Michael Dudley is the Indigenous and Urban Services Librarian at the University of Winnipeg.
In this lavishly produced, beautifully illustrated but somewhat self-edifying book, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales argues that most of our global crises -- from climate change to poverty to our soulless built environments -- are owed to our disconnection from Nature (which he capitalizes).
Thursday, February 3, 2011 - 12:16pm PST
With the passing in February 2010 of Canada's last surviving Great
War veteran, we no longer have a living link to that conflict. Its infamous miseries, desolate battlefields, poison-gas attacks and
industrial-scale slaughter are known to us now only through history.
While the veterans themselves are silent, Manitoba historian Jim
Blanchard reminds us in his new book Winnipeg's Great War that the city of Winnipeg has its own story to
tell about the First World War.
Thursday, October 14, 2010 - 8:14am PDT
My
hometown of Winnipeg is going through a particularly nasty battle over cycling
infrastructure. Its current mayor, Sam Katz, while he may be reviled by rapid
transit advocates for cancelling one BRT scheme and then muddling another (will
it be a bus? A train? A streetcar?), has nonetheless managed to accomplish more
for cyclists than his predecessors. In recent years we have seen new bikelanes,
multiuse pathways and a cycling culture invigorated by such events as
Winnipeg's Cyclovia.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - 8:47am PDT
As planners, we are accustomed to (and
expect) some types of urban development proposals to attract controversy.
Whether the opposition is to new roads, higher-density housing or undesirable
land uses such as industries or prisons, such controversies are becoming far
more common as environmental, economic and social issues become more pronounced
and widely understood. In most cases, we generally assume that we can make use of a suite of engagement strategies to engage stakeholders
and try to resolve typical development conflicts.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - 11:21am PDT
Recently, a Briton armed with a metal detector uncovered a trove of
more than 50,000 Roman coins, which archeologists believe was an
ancient farming community's offering to the gods to ensure a bountiful
harvest. Our own agricultural practices have moved past any pleas to the gods
to incorporate instead an industrial-scale arsenal of petrochemical
fertilizers, pesticides and genetic modification.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 - 8:01am PDT
In a recent Planetizen post I argued that the unfolding oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico may be perhaps our last warning to move more aggressively on renewable energy and a less energy-dependent built environment. What follows is an effort to outline additional implications for planning, to gain an understanding of the scale of this emergency and how it may impact planning in the months and years to come. Ecologically, economically and socially this is going to be like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - 9:16am PDT
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 - 9:20am PDT
Resilience is generally understood as the
degree to which a complex system is flexible enough to respond and adapt
to an externally-imposed force or change and thus persist over time while
retaining its structure and functions. Conversely, a vulnerable system would be
one in which conditions are inflexible, key resources comprise a monoculture,
there is little learning capacity, and choices for addressing crises are
constrained.
Monday, April 19, 2010 - 11:54am PDT
Monday, February 8, 2010 - 7:26am PST
It is well-known in planning circles that
Smart Growth has come under attack by (mostly libertarian) think tanks and
pundits hostile to any form of urban planning that doesn’t leave land use
decisions up to the “magic” of the free market. While their reports may get a
lot of press, a close reading of most of their rhetoric reveals that it is
largely based on a selective use of data, fallacious argumentation and
hyperbole.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 9:02am PST
Pages
