News Roundup › Urban Design

Density isn’t a magic elixir. Density simply facilitates interaction. Interactions translate into wealth when a population is educated and local institutions support private enterprise and entrepreneurship.

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

Today, the High Line is one of Manhattan’s most popular public spaces: a mile-long, modern, high-concept park built on the old railroad track. In the 10 months after it opened in 2009, it drew 2 million visitors and — in a rare ratio for a public space in New York — about half were tourists. Half were native New Yorkers.

Source: NPR | Archived Copy

More than a dozen neighbors spoke in opposition to the requests, citing noise from deliveries and other store activities, alleged damage to streets and buildings from the large trucks, a shortage of neighborhood parking and other problems.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Now, taking down freeways has gone mainstream. Cities as diverse as New Haven, New Orleans and Seattle are either doing it or talking about it. The chief motivation seems to be money. “Listen to the story here.”:Download file

Source: National Public Radio | Archived Copy

Walgreens executives have yet to commit to the Magazine Street project (which would include closing their location on Tchoupitoulas), said developer Louis Stirling Properties, but appear to be the tenant most likely to be able to pay the building’s $600,000 lease. Stirling’s plan for the building includes removing its brick front completely and replacing it with a glass wall with steel columns — not unlike nearby Whole Foods — and many residents asked why such a modern design was chosen.

Source: The Uptown Messenger | Archived Copy

One major area of questions that emerged with the debate over the Romney Pilates building is the veracity of information presented to public bodies as they make decisions and how to ensure that applicants’ plans stay within the spirit of what was permitted.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Those in the neighborhood say such statements are blatant misrepresentation, and the board was duped. The class schedule and list of teachers on the Romney website prove that more than four people at a time will be in the building, elevating the need for more parking, they say. And the picture that was shown to the board depicts a much lower-profile two-story building than what has sprouted on Magazine Street.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Although streetcar development is nothing new, the phenomenon was rediscovered in the early 1990s and earned its own terms of art: transit-oriented development and development-oriented transit.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Donald Rouse, co-owner of the Thibodaux-based grocer, said the excitement about the neighboring development is mutual. “The additional residences as well as the additional businesses will help our store and the whole area. We’re equally excited to have them begin their project,” Rouse said. “What they’re doing, what we’re doing, it’ll all spur additional development.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Variations in neighborhood density mean your ZIP code has a lot to do with whether you can live without a car.

Source: Gambit Weekly | Archived Copy

A TIF or some sort of public subsidy would also be necessary to pull off the new mixed-use retail district, Kabacoff said. “No major catalytic project in the U.S. can be accomplished in this economy without fed, state and/or local subsidy,” he wrote in an e-mail, adding that “public subsidy should be made available for those projects that will stimulate revitalization.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Ending our love affair with the automobile, no matter how unhealthy it has become, seems overwhelmingly disruptive. Although more and wider roads lead only to more congestion, states are loath to reject federal highway dollars such as those offered in economic stimulus packages. Highways are easy things to spend money on, so who cares if what they stimulate is sprawl?

Source: The Washington Post | Archived Copy

Mayor Mitch Landrieu joined Friday with several elected officials and not-for-profit executives in an attempt to celebrate the redevelopment program as an alternative to razing the structures. But the event evolved into a contentious affair as neighborhood residents, businesspeople and community activists used the forum to blast the government’s planning process for the VA hospital and the adjacent state teaching hospital that will replace the shuttered Charity Hospital.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“The mayor believes whether it’s the state government or federal government making an investment in the city, we welcome you,” Kopplin said, “but we expect developers, public or private, to operate within the scope of the city’s master plan … and we expect a seat at the table.” He added, “If we’re going to make billion-dollar investments in the city, we’ve got to get them right.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

The new report sums up the criticisms of the Claiborne expressway this way:
“Once a thriving commercial corridor, the area defined by Claiborne Avenue suffered serious decline following the construction of the I-10 expressway in the 1960s. Pushed through over the wishes of the area’s largely disenfranchised African-American population, it was intimately tied to the overall decline of the neighborhood, replacing a lively strolling street, oak-covered neutral ground and business corridor with an eyesore that made Claiborne Avenue both a physical and symbolic barrier between the area’s neighborhoods.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

