Car Trouble

Carfree Cities: The Gritty Details from J.H. Crawford on Vimeo

Winter Sun Over Trafalgar Square

In 2012, Blue Monday (the most depressing day of the year) occurred on the 23rd January.  To lift the city’s spirits, Greyworld (commissioned by Tropicana) created a special sun that spread its dawn light over Trafalgar Square for one day only. 

Weighing 2.5 tons, and using 210,000 watts of power, it’s a great sight to behold on what would’ve been a gloomy morning. It finally set at 7.30pm, an hour after the real sun. Check out the time-lapse video below. Reposted from Pop-Up City

Full screen hi-res is nice also The Making of...

SUNN: Vancouver Historic Quartiers —The Dollar-Cost of Housing the Homeless

Social Housing should be part of the regional system, incorporated into neighbourhood planning from the outset. 
— Lewis N. Villegas, The Gastown Principles, March 2011.

Alexander Street in Gastown, pictured here, presents a microcosm of a workable housing strategy. In this photo we see co-op housing, social housing, affordable housing, and hi-end condominiums all on the same city block. There is a higher level of social mix taking place on the street than inside any given building.

The Face of Homelessness

Sustainable urbanism must incorporate social housing. Vancouver’s homeless are:

80% one or more of: addiction, mental health, HIV, other chronic
60% trauma victims
50% released from government care (foster care, group home, corrections) [Kraus, 2010]
33% aboriginal
10% Out-of-province

From: Housing and Homeless Strategy, City of Vancouver, 1 February 2011

In spring 2011, a CBC radio interview suggested that the cost of homelessness per person can be measured as:

$80,000 Federal Incarceration
$70,000 Provincial Incarceration
$55,000 Street Homeless (cost on the system–”Housing and Homeless Strategy,” City of Vancouver, 2011)
$45,000 Housed with supports

Read more: The Dollar-Cost of Housing the Homeless | SUNN: Vancouver Historic Quartiers

SUNN: Vancouver Historic Quartiers —Five Measures of ‘Good’ Urbanism

Focusing on just one aspect of ‘good’ urbanism, we list here several characteristics in the built form that are fundamental in shaping the human experience of place.

1. Perimeter Block Massing
2. Continuity of the streetwall
3. Human scale
4. Street aspect ratio
5. Solar penetration
6. Environmental performance of the street

Read more: Five measures of ‘good’ urbanism | SUNN: Vancouver Historic Quartiers

Vancouver Sun — True Old-Age Security Rests in Bricks and Mortar

Canada will have to do much more than raise the age of retirement if it hopes to guarantee its citizens anything that looks like security in their old age.

With his recent speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzer-land, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has set fire to a national conversation about the risks and challenges that lie ahead as the baby boom bulges into its senior years.

That's entirely appropriate; many would say this discussion is overdue.

But the challenges of managing an aging demographic will not be solved by a tweak to the government pro-grams aimed at providing financial security for those over the age of 65.

http://www.vancouversun.com/True+security+rests+bricks+mortar/6107013/story.html#ixzz1ldWfLS5ZTrue old-age security rests in bricks and mortar

Some of the gravest obstacles that we face as we age are physical. 

Canadian planners, developers and politicians have conspired over the last half-century to build cities and suburbs that best serve a car-driving middle class that is happy to travel long distances from homes, to school, jobs and services. Happy and capable. 

But even aside from crowding on the roads, and the increasingly prohibitive costs of maintaining an auto-oriented urban environment, older citizens often lose the capacity (and some-times the right) to drive a car.

Former Vancouver Mayor Tom Campbell Died Today at 85

Trailer: Urbanized

"Urban design is, really, the language of the city. When you walk down the street everything you see has been designed."