Rapidly rising property prices and rents, combined with the loss of social housing through right to buy, have put councils under growing pressure to find new ways to help people off their housing lists.
In Lewisham one solution is a £4.3m scheme to provide 24 homes and 880 sq m of business space that can be picked up and moved at a later date, allowing the council to make use of vacant brownfield land while longer-term projects are finalised.
— theguardian.com
As the number of people moving to cities continues to rise, with 66% of the global population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, it is critical to understand how urban living is affecting us — Urban Mind
Living in a concrete jungle has its pros and its cons, but how exactly does urban living affect mental wellbeing? A new cross-disciplinary project intents to find out by using a smartphone app called Urban Mind. The app is designed to monitor various aspects of a metropolitan environment... View full entry
English cities and towns left without planned flood defences by government cuts will now get the projects after a surprise £540m boost in funding in Wednesday’s budget.
The north of England, devastated by winter floods, will get at least £150m of the new money, giving better protection for thousands of homes.
The Guardian had revealed that 294 projects in line for funding were left stranded after heavy cuts by David Cameron’s coalition government...
— the Guardian
For related coverage, take a look at some of these older articles:"Pay to stay" may boot 60,000 UK families from their homesThe (state-facilitated) death of the council houseMore and more people are dying as a result of air pollution in EnglandThe Guardian reveals how developers play the planning... View full entry
Abandoned commercial port turned progressive inner city district of Helsinki Kalasatama is being developed purposefully to test out new urban ways of being. First up for this pioneering zone: a Mobility-as-a-Service app, which is basically the Nordic version of Uber except it wants to integrate... View full entry
WeWork’s inspirational mottoes—"Do what you love," "Thank God it’s Monday," among many others—its evangelical faithful, and gatherings like the summit all have religious echoes..."Start imagining it a bit bigger," Neumann says about WeLive, stoking his idyllic view, "an entire building. And then instead of having just one building doing it, five buildings doing it. Then you’ll be able to imagine what a WeNeighborhood or a WeStreet would be." — Fast Company
This in-depth profile of WeWork founder and (pro-capitalist) visionary Adam Neumann is worth the read. Whether you like to freestyle your work and life or prefer the centuries-old model of deeded quiet, WeWork (and now, WeLive) is making a previously unsustainable model profitable. Is Neumann just... View full entry
After officials announced that Metro, Washington’s subway system, would be shut down for 29 hours, riders began preparations for another problematic travel day in a city already well known for its cramped and sometimes dangerous train commutes.
The controlled chaos began early Wednesday and will continue until 5 a.m. Thursday, affecting 91 Metro stations that provide 700,000 rides each day in the city and its suburbs.
— the New York Times
DC residents took to Twitter and other social media to voice their frustration with the unexpected shutdown, which was prompted by an emergency inspection of some 600 electrical cables.Residents have been left to face grueling traffic, delayed buses, or surge-priced Ubers. The Department of... View full entry
"The People's Design Library is a digital library maintained by buildingcommunityWORKSHOP for anyone looking for help in improving their community. The three collections - guides, inspiration, and [bc] publications - provide practical advice and examples of the wide range of resources out there for citizens doing community work. It’s the right of the People to shape their city, let's exercise that right and have some fun doing it!" — buildingcommunityWORKSHOP
There are countless design, policy, and organizing guides created by different organizations to help citizens navigate how to make lasting change in their neighborhoods. We created The People’s Design Library to bring these resources together in one place. If you know of, or have created, a... View full entry
When City Manager Oliver Chi looks across Station Square next to the new Gold Line stop in Monrovia, he doesn't see a dilapidated train depot. He sees a bustling restaurant.
Where an empty lot now sits, he sees a five-story apartment complex. That old lumber house? A bustling food hall.
Los Angeles County's growing light-rail network plunges deeper than it ever has into suburbia this week with the opening of the Gold Line extension linking Pasadena to Azusa.
