Human Scale Cities

DOING IT DIFFERENTLY It’s all about creativity and innovative entrepreneurship, pop ups, collaboration and the sometimes seemingly crazy. Doing it Differently looks at a range of creative and innovative solutions to the challenges of urban living. Creativity in all its forms is essential to the healthy evolution of urban environments, particularly when undergoing such rapid change.  Kylie Legge is a founding Director of Place Partners, a multidisciplinary place making consultancy based in Sydney Australia.   

DOING IT DIFFERENTLY


It’s all about creativity and innovative entrepreneurship, pop ups, collaboration and the sometimes seemingly crazy. Doing it Differently looks at a range of creative and innovative solutions to the challenges of urban living. Creativity in all its forms is essential to the healthy evolution of urban environments, particularly when undergoing such rapid change. 


Kylie Legge is a founding Director of Place Partners, a multidisciplinary place making consultancy based in Sydney Australia.   


The Spontaneous City This book presents the concept of the Spontaneous City as an alternative direction of design thinking and urban planning opposed to traditional rigid city planning. The era of large-scale urban planning is over. ISSUU

The Spontaneous City

This book presents the concept of the Spontaneous City as an alternative direction of design thinking and urban planning opposed to traditional rigid city planning. The era of large-scale urban planning is over.

ISSUU

A Smart Guide To Utopia - 111 inspiring ideas for a better city via @Be_City

A Smart Guide To Utopia - 111 inspiring ideas for a better city

via @Be_City

Urban Pioneers: Berlin Experience with Temporary Urbanism

Urban Pioneers: Berlin Experience with Temporary Urbanism

Garbology Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash

Garbology

Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash

(Source: NPR)

Hijacking Sustainability The idea of “sustainability” has gone mainstream. Thanks to Prius-driving movie stars, it’s even hip. What began as a grassroots movement to promote responsible development has become a bullet point in corporate ecobranding strategies. In Hijacking Sustainability, Adrian Parr describes how this has happened: how the goals of an environmental movement came to be mediated by corporate interests, government, and the military. Parr argues that the more popular sustainable development becomes, the more commodified it becomes; the more mainstream culture embraces the sustainability movement’s concern over global warming and poverty, the more “sustainability culture” advances the profit-maximizing values of corporate capitalism. And the more issues of sustainability are aligned with those of national security, the more military values are conflated with the goals of sustainable development. Parr looks closely at five examples of the hijacking of sustainability: corporate image-greening; Hollywood activism; gated communities; the greening of the White House; and the incongruous efforts to achieve a “sustainable” army. Parr then examines key challenges to sustainability—waste disposal, disaster relief and environmental refugees, slum development, and poverty.

Hijacking Sustainability

The idea of “sustainability” has gone mainstream. Thanks to Prius-driving movie stars, it’s even hip. What began as a grassroots movement to promote responsible development has become a bullet point in corporate ecobranding strategies. In Hijacking Sustainability, Adrian Parr describes how this has happened: how the goals of an environmental movement came to be mediated by corporate interests, government, and the military. Parr argues that the more popular sustainable development becomes, the more commodified it becomes; the more mainstream culture embraces the sustainability movement’s concern over global warming and poverty, the more “sustainability culture” advances the profit-maximizing values of corporate capitalism. And the more issues of sustainability are aligned with those of national security, the more military values are conflated with the goals of sustainable development.

Parr looks closely at five examples of the hijacking of sustainability: corporate image-greening; Hollywood activism; gated communities; the greening of the White House; and the incongruous efforts to achieve a “sustainable” army. Parr then examines key challenges to sustainability—waste disposal, disaster relief and environmental refugees, slum development, and poverty.

Sustainable Urbanism and Beyond: Rethinking Cities for the Future

Sustainable Urbanism and Beyond: Rethinking Cities for the Future

Design for Social Sustainability: a framework for creating thriving communities New report from the Young Foundation

Design for Social Sustainability: a framework for creating thriving communities

New report from the Young Foundation

Many people tend to think of L.A. as an unplanned city. And yet so much has been planned here and so much is being planned today. Is the perception of L.A. as the unplanned city changing? I think the perception of L.A. has gotten more complicated, particularly as the sprawl debate has matured. People now realize how horizontally dense Los Angeles is, and that sort of defies what everybody thinks of L.A. The other thing that’s happened is, since the ’70s, the changing racial and ethnic diversity has made L.A. a different kind of city. I think that the primary reason people view L.A. as unplanned is because they have a standard model of the city, which is a city that emerged in the late 18th century. L.A. was still 11,000 people in 1880. The polycentric nature of Los Angeles was set much later and much more firmly than in other places. It is a different kind of city. It is a younger city. And one of the results of our later arrival, is that people disregard the downtown, which has always been important. Before the 1940s it was really important. I think people overemphasize the degradation of downtown. It’s remained important but it hasn’t been the place. That’s enabled some of the satellite cities to grow up stronger and more independent, and they did during the early 20th century. And that means that we have this slightly different structure than many of the other cities. Now most of them have caught up. More. Nate Berg interviews the author, David C. Sloane: Unplanned L.A.? Think Again

Many people tend to think of L.A. as an unplanned city. And yet so much has been planned here and so much is being planned today. Is the perception of L.A. as the unplanned city changing?

