A Writing Life Built on the Power and Joy of Architecture – an appreciation of Ada Louise Huxtable in The New York Times; she died yesterday at the age of 91. The NYTimes is where she started as the “first full-time critic writing on architecture for an American newspaper” in 1963. …
Here’s a start on collections of ‘the best’ of 2012. Check back for more, suggest your favorites – this a live list. PSFK’s Top 20 of 2012 – with source of image Best of the best of 2012 science and tech articles – from the BBC; thanks to Oleg Kravtsov …
If you’re an urban planner or if you’re interested in how cities work, check out the magazine The Urbanist from the San Francisco Urban Planning and Research Association (SPUR). The focus is on “good planning and good government in the San Francisco Bay Area” but the issues addressed, the …
A second life in the South Bronx – commentary on WAN (World Architecture News) about one project – Hunt’s Point Landing – in the 20-project South Bronx Greenway effort to reclaim the brownfields and industrial sites that make up much of the riverfront of the South Bronx. Details and background are …
A Never-Before-Seen Satellite View of Earth’s Cities at Night – 2:10-min video clip showing light coming from the Earth, as seen from Space via the satellite Suomi NPP. You’ll see city lights certainly, but also wildfires and gas flares from oil fields. More here, from NASA.
Spying On Our Walking Habits With Kinects, To Create Smarter Spaces – research at MIT’s Senseable City Lab (led by Carlo Ratti) uses the X-box add-on Kinect to track pedestrian behavior. By understanding how people walking through a long corridor react to objects in their path and to oncoming foot …
How Places Like Columbus, Indiana, Outrank Silicon Valley – everyone knows that Silicon Valley is a hotbed of start-up activity. But there are smaller American cities “where recessions have been remarkably absent, where manufacturing thrives, where populations continue to rise” and people are finding jobs. A recent survey, Leading Locations for …
The World’s Leading Cities for Start-Ups – top five are Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York. The post includes a list of runner up cities as well as the chart (shown here) of cities around the world that are best at nurturing high-tech start-ups. A new report from the Startup …
The Right Way to Engage Residents in a Neighborhood Redesign – from The Atlantic Cities: Denver’s rejuvenated South Lincoln neighborhood, being redeveloped in phases, will be walkable, transit-oriented, equitable, green, and perfectly located in close proximity to downtown jobs and services. It’s a terrific new model-in-the-making of how to …
Cities as self-organizing systems – I’ll let the author of this Urban Times Daily Digest post, Andrew Mackenzie, explain: The following ten propositions about cities are based on the work of Brian Walker and David Salt in their new book, Resilience Practice. Written for resource managers in particular, Resilience Practice offers much for urban …
The History of Hashima, the Island in Bond Film “Skyfall” – transcript of PRI spot on the Japanese island, devoted solely to coal-mining, that was “recognized as the most densely populated place on earth…ever” until 1974 when it was abandoned. Includes a 15-min video documentary.
Local Transportation Funding Measures Voted on Across the U.S. – post includes a table of results of recent votes in 11 U.S. states on a variety of issues touching on transportation. The data is from the Center for Transportation Excellence. Between 2000 and mid-2012, there have been approximately 350 municipal, county, …
Just discovered Talkitect | architecture, art, & design, a blog covering contemporary architecture and design. The posts aren’t that frequent but they’re pretty interesting. Some examples: Bambooline Berlin by Peter Ruge Architekten – “Bambooline Berlin explores the city’s urban development and proposes a new approach for the temporary, interim use of sustainable …
Beautiful Chaos at Kolkata’s Durga Puja – The Atlantic Cities – with photos of structures created for festival celebrations in the Indian city of Kolkata. Image credit: Michael Snyder Over the course of two hot, humid months at the tail end of the monsoon season, 20,000 new structures come …
These Are the Cities That Can Show Us How to Create Jobs – The Atlantic Cities – A recent analysis of competitiveness and job growth across U.S. metros conducted by Economic Modeling Specialists could not be more timely. It provides a detailed assessment of the metros that have generated the most robust job growth based on …
The Top 10 Smartest European Cities – first of two posts from Co.Exist written by Boyd Cohen. The next one will be The Top 10 North American Cities, out next month. In an attempt to improve the rankings, I developed a metric called the Smart Cities Wheel, which contains six …
Exhibition in San Francisco – Grand Reductions: Ten diagrams that changed urban planning – “suggests the simple illustration’s power to encapsulate complex ideas.” You can see the ten in this post from The Atlantic Cities. “The diagram can cut both ways: It can either be a distillation in …
Green City, Clean Waters | Philadelphia Water Department – “Green City, Clean Waters is Philadelphia’s 25-year plan to protect and enhance our watersheds by managing stormwater with innovative green infrastructure.” Image is of stormwater wetland.