Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

From The Wall Street Journal —
Classic New York Streetscapes, Then and Now

It is an essential paradox of New York City that its streetscapes seem both ageless and ever-evolving. Photographer Berenice Abbott captured that vibrant contradiction in the 1930s when she created her landmark series “Changing New York,” more than 300 black-and-white images of the metropolis shot with a large-format camera while she was working under the auspices of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. Her visual time capsule documents everything from soaring skyscrapers to neighbourhood storefronts, churches, tenements, warehouses and bridges.
What makes New York is how we recycle buildings. 
— Mitchell Moss, professor of urban policy and planning at New York University
The New York Public Library recently released free, high-resolution scans of the “Changing New York” portfolio, prompting one Wall Street Journal photographer to reshoot more than a dozen of Abbott’s images of Manhattan and Brooklyn. They reveal how much, and in some cases, how little, New York City has changed. Read more: Classic New York Streetscapes, Then and Now - WSJ
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From CityLab — Why Reston, Virginia
Still Inspires Planners 50 Years Later

Official Trailer: Another Way of Living: The Story of Reston, VA from Rebekah Wingert-Jabi on Vimeo. 
It’s rare for a 1960s suburban development to exert a cultural pull distinct from its neighboring city, but Reston pulled it off. 
Situated about 20 miles from Washington, D.C., in what used to be northern Virginia farmland, this settlement has attracted generations of urbanists for its people-first brand of development. When Robert E. Simon Jr. bought the land and planned his flagship project, he insisted on walkability, density, access to nature and green space, and diversity of races and income levels. He didn’t invent these principles—his inspirations were hundreds of years old—but he and his successors managed to realize them at a scale and level of success that hadn’t been seen before. Read more: Why Reston, Virginia, Still Inspires Planners 50 Years Later - CityLab
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Sunday, March 27, 2016

Bike, pedestrian-friendly cities are worth the fight says former NYC transport planner - British Columbia - CBC News

Bike, pedestrian-friendly cities are worth the fight says former NYC transport planner - British Columbia - CBC News



Thursday, March 24, 2016

“People are looking for experiences as opposed to things and best value as opposed to lowest price.” Johanna Hurme @546arch

From CityLab — Why Race Matters
in Planning Public Parks

Houston is embarking upon a $220 million parks project called Bayou Greenways 2020, a 150-mile network of continuous hiking trails, biking paths, and green space that will run throughout the city. When completed in 2020, it will make good on plans made by the urban planner Arthur Comey in 1912 to connect the city’s parks with the many strips of bayous scratching open the Houston landscape. Residents approved by ballot referendum a $166 million bond in 2012 to pay for the Bayou Greenways 2020 project, and for improvements to the near-50,000 acres of park space in the city. The goal is to connect the area’s bayous and parks to neighborhoods spanning the region. 
While this connectivity is the stated priority for this massive parks overhaul, not everyone in Houston is feeling it. In fact, connectivity seems to matter most only to Houston’s whiter and wealthier residents. When the city’s parks and recreation department conducted its Master Plan Parks Survey in 2014, the majority of respondents replied that they wanted their neighborhoods and parks linked to biking and walking paths. The problem with that survey is that about two-thirds of the respondents were white with household incomes over $75,000. This is clearly not a good starting point for Houston, one of the most racially diverse, (and heavily segregated) cities in the country. Read more : In Texas, Houston's Bayou Greenways 2020 Parks Project Aims To Meet the Needs of People of Color - CityLab
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