Over the next few years, two professional sports teams are in a position to radically reshape much of the fringe of Atlanta's downtown core. [...]
Neither stadium deal has been the public relations coup that Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed surely hoped for. [...]
There's an inherent messiness to these dual, competing narratives – one of downtown reinvestment, the other a triumph of the suburbs.
— theatlanticcities.com
So it is that nearly a third of the interstate system consists of stretches through our cities, in the form of loops, spurs and freeways. So it is that American motorists drive nearly twice as many miles on urban interstates as they do the lengthier rural legs. So it is that every metropolis in the country has reorganized itself around these roads, and that they've shaped where we live and work, how we shop, what we eat, and how we pass our time. — theatlanticcities.com
“I’m a man with a vision and the ability to turn my dream into reality,” said Mr. Xu, — NYT
Julia Werdigier updates readers on Mr. Xu's plans for the long derelict Royal Albert Dock lands. His company Advanced Business Park , has proposed a $1.6 billion development to convert the current "wasteland" into a vibrant global trading hub and "world-class international business... View full entry
Los Angeles may be known for its celebrities, glitz and glam, but the city's mayor, Eric Garcetti, is focused on something decidedly less flashy: infrastructure. [...]
"We destroyed our public transit system from the '30s and '40s and '50s, and so we're in the process of rebuilding it," Garcetti says. "A bigger program than anywhere in the U.S., but a long way to go."
— npr.org
See also:LA Mayor talks urbanism and mass transit with architecture critic Christopher HawthorneL.A.'s "People St." initiative puts public place-making into the public's hands View full entry
What have we learned so far about how cities function — and how they don’t? What is the role of that most symbolic of city features, the skyscraper? And is it possible to “break” a city? Five experts offered their perspectives on the use of data to solve urban problems, the ways in which the skyscraper is venerated and misused, and their best guesses on what the cities of the future might look like. — nytimes.com
For his NYT Science Times Podcast, Jeffery DelViscio sits down with SOM structural engineer William F. Baker; architect and IIT architecture dean Wiel Arets; University of Chicago associate professor Virginia Parks; Columbia University professor Saskia Sassen; and Council on Tall Buildings and... View full entry
The third edition of The Deans List: featured Jack Davis of Virginia Tech.Topics ranged from Virginia Tech’s founding in a pedagogy of "experimental laboratories", the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), a Center in the School of Architecture + Design which brings together... View full entry
Indeed, at heart of our SUPE Platform lies a sincere wish to contribute to a broad conversation on urban political ecology that takes a broader experience of urbanization into account...We wish to participate in building a collaborative and supportive community open for conversation to all those interested in understanding the politics of urban ecologies and environments in a world of cities — Situated Ecologies
Henrik Ernstson reflects on the difference between “pluralizing” and “provincializing” urban political ecology. View full entry
In the early 1970s, architecture critic Wolf Von Eckardt introduced the term in the pages of the Washington Post for the first time, according to an analysis by Rob Godspeed. Von Eckardt described gentrification as "the best thing that has happened to American cities since ditches were turned into sewers." — thepolisblog.org
Hope for Detroit would seem far-fetched if you had been on the "pornography of ruins" tour I have been going on for years, led by various residents over the years. But, it turns out that those tours were provided by folk who had lost their beloved city. I recently began to hang around with a younger crowd: Mark Nickita, for example, an architect and a maniacal optimist, and a serial small-scale entrepreneur who runs Archive DS, an architecture and urban design firm in downtown Detroit... — features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com
Form per our fragmented cultures can follow the function of materials proved to work through our fragmented physics and building sciences. We rely highly on statistics in building sciences. In interpreting culture and evolution of culture, we have little to no consensus. — toskovic.com
I attempt to create a roster for building design of construction under plural sciences, plural cultures with the mission of completeness of expression from and to person, building, town, metropolis, the national arena, and larger hubs of human connection. View full entry
Last night on the bucolic hilltop campus of Occidental College, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke with the Los Angeles Times architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne, about the state of L.A. urbanism. This broad topical platform positioned Hawthorne's interview not as a political... View full entry
Atterwasch is tiny, its single street lined with sturdy brick and stone houses. The village has a single church whose bells peal out at noon each day, a small volunteer fire department, and a cemetery with a special section devoted to German soldiers who died nearby in the closing months of WWII.
Atterwasch may soon be gone.
Vattenfall, a Swedish energy company, hopes to relocate the village and its residents in order to strip-mine the ground underneath for lignite, or "brown coal."
— news.nationalgeographic.com
Communities can transform underused areas of L.A.’s largest public asset—our 7,500 miles of city streets—into active, vibrant, and accessible public space with People St, a program of the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT). Eligible Community Partners can apply for approval to create projects that enhance the quality of life in this city. Three innovative types of projects are available: Plazas, Parklets, and Bicycle Corrals. — People St.
Los Angeles began piloting its "People St." program in 2011, developing spaces designed to reclaim sections of streetspace for public recreation and use, rather than car traffic. The projects were few but popular, including the Sunset Triangle (designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios) plaza in... View full entry
The low hipster homeownership rate of the past five years translates into a market of potentially millions of first-time homebuyers looking to find a home that matches their budget and fits into their hipster lifestyle. Real estate investors who want to tap into that trend should start with location: finding homes in communities with a heavy hipster demographic, and that are affordable for that demographic. — RealtyTrac
Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac Vice President examines the top 20 zipcodes for flipping homes to hipsters.h/t AlJavieera Sueños View full entry
In a city with no addresses, it’s difficult for local authorities to tax property. And without tax revenues, it’s difficult to upgrade infrastructure and services in the slums [...]
To fix these problems, Ghana is on a national quest to name its city streets. [...]
Giving names to streets is only a means to an end. The real problem cities are trying to solve is service delivery. When properties have actual addresses and those addresses reside in databases, all kinds of things become possible.
— Citiscope