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In June, the “Innovation in Mobility Public Policy Summit,” sponsored by the Association for Commuter Transportation, Transportation Sustainability Research Center, Mobility Lab, Transit Center, and Shared-Use Mobility Center, brought together a range of participants to discuss these themes in Washington, DC. — urbanomnibus.net
At the summit, elected officials, transportation entrepreneurs, academics, and developers engaged with a number of questions including, “What are new ways of solving urban mobility problems? How can we better design systems to address the needs of the public? Who should be engaged to make this... View full entry
The Municipal Art Society of New York has developed a new tool that shows where development could bring the most change across the city's five boroughs. This resource is a continuation of the group's "Accidental Skyline" initiative, an effort to curb the "as-of-right" development (which allows developers to bypass some regulatory hurdles) that has resulted in some of New York's tallest and skinniest new skyscrapers. — citylab.com
While searching for images of highway interchanges in urban areas, I came across these historic aerial photos of Detroit on a message board, showing how the city fabric has slowly eroded. It’s a remarkable record of a process that has scarred many other American cities. — usa.streetsblog.org
7th Making Cities Liveable Conference 2014Healthy – Sustainable – Resilient – CitiesThe 7th Making Cities Liveable Conference will examine the challenges, opportunities, trends and issues currently facing sector professionals. Delegates and presenters will examine how to plan for Healthy... View full entry
A new report from Reid Ewing and Shima Hamidi of the University of Utah, lead researchers on the aforementioned rankings, gets at that question. Ewing and Hamidi scored the largest 162 U.S. urbanized areas on the Sprawl Index — or, if you're feeling optimistic, the Compactness Index — for 2010. (Urbanized areas reflect development better than fixed metro area boundaries do.) Then they applied the index to the same cities in 2000 to show the change over time. — citylab.com
The latest draft of DDOT's citywide transportation plan, moveDC, calls for a massive expansion of transit and cycling facilities throughout the District, plus new tolls on car commuters. If it actually becomes the template for DC's transportation, the plan will be one of America's most progressive. — greatergreaterwashington.org
At a larger scale, the metropolitan regions of Paris and New York City both show significant pedestrian mode shares. New York City has a pedestrian mode share of 34% for all trips citywide ahead of car (33%) and transit (30%)[4] when the Ile-de-France region has a weekday pedestrian mode share of 32%, a car mode share of 43%, and a public transport one up to 21%[5].
[...] How do they support this large pedestrian population and decrease auto-dominance in public space?
— pps.org
Election day means Gujarat is closed for business—except in Gift City.
Officially known as Gujarat Information Finance Tech City (hence, Gift), construction equipment is everywhere and dust is in the air. [...]
This is the type of development that Narendra Modi supporters hope will be a microcosm for the rest of India should he become prime minister. [...] Here’s a (very stylized) artist rendition of what the area will look look, according to the government brochure.
— qz.com
How many Battery Parks, CCTVs and Sliced Porosity Blocks can you spot? View full entry
Preserving the rich history of an iconic site while modernizing any aspect of its design is always a tricky feat. For MVRDV, one of their latest competition wins is redeveloping the urban plan of the historic Serp & Molot (Hammer & Sickle) Factory...In the two-stage competition, the winning team was chosen out of a shortlist with LDA Design (UK), Ateliers lion Associés (France), Mega Project (Russia), and De Architecten Cie. (Netherlands). — bustler.net
Here's a glimpse of the winning proposal:The project, which has a total investment estimated at 180 billion Rouble, is expected to be complete in 2021.Find out more on Bustler. View full entry
Our technology-first approach has failed the city of the future. So-called “smart cities,” powered by technology, carry the promise of responding to the great pressures of our time, such as urban population growth, climate instability, and fiscal uncertainty. But by focusing on the cutting-edge technologies themselves and relying on private companies to move forward, we have lost sight of what we even want our cities to achieve with all that tech. — wired.com
Little remains of Chicago's Cabrini-Green, a mid-century public housing complex once home to as many as 15,000 people. The poorly maintained high rises, rife with gang violence, were eventually demolished (the final one came down in 2011). [...]
The Chicago Housing Authority hopes to see it all redeveloped soon. [...]
CHA says half the new residential units to be market rate, another 30 percent public housing, and the remaining 20 percent affordable housing.
— The Atlantic Cities
It may not seem like it when you’re stuck in traffic on the 110 Freeway, but Southern California is home to some of the least-sprawling metro areas in the country.
That’s according to a study out today from Smart Growth America, which attempted to measure the concept of urban sprawl in 221 metro areas nationwide. The study ranked the Los Angeles, Orange County and Santa Barbara regions in the 25 least-sprawling.
— latimes.com
Just two years ago [...] Australia’s previous government created the Major Cities Unit which outlined key long-term priorities for urban productivity and sustainability. Highly regarded by academia, as well as infrastructure, planning and property councils, the Unit showed promise for strategic city alignment, including investment into high-speed rail.
Today, all investment into the Unit has been withdrawn and momentum towards a national urban strategy has come to a halt.
— thisbigcity.net
Sjors de Vries is a Dutch urban planner and founder of RUIMTEVOLK (‘Space People’), a leading online discussion platform about planning and urbanism in the Netherlands. We spoke with him about the current state of planning in the Netherlands, the best ways to upscale cute and small initiatives to make them serious improvements to the city, about the power of online media in city-making and the role of their platform. — popupcity.net
Britain’s decades-long planning “chaos” has left London a city of great individual buildings, such as the Gherkin and the Shard, standing in a sea of “woeful” architecture, the Government’s design czar said today.
Marylebone-based architect Sir Terry Farrell called for a “revolution” in the planning system, to end the culture of Nimbyism and put the creation of well designed places to live, work and shop at the heart of policymaking.
— London Evening Standard
Farrell 's remarks certainly aren't limited to contemporary architecture in London: “If you dump yourself in any town centre and look at what the end of the 20th century and start of the 21st century has brought, it is woeful.” View full entry