Archive for May, 2008
The “Pocket book point”
Saturday, May 31st, 2008 Great editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer regarding gradual changes happening in America as gasoline prices rise. John Timpane notes that transit ridership is gradually increasing and attitudes are slowly changing away from exurban sprawl and toward “elegant density.”
So, no, we haven’t reached the tipping point - we’ve reached a pocketbook point. When things really […]
Have stadium, will travel
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008Apparently it will be possible to dismantle the stadium being designed for the 2012 London Olympic Games in order to move it elsewhere. Bldgblog reports that the city of Chicago may end up with the edifice.
This all reminds me of the old Expo 86 structures, seats and other World’s Fair leftovers. The idea […]
Innovation, spiky-ness and poverty
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 In Who’s Your City, Richard Florida notes that economic spikes and valleys are becoming ever more pronounced.
What I found most intriguing, and simultaneously worrying, is his finding that the most innovative centers in the United States — Silicon Valley, Boston and the Research Triangle — also contain the USA’s “highest levels of inequality.”
Is poverty a […]
4 ways to read “Who’s Your City”
Friday, May 23rd, 2008Richard Florida, Who’s Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life.
Where you choose to live may be the most important decision in your adult life — at least according to Economist Richard Florida. And he makes a compelling case for it in his […]
Soaring gasoline prices not a threat to American suburbia
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008As much as I’d like to see differently, higher gasoline prices are not going to change the way American metropolitan areas are organized — at least not for a long time. Here are two reasons why not:
1. Gasoline prices in the US are only now reaching levels that were “normal” for many years […]
Old and New Third Places
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008The Economist had a special feature on mobile technology, nomadic workers, and what both mean to urban society. One observation the writers made was that these mobile technologies often connect us to familiar people far away, but create a barrier toward connecting to strangers sitting beside us.
One example used was Third Places — coffee shops, […]
Blaming fast food outlet proximity for obesity
Monday, May 5th, 2008According to a UCLA study (found via Planetizen):
Higher rates of diabetes and obesity occur in neighborhoods — regardless of the residents’ income, race or ethnicity — where fast-food restaurants and convenience stores greatly outnumber grocery stores and produce vendors, according to a statewide study released today.
But is this correlation the same thing as saying that […]
Jane’s Walk
Thursday, May 1st, 2008This weekend in nine Canadian cities and two American ones, volunteer neighborhood residents are offering guided tours of their communities to the public in a national celebration of the late Jane Jacobs and of cities.
As Jacobs said, to understand cities and to know what will work, “you’ve got to get out and walk.”
Some tour guides […]