The five Cs of neighborhood planning
Posted: August 30, 2012 Filed under: Design, Placemaking Leave a commentBy Howard Blackson
Published: August 30, 2012
Better! Cities & Towns
I live in a city that is currently updating its Community Plans. This is an historically difficult planning job because Community Plans transcends both broad policy statements (such as the amorphous “New development should be in harmony with surrounding development…”) and specific development regulations (“Front yard setbacks shall be 25 feet deep from property line…”). An issue with updating Community-scaled plans is the personal sentiment people feel for their homes and the difficulty we have in expressing such emotion within conventional 2D planning documents. The source of most conflicts and confusion I see occurring during these updates is due to the confusion over the scale and size difference of a ‘community’ versus a ‘neighborhood’ unit.
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Get your offices into a walkable town center!
Posted: August 10, 2012 Filed under: Design, Urban Agriculture Leave a commentBy Geoff Dyer
Published: August 10, 2012
Better! Cities & Towns
So far, this series has taken on three of the essential components of a healthy walkable town center: hotels, retail and multi-family residential. But, traditionally, our town centers were not simply a collection of residences and shops. They formed the commercial and civic centers of our towns and cities — an economic development engine that attracted the industries that gave all those homes and shops a reason (and means) for existing in the first place. Of course — and you know the story — as we moved into the suburbs in the post WWII era, we placed our offices into “office parks” in our campaign to separate the activities of our daily lives and reconnect them through compulsory car trips.
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Enticing visitors downtown…and then incarcerating them.
Posted: July 24, 2012 Filed under: Architecture, Design, Development, Economic Development, Retail Leave a commentPublished: July 24, 2012
American Dirt
As much as street-level engagement for large projects in city centers should, by this point, seem like a foregone conclusion, it continues to amaze how many big ticket items—in cities of widely varying size—either engage in terpsichorean negotiations around it or neglect it completely. When developers confront a zoning ordinance or design guideline that insists on activating the sidewalks with retail, commercial, residential, or offices, they might challenge the requirement through a number of arguments: the development itself is too small, the street is not prominent enough, the economy for retail is particularly soft. If the public-sector approving agency for the development fears that the proposal will collapse without kowtowing to the developer’s demands, chances are likely it will pass, therefore lacking that street-level engagement otherwise mandated by code.
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Designing Buildings that Evolve with the City
Posted: July 24, 2012 Filed under: Architecture, Design, Placemaking Leave a commentBy Carolyn Flower
Published: July 24, 2012
Sustainable Cities Collective
Developing cities that thrive through the ebb and flow of time are not simply about creating infrastructure that can persist, but about designing buildings that evolve as cities evolve. Sustainable design transforms as cities develop visions for furthering connections among neighborhoods and city sectors. Design features such as energy efficiency, water conservation, and heat reduction that better regulates a building’s temperature are significant elements that replenish a city’s vitality through buildings that are capable of adapting to a city’s needs. Infrastructure that is greater than the sum of its parts also requires infrastructure that functions according to the changing needs of residents.
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Virginia Developer Is on a Mission to Revive His Town
Posted: July 24, 2012 Filed under: Construction, Design, Development, Sustainability Leave a commentBy Melena Rysik
Published: July 24, 2012
NY Times
The Kirk Avenue Music Hall, a four-year-old club named for its downtown block here, offers an unexpected perk to its performers: an apartment. For a night or so, before or after gracing the stage, artists stay at no charge in a loft a block away, signing the guest book with notes of gratitude.
“We don’t have money, we don’t have fame, so hospitality is really critical,” said Ed Walker, the club’s landlord and a founder.
It is hard to miss Mr. Walker’s brand of hospitality on Kirk Avenue. He owns nine of its storefronts, turning what was a forlorn block not long ago into a social destination. The music hall doubles as a microcinema and event space. There is Lucky, a restaurant run by a touring rock band that decided to stay put, and Freckles, a cafe and vintage shop with monthly craft nights, whose owner called Mr. Walker the town’s Jimmy Stewart, a favorite son and guiding light.
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What if bus stops were designed as if bus stops really mattered?
Posted: June 20, 2012 Filed under: Design, Transportation Leave a commentBy Kaid Benfield
Published: June 20, 2012
Sustainable Cities Collective
When I was a kid growing up in Asheville, bus stops were marked with stenciled lettering on utility poles. It was fairly primitive, other than perhaps at the busy downtown transfer points, Pritchard Park and Pack Square, where if I recall correctly there was some indication of which routes stopped at which points.
Although the experience was pretty basic, I took the city buses everywhere. Underage for driving, I didn’t have access to a car, and the place was big enough that many things I wanted to do – visit friends, go to school, go to the tennis courts, buy music, whatever – required transit, especially with both my parents busy working. I liked being independent and enjoyed being able to get around.
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NYC’s Rooftop Farming Boom Continues With World’s Largest in The Bronx
Posted: June 14, 2012 Filed under: Architecture, Design, Urban Agriculture Leave a commentBy Stephen Del Percio
Published: June 14, 2012
Sustainable Cities Collective
Thanks in part to Zone Green, the world’s largest rooftop farm could soon grace the top of one of New York City’s largest food distribution centers. Yesterday, the City’s Economic Development Corporation released an RFP for a 200,000-square-foot rooftop farm at 600 Food Center Drive in the Hunts Point section of The Bronx. Once harvested, the farm’s bounty would be distributed from the City’s 329-acre Food Distribution Center at 600 Food Center Drive – one of New York City’s largest. Built in 1969, the facility is currently occupied by Sultana Distribution and Citarella.
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The Most Amazing Tall Buildings of the Year
Posted: June 9, 2012 Filed under: Architecture, Construction, Design Leave a comment
Selling the Pared-Down Life
Posted: May 16, 2012 Filed under: Design, Urban Living Leave a commentBy Penelope Green
Published: May 16, 2012
NY Times
IT may be that the house of the future is an apartment — at 420 square feet, a very small apartment — in a century-old tenement building on Sullivan Street. Shiny and white, it has movable walls that allow it to morph from one room into six, as well as expandable furniture and filtered, or “country,” air, as the owner, Graham Hill, put it recently while showing off the apartment’s convertible tricks like a modern-day Bernadette Castro, dressed neatly in a black merino wool polo shirt, black pants and black Vans.
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The Hottest Trends in Urban Housing
Posted: April 4, 2012 Filed under: Architecture, Construction, Design, Inspiration, Urban Living Leave a commentBy Kaid Benfield
Published: April 4, 2012
theatlanticcities.com
I was privileged to participate along with some very smart urban thinkers in a recent program on the resilience of cities. The subject of the Great Recession came up, and I volunteered that the persistent economic slump had hurt both good and bad development. But I offered that it had hurt bad development (land-consuming, totally automobile-dependent subdivisions on the suburban edge) more than good, given that new, speculative development in sprawling outer locations had virtually ground to a halt.
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