During his tenure as lieutenant governor and as a mayoral candidate, Landrieu endorsed a new state teaching hospital and showed no desire to join activists pushing for the state to gut and rebuild within the storm-damaged and shuttered Charity shell. But the latest moves suggest the mayor is willing to engage on the design of the hospital, which has drawn mixed reviews from various local planners.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“It’s a little piece of metal and we put it in the ground and that’s it,” Lancaster said. “It’s an improvement for the whole community and it’s permanent.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Those responsible for the current plan are obviously unaware of the transformative and progressive events and trends occurring in America: the emphasis on livability, on walkable urban design, energy-efficient, multi-modal transportation, compact development and sustainable building design. This hospital plan is so out of touch it doesn’t even address the needs of the dramatically changing health-care system.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Amid cries from residents accusing the New Orleans City Planning Commission of being a rubber stamp, commissioners voted 5-1 Tuesday to approve the eventual closure of Mid-City streets within the footprint of a planned federal hospital for veterans.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

David Dixon of Goody Clancy said adoption of the master plan means that “for the first time New Orleans has a plan that provides a credible and legitimate basis for future public policy and decision-making regarding land use, development, zoning, city capital expenditures, transportation, and similar fundamental decisions that shape the city’s future.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Such a departure would spare scores of camelback and shotgun houses from being taken by eminent domain for the VA to build its hospital in a century-old neighborhood, much of which is included in a National Register Historic District. The property owners are likely to get lower payments from the seizures, because the City Council prohibited them from obtaining permits to fix their houses after the storm, the only New Orleans neighborhood not allowed to recover.

Transparency ought to be the order of the day in a dispute involving a third of a billion dollars, the health of tens of thousands of post-Katrina New Orleanians and the fate of a 25-square-block neighborhood of historic homes and buildings threatened by eminent domain. Instead, secrecy rules.

Source: The Washington Times | Archived Copy

“There have been lots of studies, but none of them have been independent,” said Sen. Jack Donahue, a Covington Republican and contractor who persuaded six of his fellow commissioners to push for a new study.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Thurman’s home and those of his neighbors may be doomed if government officials carry out their plan, so Thurman decided to do his best to slow them down.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“We took this action because time is running out for the residents of Mid-City,” said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

The perfect city isn’t static. It’s evolving and ever changing, and its laws and structure allow that to happen. Neighborhoods change, clubs close and others open, yuppies move in and move out—as long as there is a mix of some sort, then business districts and neighborhoods stay healthy even if they’re not what they once were. My perfect city isn’t fixed, it doesn’t actually exist, and I like it that way.

Source: The Wall Street Journal | Archived Copy

“It has been a ploy all along by these people to keep on getting another thing, another thing,” Mr. Perry said as he stood on the porch watching cars snake into the facility late Friday afternoon. “First they got to be open 24 hours a day on weekends, then they’ll get it all week, then they’ll go for gaming tables, too.”

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

The city and a land trust are working to create a new parkway through Treme and Mid-City.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Through a mix of city, state and federal efforts, the commercial strip along Lakeview’s Harrison Avenue is being transformed into a picturesque thoroughfare with wider sidewalks, landscaping, better lighting and bike lanes. Read more.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

All three pending New Orleans area locations will be built according to a prototype the company is using in this market, which calls for about 14,500 square feet of space with a single-lane drive-through pharmacy window.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

The drive to remove I-10 has recently gained steam, not only because it has support from professional planners but also because the expressway itself may soon need a major overhaul. Read more.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Source: Louisiana Recovery Authority | Archived Copy

The Times-Picayune
Chris Bynum
April 13, 2009

New Orleanians can lace them up and head out. Prevention magazine puts the Crescent City in its top 25 “Best Walking Cities in America.” Number 22, to be exact.

