From @Center4NewEcon — Applying Jane Jacobs' “import replacement” economics to contemporary localism

From @Center4NewEcon Thwarting Leaky Buckets and Other Local Economy Adventures http://t.co/x1EA5IonUY

— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) May 29, 2015

From Price Tags — Ed Glaeser (“Triumph of the City”) on Vancouver… and Sam Sullivan

Georgetown row house block; courtesy of the Congress for the New Urbanism

Ed Glaeser (“Triumph of the City”) on Vancouver … and Sullivanism | Price Tags

In a one-week period earlier this month, Edward Glaeser’s schedule took him from a conference in Leeds, England, hosted by the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to Stanford for an urban summit, to Milwaukee to speak at Marquette, home to Boston for a night, down to Washington to give a keynote address at a World Bank conference and finally off to Delhi for a two-day visit. What’s driving this demand for his views is not only his reputation as a top-notch urban economist, but his thoroughly researched message about our urbanizing world. Half of humanity now lives in urban areas, he reports, and by 2050, that figure will rise to three-quarters of humanity. In Glaeser’s eyes, this urbanization is a profoundly positive trend. Despite the challenges cities must learn to overcome — including crime, sanitation, services for the poor — they are sites of intense collaboration, innovation and opportunity. Read more: Humanity’s Greatest Invention? Face-to-face with Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City — Medium

From born to walk — Walking meetings

Walking is increasingly part of the program at urbanist conferences and wellness conferences, and it shares the stage with cycling and mass transit at active transportation and sustainability gatherings, but we obsessive walkers get really excited when there’s an event where walking, as Henry David Thoreau wrote in his 1862 essay “Walking,” is “itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.” Every Body Walk! will be hosting its second annual National Walking Summit in Washington, D.C., in late October, but the cream of the crop is arguably the annual Walk21 conference, to be held in Vienna from October 20 to 23. This year’s motto is “stepping ahead,” and the event is intended to promote “activities and innovations towards the future of our resilient cities and healthy living environments.” Read more: Walking meetings | born to walk

From Next City — We Put 31 Artists, 25 Architects and 18 Urban Planners in a Room. Guess What Happens Next...

Credit: Ashton Lance

The team: 31 artists and designers, 25 architects and housing experts, 23 community members, 18 urban planners, 11 local foundation and city representatives, 2 landscape architects and between them, eight Next City Vanguards. Read more: We Put 31 Artists, 25 Architects and 18 Urban Planners in a Room.

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"It is exactly this social mobility...that gives the street its danger and magic." Rebecca Solnit-- Wanderlust, A History of Walking.

— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) May 3, 2015

How much does your commute cost (or save) society?

.@adamlcarey @theage Any funding that build more roads is just a bad bad bad investment pic.twitter.com/5jRz9d1GVI

— Jon Bryant (@JonathanPBryant) May 19, 2015

Here's What Happened When A Neighborhood Decided To Ban Cars For A Month http://t.co/6uQsLaqsVu @ecomobility_ pic.twitter.com/EGWWSBNs4U

— Ethan Kent (@ebkent) May 19, 2015

I love greenways but it pains me to see so many DOTs favor trails while ignoring the basic needs of people who have to cross their streets.

— Walk Farce (@WalkFarce) May 17, 2015

Street of the day: Istanbul, Turkey — @NathanNWE

#streetoftheday Istanbul, Turkey. pic.twitter.com/af4yJAzdZd

— Nathan Lewis (@NathanNWE) May 17, 2015

From The Guardian —The Liverpool street that might win the Turner prize

 Cairns St. Assemble helped to transform after ‘managed decline’. A Teebay/Liverpool Echo

At the end of Granby Street in Liverpool’s Toxteth, past relentless rows of tinned-up houses punctuated by half-demolished corner shops, the mood is unusually festive. Television crews have been here for the past few days, camping out amid the jungle of pavement plant pots and poking their cameras into tumble-down terraces. But for once they haven’t come to report on the sorry story of urban dereliction that has plagued these streets for the past 30 years. It’s not the usual social affairs correspondents, but packs of bewildered cultural critics – because this is the street that’s been shortlisted for the Turner prize.The street that might win the Turner prize: how Assemble are transforming Toxteth | Art and design | The Guardian

Toxteth then and now: photographs of a bygone Liverpool http://t.co/SAcpix9PYF pic.twitter.com/YzUPEpweKS

— Guardian Cities (@guardiancities) May 19, 2015

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@WilliamPennFdn — $11 million Philly investment: "Reimagining the Civic Commons”

Can civic places, including libraries, parks, trails, plazas and community centers, be reimagined to make cities more successful? The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and William Penn Foundation are investing $11 million in an initiative led by Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park Conservancy to test this idea. The initiative will explore whether reinventing and connecting these public places as a network of civic assets will help cities attract and keep talented workers, advance economic opportunity, encourage residents to become more engaged in shaping their communities, and begin to level the playing field between more affluent communities and those in need. Read more: Building more successful cities the focus of new $11 million investment to reinvent Philadelphia’s public places.

