City planner Jeff Speck says walking will remain a choice in most American cities for years to come, but that it’s important to incentivize pedestrians. In his book, Walkable City, Speck says urban walks have to be useful, safe, comfortable and interesting.
http://www.npr.org/2012/11/17/165239291/what-makes-a-city-walkable-and-why-it-matters
Tagged with npr cities urban planning book:author=jeff speck
A road map for tomorrow’s cities
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6336
Tagged with orion urban planning cities future
Bikers are everywhere in Copenhagen. And now the city is building new, high-speed routes into the city that will make it easier to commute, even from the distant suburbs.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/01/160386904/in-bike-friendly-copenhagen-highways-for-cyclists
Tagged with cycling copenhagen npr urban planning cities transportation
High density living is great for the environment, right? But what does it do to our heads and hearts? The Australian psyche was moulded by the myth of the ‘wide brown land’, so what might life packed like sardines look and feel like? With the world’s seven billionth person about to be born, can we learn from the Asian megacity experience? And will we still be sharing a cup of sugar with our neighbours? As the population debate gets mental, we’re going in search of the soul in urban sprawl. A forum featuring Bernard Salt, Kim Dovey, Helen Killmier, and Sein-Way Tan, hosted by ABC Radio National’s Natasha Mitchell at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne.
What does location mean for UX? How does information architecture and design synchronize with urban architecture? How does mobile communication and web culture impact the streetscape? Are we living in facets of the same virtual city or does location still constrain us?
In this session, Don Turnbull and John Tolva look into these and other questions as they discuss research and designs unveiling how our interactions with both digital and physical environments are changing.
Tagged with cities urban planning information architecture data location
With the majority of the earth’s population now living in cities, Richard Saul Wurman realized there was a yawning information gap about the urban super centers that are increasingly driving modern culture.
In this keynote presentation from the 2010 IA Summit, Mr. Wurman discusses his 19.20.21 initiative: an attempt to standardize a methodology to understand comparative data on 19 cities that will have 20 million or more inhabitants in the 21st century. He encourages the design community to take initiative and solve big problems rather than make small changes incrementally.
From: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-10-richard
With cities contributing upwards of 75 per cent of global carbon emissions, urban design is increasingly important when planning for climate change. This discussion examines the creative urban design solutions coming out of the world’s cities. Saskia Sassen is Robert S Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Richard Sennett is professor of sociology at LSE and NYU. Jonathon Porritti s the chair of the sustainable development commission and founder and director of Forum for the Future.
Improvements in transportation and communication technologies have led some to predict the death of distance, and with that, the death of the city. In this lecture Professor Ed Glaeser will argue that these improvements have actually been good for idea-producing cities at the same time as they have been devastating for goods-producing places. What, then, does the future hold for our cities?
Speaker: Professor Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics at Harvard, and Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston; Chair: Howard Davies
(Nov 13, 2008 at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE))
Who’s going to design the car of the future? The one that’s affordable, that plugs in, charges up, goes from zero to sixty in under five seconds — and gets 100 miles per gallon? They’re working on it in Detroit, but who knows if the U.S. auto industry will die before the roll out.
So how about a plucky group of inner-city kids from West Philadelphia led by a visionary teacher?
They come from a world of crack houses and gang wars, but they’re winning awards for cutting-edge green auto design.
This hour, On Point: from Philly’s mean streets — inspiration, hope, and maybe, the cars of the future.
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/11/west-phillys-x-kids/ http://www.evxteam.org/