density posts, articles, and infographics | Sustainable Cities Collective

Megacities: Five of the World’s ‘Biggest’ Cities

May 14, 2012 by This Big City
with 313 views

As the world urbanises and our lifestyles evolve, cities are getting bigger. And I’m not just talking about population sizes. As This Big City kicks off a fortnight of themed posts on Megacities and Microcities, what better way to start than by taking a look at five of the world’s ‘biggest’ cities?Tokyo – the world’s largest metropolitan... [read more]

Building Compact. Really Compact!

April 26, 2012 by polis blog
with 186 views

A city’s compactness is a compromise. On one side, a city can be spread-out — giving the advantages of cheap construction costs and plenty of green areas and roads, but also long commutes and dependence on cars. On the other hand, a compact city allows shorter commutes, better public transport, more services and nearby jobs, but suffers... [read more]

Urban Population Growth Creates New Demand for Parks

April 6, 2012 by City Parks Blog
with 492 views

Photo by Daz Smith via Flickr

The Brookings Institution recently released a comprehensive report on metropolitan demographic changes over the past thirty years, which highlighted the increasing concentration of the U.S. population in major metropolitan areas. Overall, metropolitan areas have grown consistently since 1980, and now over 80% of Americans live in... [read more]

The Future of the City: Density, Sustainability, and Citizen Happiness

March 14, 2012 by This Big City
with 321 views

After an hour and a half of driving, I was pretty thoroughly disgusted with the whole idea of suburbs. I became more and more unreasonable as I became more and more lost. What’s the difference between “96th Street” and “96th Street Terrace?” Why were there so many parking lots? If you cut out every flower bed containing a single bush I... [read more]

Livability reconsidered, locally defined

March 5, 2012 by Michael Kaiser
with 786 views

Density is not livability, and livability is more than shops and cafes. Livability is a complex issue. One man’s livability may be another man’s claustrophobia. [read more]

Learning from Phoenix and Vancouver: An Interview

February 24, 2012 by Tazmine Loomans
with 103 views

Yuri Artibise is an urbanist and a thought leader who lived in Phoenix for just over 4 years before moving back to Vancouver in May of 2011. While he was here, he made a tremendous impact on our city as a forward thinking writer, an outspoken advocate for a better city and a community organizer. He and his wife Linda are missed a great... [read more]

Reconciling cities with water scarcity

January 23, 2012 by Kaid Benfield
with 290 views

When you look at the official US drought monitor map, you immediately see that many American cities may be in the wrong places for long-term water sustainability. In particullar, note the presence of “long-term,” severe-to-extreme drought conditions across most of Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and... [read more]

Plan or be Planned? – An Urban Densification Dilemma

January 4, 2012 by This Big City
with 223 views

By Alistair Mackay at Future Cape Town When you fly into Buenos Aires, the city stretches for as far as the eye can see – it’s an unimaginably big sprawl of high-rise apartment blocks, urban squares and neat, rigid avenues that eventually deteriorate into slums and suburbia. It is completely flat, and so European in the... [read more]

4 Principles for Re-Designing the Suburbs for the Future

December 22, 2011 by Rashiq Fataar
with 1,245 views

Suburbs will continue to exist. People will still want to live in them, and therefore we must re-design them. In America, our thinking has become rather binary when it comes to urban development; you either live in a Manhattan high-rise or a suburban house in Phoenix. The suburbs will have to densify in some way in order to be... [read more]

Making Big Box Stores Part of the Urban Fabric

November 21, 2011 by Kristen Jeffers
with 303 views

Urban Target Store in Minneapolis (Photo Credit: Wikimedia) Ahh, the urbanist’s dreaded big box. No one wants the thing in their neighborhood, but oh do we love having Trader Joes and Whole Foods nearby. Never mind that the Trader Joes moved into the old Wal-Mart space and the Whole Foods was built next door to a massive Petsmart, Babies... [read more]

Imagining an Elastic City

November 18, 2011 by polis blog
with 245 views

Planters and urban gardening tools at Kennedy Greenway in central Boston, the site of the Occupy Boston encampment.Last spring, after attending a panel about urbanism in Mumbai, I wrote a blog post about what I called the "entropic city" — one that is constantly changing and re-imagining itself. “Entropy,” I argued, “is a... [read more]

Website for Accessory Dwellings: "Granny Units" Get A Second Look

November 11, 2011 by David Sucher
with 77 views

Building a detached ADU isn’t necessarily different than building a house. accessorydwellings.org And actually, quite important. It's a new site and I wish it well. I'll be reading. ••• Many years ago I approached an editor at Sunset and suggested some article about ADUs. She snorted (though kindly) and told me that Sunset... [read more]