Steven Snell has over ten years of professional urban planning experience with a focus on conservation policy. He has a master’s degree in urban design and is a novelist of How Soon We Fall From Love. Connect with him on Twitter @stevenpsnell or Facebook stevenpsnell. The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating a position of his employer.
How Useful is Walkability: Are You Oriented to Walk?
The physical requirements for walkability—like narrow streets and wide sidewalks—aren't always enough to compel the activity of walking. How can we reorient toward the primal activity of walking?
Programmed to Need Urban Nature
Human beings are both born and programmed to need open spaces. As our existence becomes increasingly urban, cities and towns must provide the open spaces our natures require.
Jittery Places, Reducing the Right to Just Be
You’re being monitored. Everything you are is tracked and stored in a data centre. How do you feel about these digital and physical forms of regulation? Do they make you jittery? Do you feel more secure? Are you a wiser consumer?
The Wicked Problem of Urban Biodiversity, pt 1
Biodiversity is not something “out there”, studied in labs, outside of our cities. It is a borderless organism that resists complete solutions to the problems arising in such interconnectivity.
The Irony of Ring Roads
One way to address traffic congestion is to provide a bypass for vehicles around city traffic machinations. Ring roads, by definition, are meant to perform that function. In reality, they ignore the supply and demand model of traffic management.