According to the healthy lifestyle magazine, the American Podiatric Medical Association, and Sperling’s BestPlaces (a resource for destination facts), Louisiana’s river city was chosen based on 19 criteria — among them population density per square mile, use of mass transit, crime rates, and square miles of local and state parks. Read more.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

As the recession deepens, the retail industry continues to take a huge hit. Nowhere is this more visible than in the rising vacancy rate in shopping malls across the country. Mall owners are gambling on various businesses to draw people in, from water parks to educational services. What happens, or should happen, to dying or dead shopping malls? Read more from the following contributors:

Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, architecture professors
Helene Klodawsky, director of “Malls R Us”
Peter Blackbird, founder of deadmalls.com
James J. Farrell, historian
Joel Kotkin, NewGeography.com

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

Since the day the Claiborne Expressway was constructed nearly 50 years ago devastating the historic Treme neighborhood, attorney Bill Borah has been shouting into the wind, “Tear down this monstrosity.”

But few people listened and even fewer believed the chances of the city demolishing the elevated highway was anything more than a fantasy.

“People looked at me like I was crazy,” Borah said. “I may as well have been having a conversation with my cat.”

But last week Borah’s fantasy moved one step closer to becoming a reality when the city released its master plan. Read more.

Source: New Orleans CityBusiness | Archived Copy

Mike Rawlings, Dallas’ homeless czar, told the council that providing permanent homes to people on the streets not only helps them but is cheaper for taxpayers in the long run.

Source: The Dallas Morning News | Archived Copy

Enhancements to make bicycling more attractive come at a time when the environmental impact of heavy automobile use is getting more attention, and also when higher fuel prices are making habitual driving more expensive.

Source: New Orleans Magazine | Archived Copy

In urging support of the amendment, the Bureau of Governmental Research said that in New Orleans, “land-use decisions do not emerge from a fair, rational or consistent process, and the City Council holds unbridled discretion in important areas.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Following Hurricane Katrina, the removal of the highway was recognized in the Unified New Orleans Plan as a means of reconnecting Treme to surrounding neighborhoods in the French Quarter, Marigny and Esplanade Ridge. UNOP planners predicted the full removal of the interstate overpass would renew 35 to 40 city blocks and create 20 to 25 blocks of open space along Claiborne Avenue. But since the UNOP declaration no plans have been made to tear down the overpass and local officials have said nothing to imply support for the costly maneuver.

All of the great challenges that confront the 21st-century city — from class, race and environmental issues to the continuing duel between history and modernity — are crystallized in New Orleans.

Yet the kind of visionary urban plan that could address these issues in a bold and thoughtful way has yet to materialize. Instead, some of the country’s greatest architectural minds are inventing the future in cities like Beijing, Shenzhen and Dubai, where their talents are more appreciated.

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

A year after the introduction of the sturdy gray bicycles known as Velib’s, they are being used all over Paris. The bikes are cheap to rent because they are subsidized by advertising, and other major cities, including American ones, are exploring similar projects.

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

“The time has come to see the potential for this corridor not only be used as a path for people to walk or bike to work and to better their health, but also to knit communities along the greenway together,” said Bart Everson, the FOLC’s board chair.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“Ambitious projects will be put on hold, but I don’t think they’ll throw away the blueprints,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “A lot of inner cities are going through a bit of a renaissance for broader demographic reasons that will remain in place for a while. Aging baby boomers are becoming empty nesters and they’re thinking of moving back to the urban core.”

Source: Business Week | Archived Copy

“New Orleans is a great place for biking,” says Lando, his enthusiasm undimmed by potholes and a paucity of dedicated bike lanes. “It’s flat, everything is so close together. I can get from the French Quarter to the Riverbend in 20 minutes. I can go from our house to Petco on Manhattan (Boulevard) and come back with 30 pounds of dog food in the same amount of time it takes me to go by car. And it’s a great way to see the neighborhood.”