Chris Burden died on Sunday. He was 69.

From @CityLab "When it comes to thinking critically about what makes cities run, Burden’s genre-spanning career places him among the most useful, inquisitive artists of our time."

Posted by The Sidewalk Ballet on Monday, May 11, 2015

From PriceTags — Planners, Profs to Vancouver Council: We are "concerned about the future planning direction in the city"

April 13, 2015 

To: Mayor and Councilors, City of Vancouver 

Re: Procedural Fairness for the Proposed Re-zoning Application at 508 Helmcken Street (RTS No.10912)

Dear Mayor and Council, 

We are a group of Vancouver urban planners and academics including former City of Vancouver planners who are concerned about the future planning direction in the city. Our concerns relate to both the need for an overall planning framework for the city but also many individual project approvals which ignore long held planning values about the need for new developments to fit in with their surroundings. In this regard we are very concerned that the proposed development at 508 Helmcken Street is out of scale with its surroundings.

This was confirmed by the initial Urban Design Panel (UDP) review which rejected it 7-0. It is our understanding that the UDP panel reluctantly approved the project 5-3 when it was considered a second time, following very minor modifications, and only after an extraordinary intervention by the General Manager of Development Services who urged approval. 

While we acknowledge this project is in a unique situation we believe the current application warrants another review by the UDP prior to consideration at Public Hearing. This will provide the panel an opportunity to assess whether earlier concerns have been addressed. It will also allow new panel members to comment. 

This review will also hopefully provide guidance to Council and staff on how far the city should deviate from accepted zoning and planning guidelines in order to achieve much desired affordable housing and other amenities. 

We therefore respectfully urge city staff and Council to refer this application back to the UDP prior to another formal Public Hearing. 

Thank-you for your consideration of this request. 

Yours sincerely,.

Lance Berelowitz, Principal, Urban Forum Associates 

Ken Cameron, Former Manager of Policy and Planning, Greater Vancouver Regional District; Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies, Simon Fraser University

Patrick Condon, Chair, Master of Urban Design Program, UBC

Frank Ducote, former Senior Urban Designer, City of Vancouver Planning Department

Michael Geller, President, The Geller Group; Adjunct Professor, SFU Centre for Sustainable Community Development 

Dr. Penny Gurstein, Director, School of Community and Regional Planning, UBC.

Colleen Hardwick, CEO, PlaceSpeak 

Scot Hein, Urban Designer, Campus and Community Planning; Adjunct Professor of Urban Design, SALA, UBC 

Ray Spaxman, Former Director, City of Vancouver Planning Department; Principal, Spaxman Consulting Group .

Erick Villagomez, Principal, Metis Design Build 

Read more: A Dilemma for Our Times: The Brenhill/Jubilee House Rezoning

A Conversation With @Fred_Kent of @PPS_Placemaking

A Conversation With @Fred_Kent of @PPS_Placemaking http://t.co/aJGVEv0Yfw via @JLGoodenough #Placemaking #PublicSpace pic.twitter.com/ka7hM9AdeH

— Future of Places (@FutureofPlaces) April 29, 2015

From The Guardian — Bikes vs Cars: why it’s war between cyclists and drivers on city streets

@zoesqwilliams Fredrik Gertten is a Swedish documentary-maker: he made a film about the banana industry, and then he made a film about being sued by the banana industry. He has recently been anointed one of Sweden’s “top environmentalists” – which, although the title is fairly broad, has got to be good. And he has now made Bikes vs Cars, which is as confronting – though I don’t think you’d call it exactly confrontational – as you would expect. Read more: Bikes vs Cars: why it’s war between cyclists and drivers on city streets | Film | The Guardian

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From @Park_People — Making Connections: Planning parks & open space networks in urban neighbourhoods

Our report | Making Connections: Planning parks & open space networks in urban neighbourhoods http://t.co/Qzg42ay1Tn pic.twitter.com/wkKOTkwkHC

— Park People (@Park_People) April 22, 2015