Open Cities: New Media’s Role in Shaping Urban Policy was a two-day conference, produced by Next American City and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, that united new media and urban policy’s top thinkers and practitioners. Through a series of panel discussions, presentations and networking opportunities, this conference will discuss new media’s strategies for dealing with a variety of challenges — such as how to build an engaged urban citizenry, best utilize municipal data and develop cost-saving technologies or networks to improve cities. For more about the conference, click here.
With all the recent, remarkable livable streets improvements to the streets of New York City, it’s no surprise the 10th annual, Walk21 Conference chose us for its host digs. Visitors and attendees were treated to a cornucopia of pedestrian street infrastructure to salivate over and debate; including tours of the recently opened High Line to a special visit to the soon-to-be-restored High Bridge. Featuring a plethora of speakers, design charrettes and walking workshops, the three-day event drew experts from the UK, Austria, Canada, Japan, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Italy, and Australia, just to name a few.
Who says social networks make place irrelevant? Communication designer Sidney Blank begs to differ as he presents STACKD, a new site that helps people in Manhattan office buildings get in touch – for business or beers. In so doing, his project connects such themes as excess capacity, the spatial and local implications of social media and the singular opportunities presented by Manhattan’s built environment. What’s more, STACKD just might provide a powerful tool for architects, planners, developers and even management consultants to interpret how we use space and how we can use it more flexibly and more efficiently.
When politicians and the media mention Main Street, they evoke one people and one place. But there are over 10,466 streets named Main in the United States.
In Southern California, waiting lists are nothing new. Residents are willing to bide their time for schools, for housing, and now for dirt.
Los Angeles County has nearly 3,800 plots in 60 public community gardens, but nearly all have waiting lists. Eight acres in Long Beach accommodate 308 gardeners, but volunteer coordinator Lonnie Brundage says the waiting list has been capped at 85 — and she still she receives about 30 phone calls a week from residents eager to dig in.
Will Allen, a farmer of Bunyonesque proportions, ascended a berm of wood chips and brewer’s mash and gently probed it with a pitchfork. “Look at this,” he said, pleased with the treasure he unearthed. A writhing mass of red worms dangled from his tines. He bent over, raked another section with his fingers and palmed a few beauties.
This summer, residents in Chicago and the surrounding region will be asked to plan for their own future, thanks to a collaboration between the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and a real-life version of SimCity, known as MetroQuest.
Urban Agriculture is at a pivotal point in its life. It began as an agency for social change, turning abandoned inner city lots into fruitful gardens which accomplished great things within their communities. Not only did these gardens beautify otherwise decaying neighborhoods, they also began to educate underprivileged residents about proper diet, provided nutritious food where none was to be found, and in some cases initiated job training programs with the local residents to jump start agricultural opportunities.
Apologies to residents of the Lower East Side; Williamsburg, Brooklyn; and other hipster-centric neighborhoods. You are not as cool as you think, at least according to a new study that seeks to measure what it calls “the geography of buzz.”