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Welcome to the “walkable community”— a design movement transforming American suburban neighborhoods just as the cul-de-sac and strip mall once did. It could be the new green wave of the future for Western New York, changing forever the built environment as we know it in an era of obscene gas prices.

Source: The Buffalo News | Archived Copy

From Elysian Fields to the St. Bernard Parish line, St. Claude Avenue now hosts New Orleans’ first bike lane. Consider this a down payment on what’s to come.

Source: WWOZ Street Talk | Archived Copy

So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we’ll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We’ll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We’ll have to restore local economic networks — the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed — made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.

Source: Washington Post | Archived Copy

Nineteen grants totaling more than $581,000 have been awarded to help bring to life some of the neighborhood recovery projects envisioned in the Unified New Orleans Plan for rebuilding the city after Hurricane Katrina.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“This is about the future of the Warehouse District and whether it is going to continue to be four- and five-story residences or whether it’s going to be a series of Miami South Beach towers. If I wanted to live in South Beach I would have moved there,” Rubenstein said

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

“We built the opera house in two months, the botanical gardens in three months, Niemeyer’s museum in five months. We transformed the city’s main street into a pedestrian area in 72 hours. It wasn’t that we were chasing after records - it was necessity.”

Wally N’Dow, former head of the UN Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), has described Curitiba as “a wonderful example, because cities that follow this lead can jumpstart the economies, assist the poorest of their poor, and clean up their cities.”

Source: Guardian | Archived Copy

It’s not necessarily the billion-euro development, star-architect-designed gallery or shiny new ferris wheel that makes locals feel good about their town. Monocle believes that the measure of a city is more about everyday wonders — pavements, well-designed schools, punctual transport — rather than one-off, grand projets. Here’s our list of the top 25 urban elements that make the city.

Source: International Herald Tribune | Archived Copy

FOLC said the Lafitte Greenway will encourage economic revitalization; create transportation alternatives, such as walking, biking and connections to transit; improve public health; and promote cultural tourism by connecting to neighborhood attractions.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

The twin hospitals would consume nearly 70 acres of a national historic district, obliterating the Deutsches Haus, a German cultural center; the former McDonogh No. 11 school, a landmark that dates to 1879; and scores of classic shotgun- and sidehall-style homes, including four that were renovated after Katrina with $45,000 in historic preservation grants from the state. The Dixie Brewery and the modernist City Hall annex also sit inside the hospital footprint, although city leaders have indicated those buildings could be spared.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

In recent years, downtown Mississauga has amassed both significant density and a reasonably broad mix of land uses. But its sidewalks remain virtually empty, especially when compared with the attractive central areas of the world’s great cities. And it’s that lack of street life that Canada’s sixth-largest city hopes to address starting with Parkside Village by Vancouver-based developer Amacon.

Source: Toronto Star | Archived Copy

Once completed, the concrete segment of the Wisner route will be among the city’s major paved off-street bike infrastructure, joining the 1.79-mile Mississippi River Levee path and the 1.38-mile West End path, said Jennifer Ruley, a bicycle and pedestrian engineer with the Louisiana Public Health Institute.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

The 2,500 square feet of space on the first floor of the circa-1820 building, which by the summer of 2009 will contain half a million dollars’ worth of exhibits, will launch what the superintendent calls the “soft opening” of one of 391 national parks.

It also could refer tourists and others to its satellite site, a $12 million “world-class jazz museum” under development at the Old U.S. Mint in the French Quarter, and to a jazz walk of fame along the levee in Algiers, a short ferry ride away.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

After protesters clashed violently with the police inside and outside the New Orleans City Council chambers on Thursday, the Council voted unanimously to allow the federal government to demolish 4,500 apartments in the four biggest public housing projects here.

Source: New York Times | Archived Copy

Far from being what the market wants, sprawl is a Ponzi scheme that depended on the securitization of mortgages into pools mixing form, content and risk into an unrecognizable hash. It was great bait—“what the market wants”—until the trawler nets came up empty.

Source: Counter Punch | Archived Copy

Pre-Katrina, the St. Charles line, which extended from Canal Street to Carrollton Avenue and Claiborne Avenue, ran 24 hours a day, but the new Canal-to-Napoleon service will operate daily from 5:27 a.m. to 11:55 p.m. with a fleet of five 1923 Perley Thomas streetcars running 10 minutes apart.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

St. Charles Avenue, the “Jewel of America’s Grand Avenues,” has has been recognized as one of the top 10 avenues in America by the American Planning Association.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

The 162-acre site will be a mini-metropolis with movie theaters, restaurants, shopping, residences, gyms and schools, all helping revitalize Algiers, Kabacoff said. “Our concept opens up substantial portions of the base to community access,” Kabacoff said. “It includes public access to the waterfront area and the levee area of the base that will occur over time… . Our concept involves community participation with various groups in the area who would come on and try to reuse some of the existing buildings there.”

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

The ORM has $2.4 million of an estimated $2.5 million needed to complete phase one, which includes developing a greenway between North Broad and Jefferson Davis Parkway. ORM will use $2 million from the $117 million authorized by the Louisiana Recovery Authority for the city, $313,000 from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development and a $95,000 grant from the American Institute of Architects to develop the park.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

Face it. We have a driving problem, and it’s killing us. We are addicted to driving, and we are in denial about it. We lash out at those who bring it to our attention and label them as “anti-car.” Unfortunately, that is about as constructive as labeling a doctor as “anti-food” if that doctor recommends a diet.

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinal | Archived Copy

Launched in July, the “Velib” bikes were part of the Paris mayor’s idea of making the city more ecologically friendly and reducing traffic. Just two months on, the self-service bicycles have clocked some 3.7 million rides and seem to be changing the way people get around the city.

Source: National Public Radio | Archived Copy

This illustrated list outlines the 10 simple steps to designing the city of the future.

Photographer Danny Lyon offers his ideas for improving cities.

“I have been asked to help design a city. I am flattered. In the past, this was the job of emperors and kings. Of course, today, things are a bit more complicated. Having benefited from a New York City public school education and 65 years of life, and with the peace of mind necessary for clear thought that I have now, living on my farms, where I raise my own vegetables and fish, I recommend the following:

1: First we kill the architects

2: Then we burn the malls…”

Source: The New York Times | Archived Copy

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

The model city for road closure is Bogotá, Colombia, which in 1983 embarked on a program called ciclovia (bike path), in which designated streets were closed to cars every Sunday but open for jogging, biking, dancing, playing ball, walking pets, strolling with babies — anything but driving. One-and-a-half million people now turn out each week for ciclovia. Other cities in Latin America followed suit, closing parts of parks or whole urban districts to cars — some intermittently, some permanently. A result: revitalized neighborhoods and an influx of people. Smaller US cities, from Davenport, Iowa, to Huntington Beach, Calif., are also starting to create car-free zones.

Source: Christian Science Monitor | Archived Copy

The first time the group struck was on May 30. The gang spray-painted an illegal bike lane in the Annex, between Spadina Ave. and Bathurst St., along Bloor. To make the paths appear legitimate, painters stencilled the city’s bike lane logo - a bicycle and large diamond - along the road as well.

Source: The Star.com | Archived Copy

[Louisiana] is getting ready to spend three hundred and fifty-eight million dollars on a gigantic automobile overpass along the northern edge of the Lower Ninth Ward, to connect downtown New Orleans with neighboring St. Bernard Parish. St. Bernard was home to sixty-seven thousand people before Katrina and to maybe a little more than a third of that now. Opponents call the overpass “the bridge to nowhere.”

Source: The New Yorker | Archived Copy

Pease said the representative, an attorney for Victory, mentioned possible tenants but said no commitments had been made. But he gave examples including a 190,000-square-foot Target, an 80,000-square-foot Dick’s Sporting Goods, an 80,0000-square-foot Bed Bath & Beyond, a 50,000-square-foot bookstore and a 27,000-square-foot junior anchor.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Frank’s team, like the other groups, found that areas with interspersed homes, shops, and offices had fewer obese residents than did homogeneous residential areas whose residents were of a similar age, income, and education. Furthermore, neighborhoods with greater residential density and street plans that facilitate walking from place to place showed below-average rates of obesity.

