In Providence, Rhode Island, local craftsmen are turning trashcans into art. The metal bins are custom-worked with designs celebrating local businesses and more general themes.
The experiment may hold a lesson for other municipalities. “The idea is an ingenuous one for any cash-strapped city,” Emily Badger writes. “Don’t have a budget for more-traditional art? There’s probably money for it somewhere.”
The Providence program is an initiative of The Steel Yard, an industrial arts nonprofit. Since its founding in 2001, the organization has transformed its headquarters, the former site of an ornamental metal fabricator, into a center for industrial arts education and practice. Its clients include Providence’s Downtown Improvement District, which purchased 120 custom-made trashcans for the city’s sidewalks.
Read the full story: The Case for Trash Cans as Art
Providence train station to gain new bus hub
The new hub will replace the one currently located at Kennedy Plaza.
Salt Lake City opens protected bike path on viaduct trail
The 400 South Viaduct Trail features the state's longest continuous piece of public art.
This Seattle sidewalk art only appears when it rains
Prompted to find a silver lining to the gloom of rainy Pacific Northwest days, an artist hit upon a novel solution: water-activated sidewalk paint.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
California plans to bury El Niño’s downpour
If the state plays its cards right, it may be able to store a billion acre-feet of El Niño’s water in aquifers.
Desperate measures: Advocates weigh draining Lake Powell to fill Colorado River
Draining the reservoir could reduce evaporation losses by a couple hundred thousand acre-feet.
Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax survives legal challenge
A panel of judges found that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate injury as a result of New York City's implementation of the tax.
Eastern Nebraska is running out of electricity
Data centers and electrification are straining eastern Nebraska’s grid, throttling economic development.
Seattle passes record-breaking transit services expansion
Proposition 1 will double the city’s transit tax to add 95,000 more bus trips and preserve 180,000 bus trips annually.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority