Community design
Shrinking to Greatness
Ed Glaeser, the Harvard professor, explains what does it mean for cities to shrink. I find this article interesting since the twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) have been shrinking for the past 50 years. The current foreclosure crisis and coming commercial collapse will make this a real decision process as our communities and neighborhoods need to decide what needs to stay and what needs to go.
Will right sizing help the Twin Cities as well? Read more >
Beyond The Motor City
Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City examines how Detroit, a symbol of America’s diminishing status in the world, may come to represent the future of transportation and progress in America. Watch it here. Read more >
Central Corridor is a go, but will lawsuits stop it in its tracks?
Like it or not, the Central Corridor LRT line got the much needed federal push that it got last week from our president. Now that is seems to be moving forward will the three lawsuits tie up construction and the actually building of the line for years to come? The University of Minnesota, MPR, and Rondo residents all have three seperate lawsuits stating that Metropolitian Council has not taken their concerns, and mitigation, into account with the line.
Many feel that these lawsuits are the chance for at least two large institution to grab the mitigation funds which is leaving nothing left over to address the concerns of residents and small businesses. Should MPR and the U back off? Are we really going to delay the line because of these suits? What you think?
Transportation facts: Minnesota
A snapshot of transportation-related facts for Minnesota, from Transportation for America > Read more >
On James Rojas and community engagement methods
On James Rojas, an LA transportation planner with an interesting approach to community planning ... Read more >
The Density Game
Take the quiz and see if you can tell how many housing units per acre each of the sites pictured here. This was part of a presentation by Dan Zack, Downtown Development Coordinator of Redwood City to members of Alliance for a Livable Palo Alto.
Egalitarian Streets: Market Street 1905
This short film, shot from a streetcar on Market Street in San Francisco in 1905, shows a street screen in sharp contrast to what we experience today in most cities and towns across the United States. This scene may seem chaotic, but it seems to work well because all of the various road users are moving at roughly the same speed and all of the users must yield to each other.
Fast forward to 2010 and we find ourselves having traded this more egalitarian, shared space, street design for one that favors the speedy movement of one single mode of transportation (the private automobile). One might describe our contemporary street design as undemocratic (by giving priority to a single class of road users) in contrast to the scene on Market Street in 1905.
Closer to home, a similar street scene could be experienced on the streets of downtown Minneapolis and downtown Saint Paul during the early 1900s. Would we be better off with a similar scene today (without the horse drawn carriages, of course)? Are we currently living with undemocratic streets in Minneapolis Saint Paul and the rest of our cities across the United States?
GDP Growth and China's Empty City
Recently some members of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals had a list-serve discussion about the common practice of using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth as an indicator of a community's success. Using GDP as a measure is a very narrow lense through wich to look in evaluating quality of life and a group of peoples' level of happiness.
From a land use and transportation perspective, using GDP alone as a success indicator may encourage auto-oriented planning and design because automobilism leads to a lot of economic activity through car crashes, repairs, hostpital bills, insurance claims, lawyer fees, etcetera. What would it mean to the GDP if we had fewer trips taken by car, fewer crashes, fewer injuries, fewer fatalities, etcetera?
This video news report takes a look at China, where an entire new city was recently built as part of the effort to keep national GDP growing at a rate of 8% annually. This city currently stands empty and at least for the moment makes a very good case for broadening our econonomic measures beyond the narrow GDP measure.
Streetcars, Anyone?
It seems that streetcars are making a comeback. This post over at the infrastructuralist shows that 45 cities have plans for extending or creating streetcar line(s). This is great news, but yet will make competition for $130 million funding even more difficult.
Again, PDX, who had the political will and capital to put in a streetcar years ago is planning to expand the service over the river to finally create the streetcar loop.
Just in case you didn't know, Minneapolis has its own plans for a streetcar network that should hopefully supplement the bus, LRT, and BRT (down the road) network we currently have. Plus here is the work done around the planned streetcar along our beloved Greenway.
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