Source: Science News Online | Archived Copy

Even with the reduction, the tower would be more than three times the 85-foot height limit allowed in the block by the city’s zoning law.

Source: The Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

Penalosa made strides by ignoring some experts and their conventional wisdom. When Japanese consultants suggested he build seven elevated highways to solve the city’s traffic woes, Penalosa recalled, he did the opposite. Instead, the city invested in a world-class bus system, built pedestrian-only streets (one stretches 20 miles) and restricted car use in downtown Bogota. Thanks to a much-improved and “sexier” bus system, Penalosa said, public transportation in his city is actually too popular and 20% of rail riders own cars they don’t use.

Source: LA Downtown News Online | Archived Copy

Councilman Tony Young, who joined the 5-3 majority, countered, “I have a vision for San Diego and that vision is about walkable, livable communities, not big, mega-structures that inhibit people’s lives.”

Source: msnbc.com | Archived Copy

The main junction in Drachten handles about 22,000 cars a day. Where once there were traffic lights, there is a roundabout, an extended cycle path and pedestrian area. In the days of traffic lights, progress across the junction was slow as cars stopped and started. Now tailbacks are almost unheard of � and almost nobody toots a horn.

Source: Telegraph | Archived Copy

The Regional Transit Authority will receive $43 million to repair its hurricane-damaged public transportation system.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

The office of Farr Associates is no next-generation green-building prototype — it’s located in the historic 114-year-old Monadnock Building, Chicago’s tallest all-brick skyscraper. But inside, green spores of sustainability burst forth. The open studio spaces have walls that have been painted by a local artist who used milk-based, non-toxic paints. The desktops are made of natural linoleum, and a translucent divider embedded with leaves separates one desk from another. “Occupancy sensors” trigger energy-conserving lights in the kitchenette, conference room, and main studio. Large, operable First Chicago School windows gaze over nearby Printer’s Row, letting in eastern and southern light that is welcomed by the many living creatures in the space.

Source: Grist | Archived Copy

Lipman said many communities have identified a lack of affordable housing, traffic-clogged roads and longer commutes as critical issues but have not linked them. “One thing this study shows is the need to have regional solutions about both housing and transportation,” she said.

Source: Washington Post | Archived Copy

The story of how the Army Corps of Engineers drowned New Orleans does not pack the kind of emotional power that leaves telepathic TV personalities almost speechless. It is a story that takes place mostly in the fine print of technical studies and appropriation bills, long before the rooftop rescues. But it’s still a story that should tighten your throat.

Source: Dallas Morning News | Archived Copy

When the Central Artery expressway was built in the 1950s, it carved through Boston indiscriminately, destroying sections of Chinatown and effectively cutting off the North End from the rest of the city. Half a century later, as part of the massive Big Dig construction project, much of the elevated expressway has been torn down. In its place will be the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a nearly 30-acre stretch of parks and public spaces that promises to reunite neighborhoods long divided.

Source: Good Magazine | Archived Copy

Question: How did you go from neighborhood rallies to running a nationally renowned organization?

Answer: Well, the street protests were cute and motivating and all, but eventually I decided it was time to get serious. In 2001, I founded Sustainable South Bronx — not as a moral crusade, but as an economic-development group that was about planning our future, not just reacting to environmental blight. I wanted to play offense, not defense. I wanted to give our community permission to dream, to plan for healthy air, healthy jobs, healthy children, and safe streets.

Source: Grist Magazine | Archived Copy

While visiting Portland for the first time several years ago, the Stanleys wandered into Southpark Seafood Grill & Wine Bar in downtown Portland, where a bartender asked the couple where they were from and then said: “Boston, New York—these cities will be the same in 50 years. But Portland is changing, and you should be part of that.” It reinforced the idea that that’s going to be an adventure for us,” Natasha Stanley says. “We saw this energy and this opportunity.” And what young person doesn’t want an adventure?

Source: BusinessWeek Online | Archived Copy

Construction will begin on Poydras Street in the first quarter of 2007 on the $400-million condo/hotel/retail project by real estate mogul Donald Trump.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

“We don’t need a facsimile of ourselves,” said David Waggonner, of Waggonner & Ball, a New Orleans architecture firm that has been active in post-hurricane planning. “There were some good ideas in old New Orleans. There are ideas worth studying, and we should learn from them, but it’s not my nature to think it’s natural to copy.”

Source: New York Times | Archived Copy

“Louisiana residents need the tools to rebuild their homes and their lives,” said Donna Fraiche, LRA Board Member and Long Term Community Planning Task Force Chair. “The LRA’s Louisiana Speaks Pattern Book will guide Louisianans toward rebuilding their homes safer, stronger and smarter.”

Source: Louisiana Recovery Authority | Archived Copy

Chicago is set to unveil new plans for becoming a bicyclist’s haven. And this time, it means business. The new Bike 2015 Plan wastes little time on breezy rides in the park. Instead, the city’s Department of Transportation is bent on getting people to bike to work, to school, to stores and to mass transit stops, cobbling together a 500-mile network of designated routes.

Source: Chicago Tribune | Archived Copy

On May 25, at the urging of lame-duck Councilman Jay Batt, the council unanimously approved plans for a 14,700-square-foot Walgreens at the site. Although the store would face Carrollton, it would be built far back in the block, next to Claiborne and near Dublin Street, with a large parking lot in front.

But on Thursday, with Midura having replaced Batt in the District A seat and three other new members on board, the council voted 7-0 to reconsider the previous action and then to defer a decision on Walgreens’ plans until its June 22 meeting.

Source: Times-Picayune | Archived Copy

“It’s a rare thing to see people just kind of come together in a collective to really tackle a project like this,” he said. “Most planning efforts tend to be top-down.”

Source: Times Picayune | Archived Copy

So, Barbara Bush was right after all when she said, “So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.” And Rep. Richard Baker, a 10-term Republican from Baton Rouge, was right when he was overheard telling lobbyists: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” The publication of both statements elicited public condemnation and was followed by a flurry of hairsplitting denials. But it is now clear that their only transgression was to say in unvarnished language what many pundits, politicians, and policy wonks were thinking.

Source: The Black Commentator | Archived Copy

An agreement that will be discussed at this week’s WTO
ministerial meeting in Hong Kong poses a serious threat to state and
local authority over land use policy, according to Public Citizen. Big
box retailers such as Wal-Mart are pushing for new provisions in the
WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services that could further
undermine local zoning and other land use and development policies.

Among the local laws threatened by GATS rules are those that impose size and height restrictions on big box stores; limits on hours of operation; economic needs tests before stores can be approved; and limits on development to protect the environment or protect historic and cultural sites. No state or local group has yet recognized the threat posed to land use laws and local sovereignty by the WTO’s one-size-fits-all rules for service firms. One group that has recognized this threat is major
retail firms.

“Major big box retail corporations have been eyeing the GATS as a way of gutting local zoning and land use laws that have kept them out of
communities in Europe and the United States.”

Source: Public Citizen | Archived Copy

As a resident of tech-savvy Austin, Texas, Adina Levin enjoys the benefits of widespread wireless Internet access. Austin is one of a number of cities in the nation that has built a system that allows residents to log on to the Internet without worrying about plugging into a phone or cable outlet. Levin wants the rest of the state to have the same advantage.

That’s why she spent much of the spring battling a bill in the state legislature that would have made it nearly impossible for other cities to emulate Austin. A provision in a lengthy telecommunications bill would have made it illegal for local governments to offer residents high-speed Internet access.

Source: Public Integrity | Archived Copy

Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans will deploy the nation’s first municipally owned wireless Internet system that will be free for all users, part of an effort to jump-start recovery by making living and doing business in the city as attractive as possible.

