Urban Design Discussion

Form-Base Miami

Rex — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:58:32 +0000

Density is a central factor in creating the experience of urban intensity, but it is not the element that makes it pleasurable. Density offers access but “ease” makes it enjoyable. Numeric measures can point to a place of interest but they are without the elements needed to describe or judge it. Jobs and population per acre [...]

Water City

Rex — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:58:48 +0000

Not since Milton Keynes (wiki) have we seen more “ordering up” of new cities. The whole idea of a new city or town reflects the history of human civilization, but do these more recent orders sufficiently deflect or contribute to the challenge of dense urban living? Washington, DC, was a place ordered for design and [...]

Debunk

Rex — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:44:02 +0000

The online project to demystify planning/urban design jargon We seek irreverent definitions of planning/urban design jargon. The kind that gets at the truth that hurts so much it makes you laugh. Limit is 60 words. Choose from a working list see: Glossary Suggested Entry Stakeholders (n), 1. label, defines persons who are affected materially by a physical change [...]

The Global Urban Challenge

Rex — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:13:11 +0000

Best summary of the global challenge is by Bruce Katz “and rightly so” :

Earthday_09

Rex — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:54:57 +0000

Metro = megacity/megacorp + OBDC Earthday, urban land use and management Without a national land use policy, America’s formation of megacities in just over fifty years logically requires some kind of metro-management – a metro-megacity-corp. Planners have been criticizing our “land-of-a-thousand micro-governments” for decades, but something has changed that may add traction to solving the problems this presents to regional [...]

Go to Chicago

Rex — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:57:43 +0000

Be in Chicago on Monday, April 27 beginning at 8:30 a.m. on the UIC campus 725 W. Roosevelt Rd. It is open to the public for $25 with tickets via the Forum’s website: www.RJDUrbanForum.uic.edu. Two ways to look at it — cities are crucial to “recovery” from crisis or urbanism itself is a discursive human [...]

Ecology Technology (ecotech?)

Rex — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:35:15 +0000

A long time ago Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan defined sustainability both technologically and ecologically. They pointed to the hubris embedded in the technological approach to the goal of sustainability. Technology has proven to be deadly unless it is fully tethered in the way David W. Orr recommended in demanding careful human attention to the absolut priority [...]

INWOOD: Just another zoning change…or is it?

Rex — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 15:13:09 +0000

The Re-Zoning Sherman Creek and Inwood The rezoning of the Sherman Creek waterfront and the core area of Inwood began at the behest of the Economic Development Corporation in 2001. Details are found on the EDC website here and on the DCP website here. The reasons for this particular initiative may be generalized to three political [...]

Columbia’s Manhattanville

Rex — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:21:21 +0000

Regulatory Taking and Columbia University Background In June 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote upheld the use of eminent domain by the city of New London, CT. (Kelo vs. City of New London) by saying economic development was a public purpose thereby giving government the authority to acquire property, affirming decades of previous litigation on [...]