Category Archives: Changing World

How should India urbanise?

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Focus on urban centers and focus less on far-flung regions in terms of infrastructure development (even providing reliable high-speed Internet access can open up numerous business opportunities). Instead divert those resources on making our metropolitan regions more productive and efficient. Foster an entrepreneurial climate by creating knowledge corridors around institutions of higher learning. Do not fight the natural trend of clustering by trying to spread economic growth around. Some regions will always be more productive than the others. We can instead focus on making them stronger by playing to its strengths.

If there is anything we can learn from the urban development of Silicon Valley or Research Triangle in the U.S., it is the underlying importance of the feedback loops of higher education institutions and the talent they attract. The trick in making the graduates stick around by offering them a climate of entrepreneurship through social & professional networking and heavy investment in infrastructure that focuses on quality of life. Urban areas with great weather already have an upper hand and India seems to be blessed with such regions.

Obviously, this is just a big-picture comment and specific details will be subject to debate.

My answer to “How should India urbanize?” asked here Big Ideas for India Contest: Question 8: How should India urbanise? was selected as one of the 11 winners in the Big Ideas for India contest. Rajesh Jain and Atanu Dey have been exploring solutions on India’s future developmental challenges and they rightly believe in the strength of the cities as an important factor.

Making Suburbia More Livable

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The nation’s sprawling suburbs may have been a good place to grow up, but they’re a tough place to grow old. Here’s how towns are beginning to ‘retrofit’ their neighborhoods—and what your community might look like in the future [source].

Interesting on how changing demographics are making retrofitting suburbia almost necessary. However, this could also mean increased focus on developing communities in alternative locations with different characteristics. Housing coming a full circle?

ReBurbia

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In a future where limited natural resources will force us to find better solutions for density and efficiency, what will become of the cul-de-sacs, cookie-cutter tract houses and generic strip malls that have long upheld the diffuse infrastructure of suburbia? How can we redirect these existing spaces to promote sustainability, walkability, and community? It’s a problem that demands a visionary design solution

Dwell Magazine and Inhabitat.com is hosting the first ever Reburbia competition: a design competition dedicated to re-envisioning the suburbs and have just announced the finalists.

Bulldozing U.S. cities?

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Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic “shrink to survive” proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline.

It is not as ominous as it sounds but is based on a experiment radical nevertheless that focuses on concentrating the dwindling population of dying cities into a smaller more viable area.

via Telegraph.

Little Love Lost for Suburbia

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If you jumble together the five most popular American metro areas — Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Orlando and Tampa — you get an image of the American Dream circa 2009. These are places where you can imagine yourself with a stuffed garage — filled with skis, kayaks, soccer equipment, hiking boots and boating equipment. These are places you can imagine yourself leading an active outdoor lifestyle.

David Brooks doesn’t think that Americans like the urban core.

Smart Community Design Visualization

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Starting with a barren asphalt parking lot, I love this visualization of the walkable design for a shopping district in Glenview, IL [via]. It is all about transforming the character of a place. If only more designs were presented this way, convincing people wouldn’t be so difficult.

Another example of how small (and inexpensive) changes in a Memphis neighborhood can go a long way in rejuvenating community life.

Century of the City

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One in every ten people lived in urban areas a century ago. Now, for the first time ever, most people live in cities. By 2050, the United Nations projects, almost three-quarters of the world’s population will call urban areas home. The majority of this growth is centered in struggling, developing countries of the Global South, but cities in developed (or Global North) countries face increasingly complex challenges as well.

To help manage and plan for this accelerating urbanization, the Rockefeller Foundation convened an exceptional group of urbanists–leading policy makers and government officials, finance experts, urban researchers, members of civil society organizations, and other innovators–for a Global Urban Summit at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. This book shares their diverse perspectives, creative approaches, and urgent agenda for harnessing the vast opportunities of urbanization for a better world.

Order this book free.

Why and Where do People Move

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Pew offers a list of “Magnet States” and “Sticky States,” those that draw people from elsewhere, and those that keep their native sons. Turns out that D.C. is the least sticky state, and New York is the least magnetic. Nevada is the most magnetic, with almost 90 percent of its residents from elsewhere, and Texas is the stickiest — three quarters of adults were born there and will never, ever leave.

From Pew Research Center’s report on American Mobility on Movers, Stayers, the places they move to, and reasons they move for.

A New Home for Bush

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George W. Bush has found a new dig for his post-Presidential years. Nope, he is not headed back to his Crawford Ranch. He purchased a 2.07 million dollar estate in the Preston Hollow district of Dallas, TX. You can see the home here. It is a palatial home (10141 Daria Place, Dallas TX) with 8,501 square feet of living space and site on 1.13 acres.

Apparently, the Preston Hollow Elementary School was accused of being in violation of Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that set forth desegregation in U.S. schools…in 2006 [source]. Of course, the district is one of the most exclusive in Texas and is home to several other celebrities like Presidential candidate Ross Perot and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban among other energy and sports magnates.