Exclusives
BLOG POST
Shouting out to a New City Site
<img src='http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//CasitasGeo.jpg' width='300' align='right' alt='Mexican burbs' />My link-fu is strong. Please welcome to the Web <a href="http://burbmag.blogspot.com/">Burb</a>, a site dedicated to suburbs and New Suburbanism. From the manifesto:<br /> <br /> <br /> <blockquote>The suburbs, in short, are the American mainstream. Our major writers, dating back to Updike and Cheever, have focused on decoding suburban life, and today Richard Ford, Chang Rae Lee, Rick Moody and others continue that work. Suburban megachurches are the engine of American Protestantism. Eminem is a suburban boy, and a suburban phenomenon, as are the "soccer moms†and "soccer dads†fought over in the last few elections.<br /> <br /> Yet for those who live there, the suburbs can be a bewildering place. Urbanites who have moved out for more space and better schools gaze out the kitchen window into their new garden paradise and ask, "Now what?†Children of the suburbs return to find their sleepy burbs utterly transformed by commercialization. Those on rural routes watch in dismay as farms and tiny towns are supplanted by mass developments and strip malls. All of these people have common problems and solutions, from commuting to child care to what to put on the side of a house. Burb is for all of them.<br /> <br /> We talk about "the suburbs†as a state of mind, but only now have real connections begun to be made among the suburbs of even a single city, never mind nationally. Burb is proposed as a place where mutual recognition and the single purpose that comes from it might be achieved.</blockquote>
BLOG POST
Back to School
A few hours ago I got home from my first stint as a reviewer of student urban design proposals. That's right, kids: I went from consumer to teacher without ever having to be a producer. This afternoon I ducked out of work and went to the architecture and planning school at UC Berkeley to have a look, with some real professionals, at 18 class projects for a graduate-level landscape architecture class.<br /> <br /> Here's what happened: a few months ago I got a survey asking me how I felt about open space and parks in my neighborhood - West Berkeley, also known as Oceanview - and specifically how I felt about an alley that bisects my block and a couple blocks northward and southward.
BLOG POST
Urban Design and Conflict
After Adam's last two thoughtful posts, I thought I should weigh in here being the resident urban design on Tech Talk. In general, I sometimes share others concerns with marquee architecture but usually when its seen as a way of boosting economic development or the status of a city. I think in those cases, there are far better ways to boost the livability and physical appearance of a place. Thinking of what an "icon" for say, Fort Wayne, would be is an uninteresting question as that city faces other underlying issues that a marquee project simply can't address.
BLOG POST
The Deep Internal Conflict of Urban Planning
No, seriously. As I keep getting into arguments with urban planners about community involvement (they're in favor of it) and bitching about marquee architetecture (and marquee architects) someone else voiced my inner conflict before I got to a keyboard. Here's Robert McDonald on the <a href="http://www.urbancartography.com/">Urban Cartography</a> blog:<br /> <br /> <blockquote>MIT's new Stata Center lurches impressively over Vassar Street, a mélange of surfaces and cylinders intersecting at odd angles. Designed by Frank Gehry, it's seen as the pinnacle of hip, postmodern architecture in Boston (which ain't saying much), and supposedly is surprisingly functional inside despite its odd form. I therefore feel decidedly square saying it but I must: I think it's rather ugly. More than anything, its ornamentation seems ostentatious to me, arbitrary, like a sculpture pretending to be a building. Part of me still believes in that mantra of modernist architecture, form follows function. Politically and spiritually, this at least seems like an honest goal, far more than mere irony and whimsy.<br /> <br /> Yet as I've been reviewing the works of Mumford and Kunstler, I've been realizing how much of modern architecture and modern town planning has been a disaster. Often the scale of the projects has been all wrong, and the projects have not really been focused on human needs at all. There's typically no respect for public space, no creation of places for human interactions. And they are often just plain ugly, all gray concrete and blacktop, which on our New England winters gets pockmarked with salt stains.<br /> <br /> And so I've been struggling between these two parts of myself. I want architecture and urban planning to reflect some of the honesty of modernism, and yet I want beauty and even a bit of whimsy and ornamentation. It strikes me that both post-modernism and modernism have same fault, at least as they are often practiced: An utter lack of interest in what the users of the space want, and what will seem beautiful in the context of its surroundings. Form does not follow the true, human function of the building but instead a perverted function set by someone other than the users. For modern architecture, it became cheapness of construction; for post-modern architecture, it has become hip irony; for urban planners, it became moving cars efficiently. The solution, in my humble opinion (as an ecologist who is admittedly not trained in architecture), is not to abandon "form follows function†but to make sure society gets the function it wants.</blockquote>
BLOG POST
Why Cities Work: Surprise
A few months ago, when I was still taking the bus to work - and walking from San Francisco's Transbay Terminal to my office - my favorite shortcut got strange. And I'm glad it did, because it helped me crystallize one of the necessary qualities for a great city: surprise.<br /> <br /> I'd taken to shaving a few minutes off the march by cutting down a narrow walkway between two skyscrapers. Tall brick on one side, tall concrete on the other. And at the end: pop. The backend of a simple plaza, bits of crummy retail and a Starbucks guarding the front.
BLOG POST
Global Subways Compared
Do I love this? I love this. Fake Is the New Real <a href="http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/">compares</a> two dozen subway systems from around the world, at the same scale. All these fractal diagrams show, incidentally, a city's rough sprawl-to-core ratio, density, and size -- at a glance. Below, London versus Los Angeles (winner: London).<br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/london4a.gif" alt="null" /><img src="http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/langeles4a.gif" alt="Los Angeles subway" /><br /> <br /> via <a href="http://la.curbed.com/">Curbed LA</a>
BLOG POST
More On RFP Sins...
