A house inside a house. So weird. I wonder what is the point of it all. On the other hand, why should there be.
Category Archives: Urban Planning
The Most Dangerous Road in Georgia
Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.
Having lived in Atlanta for over 5 years and having driven on this road shown in the video, I can attest to the fact that accidents are waiting to happen every day. It is a wonder that more people are not killed every day. Unless design changes are implemented to slow drivers down and to give pedestrians a little more importance, we may seen many more deaths on this highway than on any other road in America
Don’t Build your Home, Grow it
Way to Sprawl
Don’t you get the idea that residents of Lyndoch Road don’t really appreciate all that extra traffic through their neighborhood?
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Greenbelt causes sprawl
Ottawa is one of the cleanest and livable cities in the world but an energy and environmental think-tank, Pembina Institute suggests that Ottawa’s peripheral greenbelt is in fact encouraging sprawl and thus longer commutes.
Designers wanted to create a green 21st century city
Will the design community respond to the challenge of building the twenty-first century city? Will they rally around the mayor’s plan?
The Metropolis Magazine is asking whether designers and city planners will heed to Mike Bloomberg’s vision of creating a cleaner and greener New York City
Rejuvenating Urban India
co-authored by Rohit Pradhan
Back in the days when Doordarshan (Indian state television) ruled the airwaves, if you tuned in during the weather forecast, you wouldn’t be completely off the mark if you thought that India’s urban regions comprised solely of Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras – conveniently located in four corners of India. It was the natural corollary of India’s development since independence that has always been centered on its millions of villages. The idea of making villages self-sufficient drew its sustenance from the rather utopian Gandhian ideals. India’s early leaders also believed in heavy industrialization which led to development of cities like Jamshedpur–modeled primarily along industrial cities like Detroit in the developed world. The ‘Great Leap Forward’ (in stark contrast to its Chinese counterpart), came only after the post-1991 liberalization when India embarked on a path of economic reforms and globalization. The impact of rapid liberalization and expansion of opportunities were profound especially on the morphology of Indian cities.
Beijing's Urban Planning Museum
A personal account by Monty C.M Metzger from CScout Trend Consultancy. It is basically a large scale model of the capital city’s layout in preparation for the next year’s summer Olympic games. Not much of a museum.
Measure your Neighborhood Walkability
New Urbanism incorporates neighborhood walkability as one of the pivotal factors in improving quality of life as well as working toward conservancy. Considering that obesity is one of the rising health problems in the United States, walkability measures are also used to promote healthy living. Walkability measures in a neighborhood usually include calculating distances to amenities like schools, grocery stores, parks, libraries, etc. Considering the rise of online mapping services like Google Maps and cross referencing of various locations via innovative mashups, it was only a while before someone came up with a tool to measure the walkability of your neighborhood.
Walk Score is an extremely user-friendly website that lets you measure how walkable is your neighborhood (although the tag line mistakenly mentions how walkable is your house). The website even lists the various benefits of walking; all of which I agree with. All you do is plug in your home address and the website spits out a score between 0 and 100 to measure walkability of your neighborhood; with 0 being completely unfriendly and 100 being extremely friendly. So naturally I put in my home address and got the following result:
As you observe, the tool gave my neighborhood got a score of 54 which is not bad considering I live in a Texan town where everyone loves their cars especially if it is a pickup. Most of the amenities listed are within a mile [a one-mile walk is considered as a standard].
However, I must mention that I live in a relatively amenity-friendly neighborhood and the location was one of the primary factors in choosing this residence. At the same time, if you actually live in their neighborhood, walking to the grocery store isn’t as easy as it sounds even when the measured distance is 0.29 miles. Why? Lack of sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly crosswalks spanning major roads. If you have to go to HEB Grocery, the store mentioned on the map, you have to cross Texas Avenue which has been perennially under construction ever since I got to College Station. Moreover, due to the construction mess, you simply cannot dream of crossing over to the other side without your heart pounding in fear of being run over. This actually is quite a big deterrent to walking to nearby amenities even if you want to. Thus proximity isn’t the only factor in measuring walkability and urban features that actually promote such behavior are important as well.
Proximity to the Wolf Pen Creek park however has made the city of College Station build sidewalks on the way to the park but these are purely meant for exercise or recreational purposes. I would like the city to put in sidewalks not only for recreational purposes but also to facilitate walking to the stores. Like they say, build and they’ll come actually makes perfect sense in creating a walkable community. If you do not have sidewalks, how can you expect people to walk even if the distance is not much?
Urban Planning Lectures Podcasts
At any given time, there are many quality lectures going around on university campuses across the nation. But grad school life is such that you scarcely get time to get done with your classes, assignments, and research and generally miss out on being exposed to great work right on your campus. I try to get around to attending the lectures at our own College of Architecture and the George Bush Presidential Library’s Distinguished Lecture series but have lately been unable to do so (after my classes, I keep telling myself.) Most of the time, the problem is time clashes or the hassle of getting to the venue.
But now, thanks to innovative technologies like podcasts and webcasts, such lectures can be made available to a larger audience. “Podcasts of presentations from Virginia Tech’s New Metropolis Lecture Series are now available, free of charge, from iTunes. Sponsored by the University’s Urban Affairs and Planning program in Alexandria, Va., the lectures focus on cutting-edge topics and ideas about metropolitan development in the United States and abroad. Featured speakers have a broad regional, national and international reputation in scholarship, research, and policy” [via email from Shannon.]
The schedule for lectures at Virginia Tech is available here and the podcasts are available a day after the lecture. Although most lectures were held last year, the podcasts I believe are available now. Upcoming lectures include:
March 28, 2007
The New Revolution: Form-based Codes
Peter Katz, author of The New Urbanism; Toward an Architecture of CommunityApril 25, 2007
The Status and Future of Public Transportation in the U.S.
William Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association.
I love Peter Katz’s work and always wanted to sit in on his lecture. Well, now I can, from the comfort of my home on a lazy weekend. I hope other schools jump on this bandwagon and offer a podcast version of their lecture series.
[tags]podcast, Urban Planning, lecture, series, university, planning, Virginia Tech[/tags]