Time has not served Buffalo well since. Fighting rapid population loss and economic stagnation, the city’s attempts to revitalize itself have resulted in swaths of surface parking and clusters of vapid office towers that impede on its radial street grid. We pulled sections from this 1902 map via the Library of Congress and compared it to current satellite imagery to see just how much has changed.
[Source: The Atlantic Cities]
Sadly, too many parking lots.
It is so simple to make pedestrian crossings accesible and safe for blind people that I wonder why we don’t do it too all.
New Silk Roads (NSR) is a multi-faceted urban research project that explores the nascent urban conditions emerging in rapidly expanding and transforming Asian cities and regions. Through a nomadic practice, Kyong Park has conducted a series of sequenced expeditions through transitional regions and cities between Istanbul and Tokyo, documenting his encounters of the people and landscape through photography, video, and audio/video interviews of local and international experts. The project is an examination of territorial conditions that constructs the interconnected system of the contemporary Asian landscape. Approaching urban cities as an ecology of built systems, structures and institutions, NSR presents alternate understandings of urban research and theory through artistic practice.
[via email] Urban theorist and architect Kyong Park is speaking at a special event on March 2nd at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) in downtown Los Angeles. Be there or be elsewhere.
As the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most-populous state, Lucknow has attracted hundreds of thousands of migrants from rural areas, swelling the city’s population. Yet the city hasn’t completed any major new sewage infrastructure since before the country won independence in 1947. As much as 70% of residents don’t have sewage service, leaving much of the waste to flow directly into the main river, the Gomti, which has become a stinking cesspool.
Wall Street Journal has an article on India’s megacities with the tagline that they are choking India. But is that really what is happening in India? There is an inherent understanding that there is a conflicting dichotomy between urban and rural regions. But even if it does exist, quotes in the WSJ article itself contradict its byline:
Shami Shafi, a 35-year-old laborer in Lucknow, has seen his daily income drop by half in recent months to 50 rupees, or about $1, for carrying bags of potatoes and other goods in a local market. But “I’m not going back to my village,” he says. If work gets harder to find, “I’ll just go to another city.”
Atanu Dey, noted economist and widely-respected proponent of urban India points at the real culprits of urban problems.
In Camden, N.J., perhaps the poorest American city I regularly visit, I photograph what I call paired houses: two dwellings, side by side, one occupied, the other empty. Those living in the occupied home often have their lives made more difficult by what happens on the other side of a shared wall.
The effect of your neighbors homes on your property is a given in real estate. We tend to control what our neighbors do just because what they do affects us as well even though it doesn’t happen on your property. But what can we do when there are no neighbors to speak of (or to)? Camilo Jose Vergara photographs dwellings where one is occupied and other is not. He talks to the owners of the occupied homes about the dangers of vacancy next door.
Can we relate this to the justification of bailing out owners of foreclosed homes because the state of their foreclosed homes affects us all?
Are you a grassroots activist making a difference in your city? Are you a community leader, providing a voice for your neighbors? Are you heading an organization geared toward making change? We want to meet you! Next American City is announcing its first annual conference geared toward bringing together the next generation of urban leaders. From May 20-21, 2009, Next American City will be inviting 30 inspiring individuals from across the country to discuss our role in shaping the future of cities.
More details on Next American City Vanguard Conference. You need to fill out a form to be selected for participation. Be there or be elsewhere.
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.
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.
As of the 2000 census, the Los Angeles region’s urbanized area had the highest population density in the nation. Yes, that was the word “highest,” not a smudge on your monitor. At 7,068 people per square mile, Los Angeles is considerably denser than New York-Newark
Eric Morris is busy smashing myths about Los Angeles urbanscape over at the Freakonomics blog.
[An] holistic approach to illuminating cities has come to be known as a lighting master plan. While few cities outside Europe have a plan currently in place, the steps involved in creating one help officials evaluate how the layers of lighting – street-level, marquees and directional signage, and monuments or cultural landmarks – should work together and be energy efficient.
An interesting look at how lighting is stepping out from the shadows of historic preservation and being used by urban planners to help improve a city’s character and livability.