I think the perception of L.A. has gotten more complicated, particularly as the sprawl debate has matured. People now realize how horizontally dense Los Angeles is, and that sort of defies what everybody thinks of L.A. The other thing that’s happened is, since the ’70s, the changing racial and ethnic diversity has made L.A. a different kind of city. I think that the primary reason people view L.A. as unplanned is because they have a standard model of the city, which is a city that emerged in the late 18th century. L.A. was still 11,000 people in 1880. The polycentric nature of Los Angeles was set much later and much more firmly than in other places. It is a different kind of city. It is a younger city. And one of the results of our later arrival, is that people disregard the downtown, which has always been important. Before the 1940s it was really important. I think people overemphasize the degradation of downtown. It’s remained important but it hasn’t been the place. That’s enabled some of the satellite cities to grow up stronger and more independent, and they did during the early 20th century. And that means that we have this slightly different structure than many of the other cities. Now most of them have caught up.

More. Nate Berg interviews the author, David C. Sloane: Unplanned L.A.? Think Again

Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy, and Urban Sprawl

Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy, and Urban Sprawl

(Source: amazon.com)

For the people, by the people. A visual story of the DIY city For the People, By the People by Afaina de Jong is a visual story about how people influence change in the city. The collapse of faith in top-down planning has been followed by a renewed interest in the self-generating wisdom of bottom-up urban initiatives. What does it mean when people act as the urban change agents that direct the life and death of the world’s cities? Fusing her photography with a manifesto-like text, architect Afaina de Jong marks the people in the streets as the starting point of all urban trends and cultural innovation. And calls upon us all to become architects of our environment.

For the people, by the people. A visual story of the DIY city

For the People, By the People by Afaina de Jong is a visual story about how people influence change in the city. The collapse of faith in top-down planning has been followed by a renewed interest in the self-generating wisdom of bottom-up urban initiatives. What does it mean when people act as the urban change agents that direct the life and death of the world’s cities? Fusing her photography with a manifesto-like text, architect Afaina de Jong marks the people in the streets as the starting point of all urban trends and cultural innovation. And calls upon us all to become architects of our environment.

thnmdbks: Democracy and Public Space: The Physical Sites of Democratic Performance John Parkinson In an online, interconnected world, democracy is increasingly made up of wikis and blogs, pokes and tweets. Citizens have become accidental journalists thanks to their handheld devices, politicians are increasingly working online, and the traditional sites of democracy—assemblies, public galleries, and plazas—are becoming less and less relevant with every new technology. And yet, Democracy and Public Space argues, such views are leading us to confuse the medium with the message, focusing on electronic transmission when often what cyber citizens transmit is pictures and narratives of real democratic action in physical space. Democratic citizens are embodied, take up space, battle over access to physical resources, and perform democracy on physical stages at least as much as they engage with ideas in virtual space. Combining conceptual analysis with interviews and observation in capital cities on every continent, John Parkinson argues that democracy requires physical public space, that some kinds of space are better for performing some democratic roles than others, and that some of the most valuable kinds of space are under attack in developed democracies. He argues that accidental publics like shoppers and lunchtime crowds are increasingly valued over purposive, active publics, over citizens with a point to make or an argument to listen to. This can be seen not just in the way that traditional protest is regulated, but in the ways that ordinary city streets and parks are managed, even in the design of such quintessentially democratic spaces as legislative assemblies. Democracy and Public Space offers an alternative vision for democratic public space, and evaluates 11 cities—from London to Tokyo—against that ideal.

thnmdbks:

Democracy and Public Space: The Physical Sites of Democratic Performance

John Parkinson

In an online, interconnected world, democracy is increasingly made up of wikis and blogs, pokes and tweets. Citizens have become accidental journalists thanks to their handheld devices, politicians are increasingly working online, and the traditional sites of democracy—assemblies, public galleries, and plazas—are becoming less and less relevant with every new technology. And yet, Democracy and Public Space argues, such views are leading us to confuse the medium with the message, focusing on electronic transmission when often what cyber citizens transmit is pictures and narratives of real democratic action in physical space. Democratic citizens are embodied, take up space, battle over access to physical resources, and perform democracy on physical stages at least as much as they engage with ideas in virtual space.

Combining conceptual analysis with interviews and observation in capital cities on every continent, John Parkinson argues that democracy requires physical public space, that some kinds of space are better for performing some democratic roles than others, and that some of the most valuable kinds of space are under attack in developed democracies. He argues that accidental publics like shoppers and lunchtime crowds are increasingly valued over purposive, active publics, over citizens with a point to make or an argument to listen to. This can be seen not just in the way that traditional protest is regulated, but in the ways that ordinary city streets and parks are managed, even in the design of such quintessentially democratic spaces as legislative assemblies. Democracy and Public Space offers an alternative vision for democratic public space, and evaluates 11 cities—from London to Tokyo—against that ideal.

(via nomadicity)

New York for Sale. Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate

New York for Sale. Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate

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