for nearly two decades, and Detroit, where my wife Rana’s family lives and where we visit often – got me thinking.
Popularity: 10% [?]
“Once we accept that our cities will not be like the cities of the past, it will become possible to see what they might become.” Witold Rybczynski, City Life.
When he wrote those words in 1995, Rybczynski was actually “glimpsing the urban future,” and seeing it as a low-density and low-rise city, amorphous and sprawling, completely reliant on the car, decentralized. And, sadly, that is the city we live in today.
But in another way, Rybczynski was right. The city of the recent past, the 20th century auto dominated sprawling city, whose infrastructure alone we can no longer afford to maintain, is a failure, and obsolete.
Popularity: 8% [?]