City residents and urbanists had reasons to believe Obama would usher in a new urban era. [...]
Now, as he leaves the White House, Obama’s legacy is being evaluated on many fronts, including within the realm of urban policy. In a new book called Urban Policy in the Time of Obama, academics appraise his successes and failures. CityLab spoke with the book’s editor, James DeFillippis, an associate professor in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.
— citylab.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:What does President Obama's final year in office mean for architecture?Black Lives Matter and the politics of protesting in privatized spaceTod Williams Billie Tsien Architects selected to design the Obama Presidential Center View full entry
At a time when pundits and political scientists were celebrating the end of history, pointing to an emerging Democratic majority and extolling the virtues of a flat world of globalization, she ominously predicted a coming age of urban crisis, mass amnesia, and populist backlash in her final work, Dark Age Ahead. Eerily prescient as always, rereading the 2005 book today serves as a survivors’ guide to the Age of Trump. — citylab.com
"Jacobs outlines an increasing distrust of politicians and politics, a burgeoning new urban crisis in cities, worsening environmental degradation, entrenched segregation, and an “enlarging gulf between rich and poor along with attrition of the middle class” as signals and symptoms of a coming... View full entry
Nominee for Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao laid out her vision for DOT should the senate confirm her, and it's heavy on lifting regulations while breezing past funding issues. According to Politico:Chao said she wants to reduce "regulatory burdens when appropriate." And she hopes to speed... View full entry
Take an abandoned industrial neighborhood in Bordeaux, France, affix a masterplan by urbanist Nicholas Michelin to it, and then add in an inventive cladding system over a 56-unit apartment building, and you have the fundamental makings of "Urban Dock," a recently completed project by Hamonic +... View full entry
After a large solar array, Boulder Solar 1, came online on Dec. 12, the city was able to buy enough carbon-free electricity to power its 140 buildings, streetlights and other facilities. [...]
The renewables, plus energy efficiency savings, are estimated to save the city roughly $5 million per year [...]
The Vegas city council, after threatening to leave the grid entirely in 2015, struck a deal with NV Energy that would help the city get to 100% renewable.
— qz.com
Related on Archinect: AECOM halts work on Faraday Future's $1-Billion Nevada factory Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh made a $350 million bet on downtown Las Vegas – five years later, the results are murky Vegas is back...sorta Learning from Las Vegas: a look at the Strip through urban planning lenses View full entry
The inevitable, and accelerating, growth of cities is an undisputed premise in contemporary urbanist discourses. With the rapid rise of entirely new cities proliferating around the globe, questions arise of how much in urban life can be improved with a blank slate. This short film from The... View full entry
In this historically researched and nuanced piece for The New York Times, Daniel Duane examines the conflicted attitude of San Franciscans--and Californians in general--toward homelessness, immigration, and the problems of housing density. He notes that despite the state's fame for its... View full entry
The Dutch design offices jvantspijker and Felixx, together with Orri Steinarsson, have won the international urban design competition in Gufunes, Reykjavik. The task was the strategic redevelopment of a vast coastal area of approximately 140 hectares, at the edge of the city. The winning proposal... View full entry
Sometime in the not too distant future we will look back at traditional malls as an anachronism – something that started with the post World War II move to the suburbs, peaked in 1990, and faded away, according to the billionaire Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso, whose properties include the Grove and the Americana at Brand.
Millions of dollars are being spent on refurbishing and renovating malls in Los Angeles in an attempt to offer online shoppers an incentive to go outdoors. According to this report by KPCC, the big-league mall masterminds, including Grove guru Rick Caruso, are purposefully trying to redesign malls... View full entry
What better way to teach high school-age students how to tackle the problems of urban planning than with Legos? This was the thought of the Urban Land Institute, which according to this article in Metro News put on a workshop for an 11th grade class in Toronto to help them plan a city that, while... View full entry
Among scholars and many city dwellers, urban renewal is remembered for its vast destruction of minority communities, when entire neighborhoods were razed for housing, highways and civic projects. [...]
Is Mr. Trump knowingly or accidentally embracing historical conflict? The answer depends, in part, on how much we think Mr. Trump, a real estate developer and son of a real estate developer, knows about the history of the conflict over the shape of the American city.
— nytimes.com
Related on Archinect:5 housing experts offer opinions about Ben Carson's direction as HUD headFrank Gehry on Trump: "I'm very worried about him"America's 'inner city' dichotomyPresident-elect Trump offers HUD post to Ben CarsonTrump pilfers Clinton's plan for an 'infrastructure bank' View full entry
Imagine driving into London not on surface streets, but rather in an underground tube with automated, moving tracks designed specifically for electric cars. Like a kind of subterranean track-laden ferry, which drivers would be able to individually join and exit at numerous points, this "CarTube"... View full entry
What are the likely policy goals of a neurosurgeon appointed secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development by a man who can't stop disappointedly tweeting at Alec Baldwin? "There’s not a dearth of qualified Republicans for that job, so if you choose somebody with no background in... View full entry
Visionary plans, policy, and infrastructure have all played crucial roles in the development of the city and consequently in the definition of its edge. Today, conflicting interests regarding ownership, use, and value of the Lakefront have produced a stalemate of what this civic treasure could become. — Chicago Architectural Club
A hotspot for land-use disputes, the urban development of Chicago's Lakefront is the subject of the 2016 Chicago Prize competition, "On the Edge”. Launched on November 29 by the Chicago Architectural Club and the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the competition seeks speculative architectural... View full entry
Missed out on Next Up: The LA River, Archinect Sessions' podcasting event? Now you can listen to the whole thing, released in two parts on One-to-One. Last week, we released the first half of the interviews, and this week we've got the rest. This week's playlist of live recordings features... View full entry