About Social Media Today
May 22, 2013
Oakland's New Transit-Oriented Development Redefines Space
transit-oriented development
Oakland continues to bring new development and innovation to its neighborhoods. Next up is an impressive urban planning initiative to be built in Temescal beside the MacArthur BART station.[read more]
May 22, 2013
Eight Guidelines for Urban Design: Keeping Creativity at the Heart of Cities
creativity in cities
Planners and creatives need the willingness to learn from policy mismatch. For cultural production this would mean sustaining the local urban identity and providing possibilities for creativity to remain at the heart of the city.[read more]
May 22, 2013
Sustainable Cities: How Clean is Our Urban Air?
urban air quality
Air pollution needs to be dealt with in a more holistic manner, wherein major contributors, like industries, power plants, and vehicles are addressed together. No one policy is sufficient to deal with this multi-faceted problem.[read more]
Recent Infographics
Stuck in Canada: Talent Migration or Lack Thereof
Toronto/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Canadian geographic immobility should serve as a cautionary tale for places trying to attract people. Catalyzing migration is hard to do. The reasons behind declining mobility in the United States remain a mystery.[read more]
Lessons from the Africa Urban Infrastructure Summit
summit attendees
Imagine a future for urban Africa in which free thinking reigns supreme, roof tops are adorned with urban parks, and the streets are littered with electric powered scooters.[read more]
Crafting Truly Responsive Cities to Climate Change
green roof in Kabul
Upon identifying the specifics of climate change, we can create relevant methods within our communities to internalize these specifics and to develop strategic, pro-active responses to contend with the harsh reality of climate change.[read more]
Revitalizing City Neighborhoods: Urban Renewal and Arts Grants
revitalizing communities
The 21st century promises to be much kinder to cities and older neighborhoods than the second half of the 20th and, as neighborhoods recover, one of the more engaging trends is the role of community-based arts in revitalization.[read more]
Resilient Cities Roundup: Talking Global Green Building Trends
Urban resilience/shutterstock
Maggie Comstock, a global policy wonk on green buildings and cities, spoke with SCC about global sustainable development trends and the emergence of resiliency planning for cities around the world.[read more]
Urbanism Speakeasy | Urban Farming and Local Groceries
Josh O'Conner is a Senior Editor for the Urban Times an online magazine. He's a planner by trade and an advocate for community-oriented urbanism. When he's off the clock, Josh STILL likes urban planning. But he also fills his time with small-scale agriculture, ecology, and sociology. He does all that with his wife and daughters in...[read more]
Restoring Infrastructure With Interaction
restoring infrastructure
Taking a site near to the Gowanus Canal, one of the most polluted water bodies in the country, a group of architects explored a new potential relationship between people and their infrastructure.[read more]
Urban Design and Biking Campaigns
between a bus and a hard place
It is time for our cycling campaigns to go back to the drawing board together and start again with our cycling design guidelines, before every other road in our city is narrowed.[read more]
To Modernize, or Not to Modernize, That is the Urban Design Question
When it comes to city planning, there’s no tougher decision to make than the modernization or preservation of historic culture. Continuity and consistency is lacking in Nottingham’s city planning.[read more]
Cities Embracing the Green Revolution [INFOGRAPHIC]
urban green revolution
With global carbon dioxide levels at a historic high, something major needs to happen if we are to get anything close to a sustainable use of the planet’s resources. Could a ‘green revolution’ in cities be the solution?[read more]
Placemaking and Getting Children Out to Play
get the children outside!
If children are the future, we seem to be very short-sighted when it comes to urban design. Very little, if any at all, of the current discourse on the type of cities we should be building truly considers whether these cities will be child friendly.[read more]
Economic Geography and Gentrification in Buffalo
Buffalo, NY
“Buffalo gentrification” is an oxymoron. It’s also real, close to the centers of talent production. We should pay more attention to this emerging economic geography hidden in the stereotypical Rust Belt.[read more]
Thinking Green Beyond the Inside of Your House
going green outside the home
When people think about green buildings, what comes to mind is solar panels, geothermal energy, improved insulation, and so forth. Although we often forget it, being green also includes what lies beyond the walls![read more]
Beyond PR: Services and Disservices of Urban Green Infrastructure
urban green infrastructure
How do the benefits of urban green infrastructure stack up against the costs? We need to better understand the services and disservices of green infrastructure for improved planning and management of urban ecosystems.[read more]
Sustainable Cities Collective
What's New on
“I agree I think that the nature of human interaction and involvement depends on the nature of the actual facility itself. Getting people in and around fossil fuel burning power plants is seen as a security risk, but that still leaves many components of our infrastructure that could benefit from being noticed (and that citizens could benefit from noticing). I think of examples like John ...”
“I thinks it's provocative. In Florida, we were given tours of muncipal water treatment facilities as children, less so access to energy facilities. There is a cogeneration facility at MIT that sits comfortably in the urban context, as thousands pass by daily. But I'm always concerned that critical systems and humans should not mix for the most part. Educational programs may make the same point ...”