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From a concrete ditch, the river is now, very, very, very slowly becoming that green, recreational space many supporters have imagined. But, the question is, what's taking so long?
As anyone who's ever set out to build in Los Angeles knows, things aren't always as simple as they seem. A vision becomes reality at a glacial pace, which can be a good or bad thing.
— kcet.org
In other LA River-related news on Archinect:Does Frank Gehry – or his firm – have what it takes to save the LA River?Will Los Angeles be seeing more housing development along its LA River?Feds Okay $1-Billion Los Angeles River Project View full entry
Germane Barnes wants Opa-Locka to be known for something else...He knows [change] can happen because he lives there, and has seen the work of a group of artists and organizers slowly change the landscape...The city's history intrigued him, not merely because it seemed like a perfect case study for his thesis about revitalizing a community without gentrification, but because it also spoke to his own experiences. — Curbed
More on Archinect:In Chicago, forming economically integrated suburbs is more complex than it looksWelcome to Evanston, Illinois: the carless suburbiaBerliners are getting their hopes up for transformed Kulturforum arts districtWith a little compromise, illegal urban squats like Ljubljana's... View full entry
The wildly successful BEACH installation is down to its final exhibition days at Washington D.C.'s National Building Museum. Since opening on July 4, over 120,000 visitors both young and old "splashed" around in its bubbly waters, lounged about on the "shore", and perhaps saw a live band rock out... View full entry
Gehry insists that he isn't interested in the river as the site for new landmarks. He says he told the Revitalization Corp. board members who first visited his office last year that he would take on the job only if he could look at the river primarily in terms of hydrology. [...]
"I told them I'm not a landscape guy. I said I would only do it on the condition that they approached it as a water-reclamation project, to deal with all the water issues first."
— latimes.com
Following up on last week's news that Gehry had been attached to the LA River redevelopment strategy, a few more details have surfaced – no distinct plans yet, but an overall approach has emerged. Summed up by Christopher Hawthorne, the LA Times' architecture critic, the plan is: "Gehry thinks... View full entry
Rotterdam recently welcomed The Luchtsingel, a communal endeavor to spruce up the long-neglected Hofplein neighborhood in the heart of the city. Locally based architecture practice Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS) devised The Luchtsingel in 2011. The focal point of the emerging "three-dimensional... View full entry
In Detroit, the American Dream has become an American Paradox: Corporate-backed revitalization downtown belies the continued deterioration of sprawling neighborhoods of single-family homes; [...] white newcomers trickle in by choice, just as many black natives have no choice but to stay where they are.
What’s that? It doesn’t sound like the up-from-the-ashes, post-industrial renaissance Detroit you’ve been hearing about of late?
— Columbia Journalism Review
For more about Detroit, take a listen to episode 11 of Archinect Sessions, and our chat with Mitch McEwen: View full entry
Developed with the help of a team of volunteer researchers, urban planners and designers, this new online tool allows anyone to view the staggering amount of publicly-owned lots that once had an urban renewal plan in the pipeline but were scrapped due to bureaucracy. By mapping out all of the vacant spaces across the city, 596 hopes that we as a community can take a top-down approach to turning these urban blights into public gardens, play lots, and spaces where people can “co-create.” — 6sqft
From 1949-1974 NYC took on an urban renewal project that resulted in the bulldozing of "slums" across Manhattan. The vast majority of the proposals planned for the land floundered and today nearly 15,000 lots across the city lay vacant. 596 Acres, a grassroots land access nonprofit, had developed... View full entry
The jury is in and the Los Angeles River's future seems to be bright. After more than six months of intense lobbying by the city, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) has announced that it will be recommending a more ambitious $1-billion plan to restore an 11-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River from downtown through Elysian Park. — kcet.org
No absentee landlords or faraway investors allowed. Only Michigan residents and businesses [...]
The idea is to lure neighbors, not investors or opportunists (#NeighborsWanted is the city's hashtag for the program). And that does not include out-of-state urban homesteaders dreaming of cheap property in Detroit. Right now, the land bank is focusing on otherwise intact neighborhoods, as opposed to those parts of town where vacant parcels outnumber the residents who've stuck around.
— washingtonpost.com
With billions in federal, charity and insurance dollars flowing in after [Hurricane Katrina], there were suddenly resources for change.
“The city essentially got the opportunity to do a do-over,” said Carol Bebelle, a lifelong New Orleanian and executive director of Ashé Cultural Arts Center. [...]
In many ways, it was a top-to-bottom re-imagining of the cityscape.
So, is the city in a better place than it was nearly nine years ago? It depends on how closely you look.
— equalvoiceforfamilies.org
If there is any one lesson that I have learned in my life as a city planner, it is that public spaces have power. It's not just the number of people using them, it's the even greater number of people who feel better about their city just knowing that they are there.
Public space can change how you live in a city, how you feel about a city, whether you choose one city over another, and public space is one of the most important reasons why you stay in a city.
— TED
Amanda Burden served as New York City's chief planner under Mayor Bloomberg, leading such revitalization projects as the High Line and Brooklyn's waterfront. You can watch the full TED talk below, or read the complete transcript here. View full entry
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
Late in 2011, [Zappos CEO] Hsieh became even more legendary by announcing almost larkishly that he’d be leading a $350 million effort to rejuvenate a blighted stretch of Las Vegas’ downtown […]
His plan was to spend much of his own personal fortune to transform this lifeless area about a mile north of the neon blitz of the Strip into an entrepreneurial tech nirvana. [...]
Doubters have no place in the ecosystem. Pragmatists stand little chance. A love of hyperbole prevails.
— Wired
Five design teams have been named to receive $15,000 grants to revitalize Syracuse's Near Westside neighborhood as part of the "Movement on Main: Designing the Healthy Main Street" competition. The initiative, sponsored by Syracuse University, plans to redesign the area around Wyoming Street to once again make it an important agent of the community's social and recreational life. — bustler.net
Three teams were chosen from the submissions in the first round of the competition: Coen + Partners, Inc. (Minneapolis, MN) Stoss Landscape Urbanism (Boston, MA) with Höweler + Yoon Architecture, LLP, Nitsch Engineering, Inc., and Dr. Angie Cradock, Sc. D. King and King Architects... View full entry