Chicago’s Structural Advantages (and Professional Services 2.0)

It’s no secret that Illinois, like the rest of America, has been suffering in this economy. It also has the dubious distinction of probably being in the worst fiscal shape in America. llinois Gov. Pat Quinn appointed a group called the Illinois... [read more]

Reviving the post-industrial city without destroying it

  Syracuse, New York in many ways resembles a typical once-industrial city that is past its prime.  But is it, really?  A superficial reading of the trends might lead one to say yes, it’s “shrinking”:  the city’s population, which stood at 221,000 in 1950, has now declined to 147,000, a loss of 34 percent.  That... [read more]

A free market solution for tired towns

 Across England, and beyond, there are towns and cities that have struggled to survive, even during the long economic boom of the mid 1990s to 2008. A few have managed to reinvent themselves – think of Scarborough – or, like Brighton or Preston, have ridden the waves of expansion. Many others have done little more than put a brave... [read more]

City leaders, looking for revenue? Go urban!

Or at least go two to three stories. What more precisely is a main street worth compared to big box/strip mall development to a city’s revenue? Peter Katz, Director of Smart Growth/Urban Planning for Sarasota County, Florida with data compiled by Public Interest Projects provides a compelling look. Above is a chart showing county... [read more]

Radically Modernising the Bus Network

This is an abridged version of a post written for The Global Urbanist. Click here to read the full post. London’s Underground rail network is hugely popular with the city’s residents, carrying over 3 million passengers a day between its 270 stations. However, its iconic buses are even more widely used, transporting 6 million... [read more]

Guns in the City

The men with cowboy hats and guns on their hips are not in a bar in Texas, but in a Starbucks in Pinole, California, 22 miles from San Francisco. They are members of East Bay Open Carry, one of a number of intertwined grassroots groups which have popped up in California to promote the currently existing right of citizens to carry... [read more]

New in New Haven: LEED Platinum Luxury Rental 360 State Street

There’s no reason why Connecticut’s cities shouldn’t have numerous green buildings — as with some of New Jersey’s faded cities, Connecticut’s urban housing stock both reflects those cities’ lost grandeur and suggests all kind of encouraging adaptive reuse projects. Of course, like New Jersey’s cities, Connecticut’s cities are in many... [read more]

CovJam sets city on route to become smarter

Back in June I mentioned how Coventry was running the worlds first city-wide Jam to open up a conversation with residents and business to find innovative ways to make the city smarter. A month on and 2,000 posts later, IBM and Coventry are teaming up to make the ideas raised in CovJam real and transforming Coventry over the next 30 years... [read more]

Cities and Permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies. Permaculture is one of the activities that UN-HABITAT’s Cities and Climate Change Initiative is implementing in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, with support from Cuba’s Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for... [read more]

On yer bike, London

Barclays Cycle Hire goes live in London, this Friday 30th.Here's how it works... Regular users should sign up online and become a member for £45 a year - they'll get a membership key, which will speed things up a lot. Less frequent users can pay a fiver to join for one week. Casual use - e.g. for tourists and those who don't want to... [read more]

What matters in economic development?

  Everyone's talking about what areas LEPs should cover, and the lack of funding. We need more discussion about their powers. We think transport and housing are the key issues for LEPs.   To create the 2 million private sector jobs the OBR forecasts will be produced over the next few years will require effective... [read more]

Indefinite in number, but of certain fixed shapes

[Image: One of many pages from the voluminous archive of Richter's toy manuals at the CCA].While down in the CCA archives last week, I had some time to explore a number of old instructional booklets for wooden children's toys. One such book, called The Art of Architecture of Building With Given Model Stones, explains that "It will be... [read more]

Greening the Grounds of the U.S. Mission in Geneva

Nine U.S. landscape architecture students will spend the first two weeks of August studying the grounds surrounding the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva and drafting a sustainable landscape design that can be phased in over five years. The students will work alongside three Swiss landscape architecture students, and under... [read more]