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On August 16th, the Indianapolis Star (IndyStar) announced architect Lourenzo Giple as the city's new Deputy Director of Planning, Preservation, and Design. The newly appointed deputy is determined to making changes the city has been missing for years. Giple shared with Brandon Drenon of... View full entry
In the second quarter of this year, investment spending by the federal government dropped below 1.4 percent of gross domestic product for the first time since the 1940s, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. OK, at 1.397 percent, it wasn’t much below, and federal government investment as a share of GDP isn’t exactly a closely watched economic indicator. But the decline through the decades is still pretty striking... — bloomberg.com
Justin Fox tracks the decline in U.S. government spending over the years, noting infrastructure investments have largely been replaced with spending on social insurance programs. With private investors taking the lead, Fox argues U.S. infrastructure suffers as there are many vital projects which... View full entry
I’m not saying America’s cities are turning into dystopian technocapitalist hellscapes in which corporations operate every essential service and pull every civic string.
But let’s take a tour of recent news from the metropolises.
— New York Times
Farhad Manjoo unpacks the extreme impact big tech companies have on US city construction citing cases from Amazon, Elon Musk's Boring Company, and Bird's electric scooters. Are these innovations simply breaking through the red tape of local government or are they dominating with no input from the... View full entry
What impact will Donald Trump’s league of global-warming deniers and fossil-fuel boosters have on U.S. climate action? The short-term prognosis might not be as damaging as some fear, but...it seems safe to assume that for the next four years, domestic climate policy will be in the deep freezer—while the rest of us heat up...[But] U.S. cities have the power to shrink that footprint and prepare for the worst, even in the absence of financial or regulatory support from the federal government — Citylab
A quick profile at how five American cities will continue progressing toward their goals to combat climate change, even without federal support from a Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress.More on Archinect:Trump says climate change is a "hoax", yet moves to protect his... View full entry
“Architecture is one of the most important things that we have to help communities shape themselves, both literally and figuratively,” Treviño says. “However, when we start talking about the leaders of the community, most often you have people without an architectural background.”
As local leaders, architects can bring an objective, analytical perspective to the organizations that run their communities. And there’s already widespread interest among practitioners in making a difference.
— Architect Magazine
This month, in line with the ideas behind the upcoming Venice Biennale, Archinect's coverage includes a special themed section, Help, featuring content that focuses on the social and political components of the discipline.Here's some relevant coverage:New MoMA exhibition explores the... View full entry
A major insurance company is suing Chicago-area municipal governments saying they knew of the risks posed by climate change and should have been better prepared. The class-action lawsuits raise the question of who is liable for the costs of global warming. [...]
“What the insurers are saying is: ‘We’re in the business of covering unforeseen risks... But we’re now at a point with the science where climate change is now a foreseeable risk.’”
— washingtonpost.com
