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Book Reviews

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Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

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The Warhol Economy by Elizabeth Currid

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Wikinomics - 5 implications for cities

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The Missing Class: Portraits of the near poor in America by Newman and Chan

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Suburban Transformations by Paul Lukez

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public spaces

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Do a Jane’s Walk!

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

 Jane Jacobs was an urban thinker ahead of her time.  When the great thinkers of the day were promoting freeways and auto-centric suburban development, she spotted what was being lost.  To her, the best cities and neighbourhoods were organic, constantly evolving communities, or networks of relationships.  People knew each other and looked out for each […]

Supermarket parking lots as new neighbourhood hubs

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Could supermarket parking lots in now-dense urban areas become public squares? or be re-designed as great public places in other ways?
Neal Pierce recently penned an intriguing piece about supermarkets on Citiwire.net.
We perfected the buy-and-drive model from the post-World War II expansion onward. But is it necessarily the future?
No, asserts my Seattle friend and urban […]

Toronto needs a boost

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

This is the first of two posts on Toronto.  First, before anyone accuses me of being a self-centered Torontonian (which tends to happen when I say nice things about Toronto), let me say that I’m not from there.  I was born and largely raised in Vancouver and after stints elsewhere have chosen to make […]

Finally, a city celebrates its successes

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Vancouver frequently receives positive accolades, whether as the world’s most livable city, for its sustainable nature, or as one of the more attractive tourist destinations in North America.
Despite these, or perhaps because of them, local residents and the media tend to focus on the problems the city has:  drug wars, homelessness and crime; as well […]

Roads: not just for cars anymore

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

 Using roads only for motor vehicles is wasteful.  As gasoline prices reach record highs and increasing numbers of North Americans embrace higher density living, allowing roads to be more than conduits for cars needs greater consideration.
Special events would be a place to start.
Today (Sunday) in North Portland an entire region of the city is going […]

Have stadium, will travel

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

Apparently 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 […]

Jane’s Walk

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

This 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 […]

Unintended consequences of a new bylaw

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

In Vancouver a new bylaw came into effect last week banning cigarette smoking on restaurant patios and within 6 meters (about 20 feet) of doorways. Smoking has been banned at indoor public places for a long time.
I had a positive and a negative experience with this new bylaw this week. The positive […]

Creativity, anarchy and civilization

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

From Journalist Frances Bula’s City States Blog:
My son, who does visuals for DJs … sent me an email from Austin today. He’s of course at the South by Southwest music festival … It seems he also has something to say about city policy.
“we went to a show last night that started at 3am […]

New playground as community anchor

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

Like many public spaces in East Vancouver, the park by our house used to look tired — exhausted, in fact.  Some playground equipment became so dilapidated, it posed a hazard and neighbors asked the city to remove it.  Other plastic slides had more endurance (does plastic ever break down?), and children belonging to families living […]

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