#TEDTalk @JeffSpeckAICP at @TEDCity2_0

Like "The Walkable City" book by @JeffSpeckAICP? You'll love his #TEDTalk at @TEDCity2_0: http://t.co/NwSa2iJAQb pic.twitter.com/VjxTPU87fA

— TEDCity2.0 (@TEDCity2_0) November 5, 2014

From lewisnvillegas — The City in TED talks

A collection of 20 minute chats or Ted Talks by a wide cross-section of prominent contemporary figures. See them alll at: The City in TED talks | lewisnvillegas

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Badass Democracy: Reclaiming the Public Commons: @CityRepair at @TEDx SantaCruz

Badass Democracy: Reclaiming the Public Commons: Mark Lakeman at TEDxSantaCruz http://t.co/jb1mjpriYz

— City Repair Project (@CityRepair) June 23, 2014

@AmandaMBurden @TEDTalks — How Public Spaces Make Cities Work

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

—@TED_TALKS Announces Vancouver Conference Speakers | @bcbusiness http://t.co/qIyfncfyan
— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) January 30, 2014

From TED.com — Jeff Speck: The Walkable City

How do we solve the problem of the suburbs? Urbanist Jeff Speck shows how we can free ourselves from dependence on the car -- which he calls "a gas-belching, time-wasting, life-threatening prosthetic device" -- by making our cities more walkable and more pleasant for more people. Jeff Speck is a city planner and the author of "Walkable City." Full bio »

From TED Blog — Jeff Speck's Most Walkable Cities in the World

Jeff Speck, the author of the book Walkable City, will be speaking at TEDCity2.0 — which will take place in New York City on September 20. (Email rsvp@ted.com for more information on attending.) Speck picked some of the cities he’s found the most delightful to explore on foot. He qualifies his picks saying, “These lists are silly and inevitably wrong, but here are the places that I’ve been to and that I’ve enjoyed walking around the most.” Read more: The most walkable cities in the world | TED Blog

A TED Talk Inspires Government Change in North Vancouver

In his TED Talk, Dave Meslin wondered: What would happen if Nike advertised sneakers in the same way local governments announced important information — with long, bland, black-and-white newspaper ads filled with jargon?

“Apathy as we think we know it doesn’t actually exist,” said Meslin, a local organizer in Toronto. “People do care, but we live in a world that actively discourages engagement by constantly putting obstacles and barriers in the way.”

Across Canada, Natasha Letchford — a Deputy Municipal Clerk in North Vancouver — stumbled on Meslin’s talk on Facebook. She found herself highly inspired, in part because she wanted to prove it wrong.

“One of reasons I went into local government was because I truly believe that I make a difference. So when Dave Meslin said that government is in some ways trying to deny people an opportunity to involved, I disagreed with him on that,” she says. “I took it as a bit of a challenge.”

“We in local government get so focused on making sure that the water’s turned on and making sure that the garbage gets taken away that when it comes to something like statutory notices … it becomes ‘that’s just the way we’ve always done it.’”

As she puts it, “We’re not going out of our way to deny people the opportunity to understand what’s going on. We just weren’t making the time to re-think our standard statutory notices.”

Just before Letchford watched this talk, the senior executive team in North Vancouver’s city hall had asked employees to think about year-long projects. So Letchford decided to update North Vancouver’s notices and signage. Read more at: A TED Talk inspires government change in North Vancouver | TED Blog

From TED Blog —The Making of the TED2014 Theatre: an Early View

The TED2014 theater will be something audacious: a theater designed specifically for talks.

TED stages in the past have had thrusts and three-quarter rounds, but have largely been determined by what existed in the venue. For TED2014, however, a temporary, pop-up theater designed by longtime TEDster Architect and Set Designer David Rockwell. The theater will be located inside the Vancouver Convention Centre, with sweeping views of the bay and the North Shore Mountains, and will be geared toward personal connection. Read more: The making of the TED2014 theater: an early view | TED Blog David Rockwell chats with Charlie Rose: 

Encore: @copenhagenize 85 Years of Traffic Engineering Revolving Around the Car Has Failed Miserably fb.me/1HcTubavY
— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) May 9, 2013

From copenhagenize.com — 85 Years of Traffic Engineering Revolving Around the Car Has Failed Miserably

Mikael Colville-Andersen: Engineers are brilliant problem solvers. They just need to be told which problems to solve. They are rarely leaders. They are the Can Do team. If we design a city properly, they will make it work. But as it is now, we are living in The Matrix, because traffic engineering goes unchecked and unctriticised. 

“Almost 35,000 people are killed in car accidents on our roads” @copenhagenize on harsh realities of North American and European car cultures. Bicycle Culture by Design: Mikael Colville-Andersen at TEDxZurich

From TED Blog — A Community Center Built by the Community Wins City 2.0 Award

The Klong Toey Community Lantern — a community space in the oldest and largest of Bangkok’s slums — was built very quickly. Not quite as quickly as shown in this three-minute timelapse video, but construction for the project took just three weeks thanks to the help of the community. But while construction went fast, Norwegian architects Yashar Hanstad and Andreas Gjertsen — of the firm TYIN tegnestue Architects – took six months to design the space. They conducted interviews with Klong Toey residents and held public workshops to find out exactly what the 140,000 person community — which struggles with rampant unemployment, drug use and substandard housing — needed. The goal was to create a safe oasis for community members of all ages to play and congregate. 

Read more: TED Blog | A community center, built by the community, wins City 2.0 award 

TEDxManitoba — Hazel Borys of PlaceMakersConfessions of a Former Sprawl Addict

http://www.placemakers.com/

From polis — TEDx Tackles the Future of Cities

Photo of the Manhattan Bridge leading to DUMBO is from Nowy Dziennik.

Cities around the world are constantly throwing up new questions: How can we ensure adequate housing for all? How can we live more sustainably? How can we live harmoniously in increasingly multiethnic environments? The questions are almost limitless, and it can be hard for those in the urban field to keep up.

I live in DUMBO, a Brooklyn neighborhood named for its location "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass." As one of the world's most concentrated areas of technology, design and urban startups, DUMBO has been a veritable laboratory of answers to urban questions. Read more: polis: TEDx Tackles the Future of Cities