Archive for May, 2009
Urban families after the great reset
Friday, May 29th, 2009As energy becomes expensive and major cities increase their status as economic drivers, families who live in them will inhabit smaller spaces than many do today. Some are already there, and from their lifestyles we can glimpse into the future.
Melanie, her husband and two children live in their 950 square foot condominium in Vancouver’s Yaletown […]
Can America be America without sprawl?
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009Spreading out into the suburbs allowed Americans to continue a number of long-standing cultural threads taught to them about their nation’s past. Many Americans may therefore not easily change and relocate to communities of higher density living.
Europeans came to the United States in the 17th through 19th centuries for several reasons. These included wanting to […]
Lesson from India on affordable housing
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009In dynamic, popular urban cores there is a constant dilemma about housing affordability. Because more people want to live in an area than there are homes, rents and sale prices can be high.
One solution is to demand a certain number of rental units or non-market units for sale when developers build out a new area […]
Social media and community engagement
Friday, May 15th, 2009Many popular culture analysts noted the decline of community in the later decades of the 20th century. People seemed to “tune out” and become uninterested in world events, local politics and issues that affected their daily lives. Some blamed television, others the double-income family combined with longer commutes that left little time to connect with […]
Car-free communities in the 21st century
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 Older neighbourhoods in European and some North American cities often work well as pedestrian and cycling zones because they emerged before the automobile existed. Any new community, by law, typically has to allow for automobiles both in roadway allowances and parking regulations.
But what would happen in the 21st-century if you built a community that deliberately […]
Special civic advocates for walking? cycling?
Sunday, May 10th, 2009Cities need to offer residents and businesses a variety of transportation options to maximize livability. Only facilitating automobile travel makes for a polluted, congested, and concrete-freeway-based environment. Only facilitating bikes or walking in 21st century life and you hamper citizens’ ability to go any distance or carry very much while doing it. As recently […]
Diversity of transport essential for livability
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009This weekend I attended Gordon Price’s “Jane’s Walk” through Vancouver’s West End — a densely populated neighbourhood situated between downtown, English Bay beach, and Stanley Park. Price told the neighbourhood’s story, connecting it to more universal ideas including those of Jane Jacobs about how city’s work, and mixing in wisdom from his years on city […]