Much of the equipment to run the network was donated by companies, but New Orleans will own it and operate all its components at the outset. The system, which uses devices mounted on streetlights to beam out fast Internet connections for wireless-enabled computers, is scheduled to be operational today in the central business district and the French Quarter and to be expanded over time.

Source: Washington Post | Archived Copy

At one time, the quickest way to kill an idea in New Orleans was to suggest that it had worked well in Baton Rouge. Maybe, after all the good things that have been done around here for New Orleans and its people in the wake of two hurricanes, New Urbanism will get a better reception than it would have three months ago.

The New Urbanist philosophy of urban design guided the development of the highly successful Plan Baton Rouge master plan for downtown. It is in some respects a back-to-the-future idea: building more traditional neighborhoods and linking them with all forms of transportation to improve the quality of life.

New Urbanism can and should be the guiding philosophy behind rebuilding New Orleans, in part because there are parts of the city that already show the benefits of more than 200 years of “new” urbanism. But it can be improved through better use of mass transit and better building materials, and through replacing public facilities — from schools to parks to police stations — in better locations than today.

Source: The Advocate | Archived Copy

Peering out from a white-fenced balcony that looks out on nothing much, Katrina evacuee Stephanie Gleason said, “To tell the truth, I don’t know where we live.”

There is no bus stop here. The nearest supermarket is a $20 cab ride away.

Gleason’s cookie-cutter apartment complex, Eagles Landing, feels more like a bird cage than a nest.

Flushed out of their city — one of the most dense and most vibrant in the country — many of the New Orleanians who came here car-less find themselves living amid Austin’s car-enabled sprawl.

More or less trapped, their lives are a quick, sharp study of the isolation of suburbia.

Source: Austin American-Statesman | Archived Copy

Analyses of the failure of all levels of government to prevent or effectively manage the Katrina calamity in New Orleans have generally missed a crucial point. Alongside bias against poor people and African-Americans is automobile apartheid, born of fifty years of suburban sprawl. First-class citizens drive motor vehicles, second-class Americans walk, cycle, or ride public transit. Certainly many of the latter are poor, but millions more are middle-class Americans.

When emergency response largely ignores the plight of second-class citizens, no one should be surprised.

Source: Grist Magazine | Archived Copy

The Mayors’ Institute on City Design will hold two special design institutes in Biloxi, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana for communities impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The institutes will bring leading experts in architecture and design together with mayors from these hard-hit regions to talk about rebuilding their communities.

The City Design Institute in New Orleans will be held on Tuesday, November 15 and will focus exclusively on rebuilding New Orleans.

Source: Planetizen | Archived Copy

“Foundation grants are awarded to encourage and facilitate the design, development, construction, and operation of new skateboard parks and facilities in low-income communities. Grants may be requested in amounts ranging from $1,000 to $25,000.”

Source: Tony Hawk Foundation | Archived Copy

“Shifting housing demographics are stoking interest around the USA in development near transit, according to a study for the Federal Transit Administration released last month. City living draws singles, aging baby boomers, minorities and young couples more than suburban families with kids. And those groups are growing faster than suburbanites.”

Source: USA Today | Archived Copy

“Sound urban design and smart architecture create bustling streets and people-filled parks where young and old safely walk and talk, see old friends and feel confident they will not be attacked. Well-planned cities create communities where neighbors can meet in the local cafe, talk about their concerns, say hi to the other patrons and feel connected to the shared public spaces filled with old and new friends.”

Source: The L.A. Times | Archived Copy

“The funeral is now being arranged for urban planning in Cincinnati — the first city in the country to have a comprehensive master plan (1925) and the birthplace of city and regional planning as applied in the U.S.”

Source: Cincinnati Post | Archived Copy

The study showed that people living in sprawled cities are more likely to: drive further, own more cars per capita, breathe more polluted air, die in car crashes and walk less.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy

“When there are laws on the books, you shouldn’t have to ask citizens to buy property to save their neighborhood,” he says.

Source: City Business | Archived Copy