<img src="http://www.eastprovidenceri.net/img/ep-aerial.jpg" align="right" alt="City of East Providence, Rhode Island" />I got a slew of responses (some positive, some not) on my post, "<a href="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/archives/2005/12/20/341/">Top 8 Sins For RFPs</a>". The best response came from Chelsea Pierce, an Associate Planner with the City of East Providence, Rhode Island , who offers a few of her proposal pet peeves. Chelsea writes:<br /> <br /> <blockquote>Great list of RFP sins! I'll keep those things in mind when I write my next one. I have a few proposal submittal pet peeves I'd like to share - small things, really, but also things that drive me bananas.</blockquote>
BLOG POST
Sticky Shadows
Cool application underway by <a href="http://socialight.com/?p=index">Socialight</a>. Sticky Shadows are digital post-it notes for urban areas. I like the idea of neighborhood narratives.<br /> <br /> From their website:<br /> "How's it Used? <br /> -- I leave a note for all my friends at the mall to let them know where I'm hanging out. All my friends in the area see it. <br /> -- A woman shows all her close friends the tree under which she had her first kiss. <br /> -- An entire neighborhood gets together and documents all the unwanted litter they find in an effort to share ownership of a community problem.
FEATURE
Gulf Bogey
When <em>The New York Times</em> linked CNU planners to an alleged scheme to replace a neighborhood with a golf course, it blundered and missed a larger story on renewing Coastal Missisippi, say CNU co-authors John Norquist and Stephen Filmanowicz.
BLOG POST
Top 8 Sins For RFPs
Working at <a href="http://www.urbaninsight.com">Urban Insight</a>, I see about 10-20 RFPs for various projects each month. We have to evaluate the cost/benefit of deciding to respond to any one of these RFPs, and so the RFPs are evaluated by us much the way that our proposal would be evaluated by an organization or agency. <br /> <br /> While some RFPs are outstanding, and clearly describe the project, evaluation, and process, others are, well, downright embarrassing, or contain clauses and provisions that leave you scratching your head.
BLOG POST
Web Content Syndication For E-government
<img src='http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files/20051215_tennnessee_feeds.jpg' alt='Tennessee.gov RSS Feeds' align="right"/><br /> <br /> The popularity of blogs and podcasting is partly driven by the simple concept of web content syndication and aggregation using RSS and ATOM feeds. Yet, a study by Yahoo suggests that <a href="http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3555521">RSS is still not widely adopted</a>. The study reports:<br /> <br /> <blockquote>"...27% of users actually consume RSS on personalized start pages without realizing that it's the underlying technology enabling what they read. Sites such as MyYahoo, MyMSN, and the Firefox browser with its active bookmarks provide easy access to regularly updated RSS feeds with little or no effort from users."</blockquote>
BLOG POST
Living in glass data houses
Even though I knew this data existed, seeing it spatially displayed so I could easily get the scoop on all my neighbors made me uneasy. Straight from DirectionsMag.com: <br /> <br /> <ul><br /> <a href="http://newsletter.directionsmag.com/users/link.php?LinkID=26199&UserID=71070&Newsletter=401&List=1&LinkType=Send ">Mathew Kane, a doctoral student in the Indiana University School of <br /> Informatics</a>, has generated an interesting Google <a href="http://newsletter.directionsmag.com/users/link.php?LinkID=26198&UserID=71070&Newsletter=401&List=1&LinkType=Send">mashup</a>.
BLOG POST
Google Owns Your Getting Around
Okay, somebody out there try <a href="http://www.google.com/transit">this</a>. Somebody who knows their way around Portland, Oregon. And then you, somebody, whoever you are, send an email reporting back. Because this is Google's new trip planner beta -- it uses Google Maps and transit info to tell you how to get from here to there on bus and so forth, as long as "here" and "there" are in Portland. And I haven't spent real time in Portland in almost 20 years.<br /> <br /> But it's Google, right? And they're smarter than all of us.
BLOG POST
Baby Name Wizard
As a new father struggling with finding baby names (our little guy was two months early), it was a pleasure to stumble across <a href="http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html">Baby Name Wizard</a> (this requires java). The site tracks the popularity of baby names through time. The interactive design is fascinating and a great example of how to pack a lot of overlapping information into one clear graphic. It seems the name we chose - Kai - is gaining popularity. I'm always behind the trends.
BLOG POST
$100 laptops open the door for highly interactive public meetings
What will be the next public participation technology? Here's one possibility… wireless laptops with electronic ink capability (and built in hand generators to boot!). All packaged to cost less than today's keypad polling devices. Way cool! <br /> <br /> 1. <a href="http://laptop.media.mit.edu/">http://laptop.media.mit.edu/</a><br /> 2. <a href="http://news.com.com/2300-1044_3-5884639-3.html">http://news.com.com/2300-1044_3-5884639-3.html</a><br /> <br /> Too bad they're not for sale, but I'm sure others will follow.
BLOG POST
Wi-Fi Markets
Just to keep everyone updated on the continuing development of Wi-Fi, Muni-wireless released a new <a href="http://muniwireless.com/municipal/reports/841">report </a>on the state of the Wi-Fi market. The long and short of it is the market is expanding rapidly with just about every city looking to get in on the action. <br /> <br /> On the flip side, the Philadelphia Inquirer last weekend ran a <a href="http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/13151838.htm">story</a> about the uncertain future of wireless as a city-led initiative.
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
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