— LA Times
Obsessed with infrastructure? Take a look at some related coverage:The Bike Wars Are Over, and the Bikes WonMore details on Glendale's "freeway cap park" emergeWhy cranes keep collapsing, despite "sophisticated equipment"US government agency develops new batteries that could revolutionize energy... View full entry
Despite skewing Democrat, LGBT people are flocking to red states. It’s a sign that cities in the center of the country are becoming more accepting, but it’s also an indication that traditional LGBT safe havens are prohibitively expensive.
ConsumerAffairs.com analyzed U.S. Census data and Gallup polling information to model the movement of the LGBT community from 1990 to 2014. The overall trend is striking.
— the Daily Beast
"In 1990, the LGBT population was concentrated in coastal metropolitan areas and other safe havens—cities like San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Atlanta. By 2014, LGBT hot spots cropped up in some seemingly unlikely places: Salt Lake City, Louisville, Norfolk, Indianapolis, and other red... View full entry
The City of Vancouver has reached an agreement with Canadian Pacific Railway that will transform a contentious stretch of old rail corridor into a public greenway.
Under the deal, the city will pay $55 million to purchase the land on the railway route, which extends for nine kilometres from False Creek near Downtown Vancouver to Marpole on the city's south side.
— CBC News
Once the unofficial home to community gardens and in situ artworks, under the city's plan the Vancouver's Arbutus Corridor will become a place for cyclists and walkers. It's not the High Line (although much like that project, Vancouver city officials would like to continue thinking that the rail... View full entry
graphic artists Michael Eaton and Felicity Hickson designed a wide range of props, from books and cigarette packs to the entire contents of a supermarket ... to help cement the look and feel of 1970s apartment living [...]
the film follows Dr Robert Laing ... as he adjusts to his new life as a tenant on the 25th floor and explores the relationships between the building’s various social groups and the tribal mentalities that emerge as the tower gradually descends into chaos.
— creativereview.co.uk
In any discussion of poor doors, newly urbanized class structures, or gentrification, there's a spot for J.G. Ballard's "High-Rise" (1975). Check out the trailer for the film adaptation, directed by Ben Wheatley, below. View full entry
The complexities of designing at the scale of a city could take years to enumerate, but with Block'hood, a game where players design neighborhoods in various modes of complexity with over 80 pre-set blocks, it takes only minutes to start encountering these challenges first hand. Developed and... View full entry
“Shady,” “unethical,” “secretive,” “robbed of our due process” — these were just a few of the choice terms used by angry residents this past week at a packed City Council meeting about the selling of Pine Tree Park [in Kent, outside of Seattle, WA].
Longtime Seattle land-use attorney Rick Aramburu has another term for what happened: illegal. It’s also a growing trend in the swath of cities around Seattle, places that no longer receive much scrutiny from the press.
“It’s becoming a cancer"
— seattletimes.com
More on recent (legal) park development:A critical look at Downtown L.A.'s ambitious plans for two new public parksTalking parks with Adrian Benepe, senior vice president of The Trust for Public LandTransforming a garbage heap into a public parkAmbitious L.A. Parks Plan Will Require Coordination... View full entry
None of the bike-lane opponents’ predictions has come to pass. City streets have never been safer, more economically thriving, or offered more transportation options than they do today...Sometimes a bike lane is just a bike lane, but this one is also a moribund metaphor for the fights that cities across the nation face when reclaiming and resetting their streets. — New York Magazine
Over at the Daily Intelligencer, Janette Sadik-Khan published an excerpt/essay (from Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution), which looks back on her work as NYC's transportation commissioner. Specifically, the fight over expanding bicycle infrastructure and the Prospect Park West bike... View full entry
New York collects about $60 million annually for allowing signs, ornamental lampposts, stand-alone clocks, benches, bollards, planters, permanent trash receptacles, delivery ramps and just about anything else imaginable on, over or under the city’s 12,000 miles of sidewalks. [...]
Overall revenue from sidewalk-permit fees has risen by about 50 percent in the past decade, the bulk of it from utility companies for pipes and transformers below ground.
— nytimes.com
Related on Archinect:Not all sidewalks are created equal in D.C.Rise in cycling expands NYC's real estate marketProtected bike lanes strengthen city economy, report findsWhy Los Angeles is struggling to fix thousands of miles of sidewalksPeople-streets link small L.A. neighborhood and $325MM... View full entry
