When people love a city, it succeeds. That's the semi-obvious conclusion of a recent survey. So why aren't we working hard to make cities people will love?
Author Peter Kageyama 2008's Gallup Soul of the Community survey, found strong correlations between peoples' emotional attachment to the communities they lived in and higher levels of local GDP:
"These results should not be surprising - we all recognize that when children, pets, plants or even objects are loved, they thrive (yes objects – just look at the car of someone who loves it). So this emotional dimension to infrastructure should not be seen as superfluous." writes Kageyama.
Kageyama wonders why cities don't build more dog parks and public art that kids can play on, which are both high on the 'love' scale.
FULL STORY: Why Aren't We Building 'Emotionally Connected' Cities? A Guest Post
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
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Placer County
Mayors' Institute on City Design
City of Sunnyvale
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP), the Department of City and Regional Planning (CRP)
Lehigh Valley Planning Commission
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Baton Rouge Area Foundation