Privately Owned Public Spaces

"The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI) has wrapped up review of the city’s extensive network of privately-owned public spaces (POPS). The current tally of POPS stands at 40 stretching from the University District to West Seattle."

"Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) are open to the public, and include plazas, arcades, atriums, hillclimbs, and green streets. These spaces are allowed or required by rules in the Seattle Land Use Code that have been in place for several decades, and are generally located in Seattle's Center City. Other POPS may be open to the public as a result of a street vacation (permanent closure of a street). These spaces can be located in neighborhoods throughout Seattle, wherever a public space is created as a public benefit ."

from: http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/toolsresources/pops/default.htm

"POPS come in many shapes and sizes from plaza, hillside terraces, and pocket parks to hill climb assists, atriums, and mid-block connections. The City has had incentives and requirements on the books for more than a few decades now to develop POPS in exchange for additional development capacity and street vacations, the latter of which is typically the result of a public benefits package. In either case, development proponents voluntarily choose to offer POPS as part of development proposal."

from: https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/11/04/seattles-update-on-privately-owned-public-spaces/

This process requires oversight and proper planning since its ultimate goal is to apease both developer and everyday user. "In New York, planning officials in the late 1950s began offering private developers additional height and density in exchange for light and public open space. This “incentive zoning” generated hundreds of plazas, arcades, walkways and pocket parks owned and maintained by property managers. New York journalist Adee Braun has described the Big Apple’s POPS as “urban nesting dolls [that] were built to provide the public with shortcuts, shelter and gathering spaces.”

from: http://spacing.ca/toronto/2015/04/21/parks-crisis-part-6-privately-owned-public-spaces-answer-parks-deficit/

More info here from a past blog post:
http://civilizedurbanplanning.blogspot.ca/2016/05/privatization-of-urban-planning.html

Built environment alterations

One example of tactical urbanism:

Stop Gap is a "volunteer-run campaign that creates awareness about barriers in the built environment."






from: http://stopgap.ca/about-us/

Previous post on similar topic:

http://civilizedurbanplanning.blogspot.ca/2015/08/do-it-yourself-urbanism.html

Better intersections

"If you think the only purpose of intersections is to move cars past each other, you solve problems like a plumber: with bigger pipes. But wide, barren streets full of traffic don’t make a livable city. One solution would be nothing. No lights, no curbs, no sidewalks—just colored pavers. It works. Accidents decline, traffic slows, and property values rise. “You’ll never do as good a job as two ­people using body language and eye contact,” says Sam Goater, a senior associate at the Project for Public Spaces. But don’t rip out the infrastructure just yet. Urban designers have a good set of tricks to turn a city intersection into something more like a plaza and less like a freeway interchange. Cars pass, people walk, bikers bike, and everyone’s lives flow more smoothly."



from: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-to-design-better-cities/

Cyclists creating change?

"Does cycling really contribute to gentrification? John Stehlin, a geographer at the University of California, Berkeley who has studied San Francisco’s cycling politics, says the relationship is complex. “Cycling feeds into wider urban changes, including gentrification, but it does not cause gentrification. A bicycle lane gets put on a street that is already undergoing change.”



"Among what urban theorist Richard Florida calls “the creative class”, the bicycle is a potent symbol of identity and status. And more bikes, it seems, means more well-paid knowledge economy jobs. “Cycling to work is positively associated with the share of creative class jobs and negatively associated with working-class jobs,” Florida wrote in 2011."

"City planners often “use cycling infrastructure as a way to facilitate development. So where gentrification goes cycling infrastructure follows, but that is a problem of planning, not cycling.”

from: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/05/blame-bike-cycling-contribute-city-gentrification




Many cyclists are white and wealthy. But not all of them are. More info here:
https://urbanful.org/2014/11/17/do-bike-lanes-gentrify-neighborhoods/

Making cycling safer

Interesting idea:

"Cars barreling by him. SUVs passing within inches of his bike’s handlebars. Drivers jamming on the brakes and leaping from their vehicles to confront him. Daily commutes used to be tough for Warren Huska, who cycles 18 kilometres from his home near the Beaches to his office in North York almost every day. “People get really insulated inside a vehicle,” Huska said. “They don’t really know where the edges of their vehicle are.” 

"But, for the past year, drivers have given Huska a wider berth. Now, when he mounts his trusty two-wheeled steed, Huska is protected by a pool noodle. Strapped to his bike’s frame with bungee cords, the floppy foam cylinder is a reminder to drivers not to get too close."

from: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/10/18/cyclist-says-his-pool-noodle-makes-toronto-streets-safer-for-him.html

The farm of the future?

"We need a new way to feed our planet."



"As urban populations continue to rise, innovators are looking beyond traditional farming as a way to feed everyone while having less impact on our land and water resources. Vertical farming is one solution that's been implemented around the world. Vertical farms produce crops in stacked layers, often in controlled environments such as those built by AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey. AeroFarms grows a variety of leafy salad greens using a process called "aeroponics," which relies on air and mist. AeroFarms' crops are grown entirely indoors using a reusable cloth medium made from recycled plastics. In the absence of sun exposure, the company uses LED lights that expose plants to only certain types of spectrum. AeroFarms claims it uses 95% less water than a traditional farm thanks to its specially designed root misting system. And it is now building out a new 70,000 square foot facility in a former steel mill. Once completed, it's expected to grow 2 million pounds of greens per year, making it the largest indoor vertical farm in the world."

Aerial imagery

"All of the images in Overview were created by stitching together numerous satellite photographs from DigitalGlobe’s 15-year time-lapse image library, which contains some of the world’s highest quality satellite imagery."

"Grant named the project after the “Overview Effect,” a sensation of profound shift in perspective that astronauts experience when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole. His hope is that by giving viewers a chance to engage with these far-flung perspectives, we can not only share in that unique, rare sensation, but also gain a new understanding of our place on the planet."

from: http://twistedsifter.com/2016/10/photos-that-will-give-you-a-new-perspective-on-earth

Books for City Lovers!

How many have you read?

"The range of city living books we found is wide, consisting of both fiction and non-fiction. The books focus on individual stories within a city, specific cities around the world, economies that sprout from and sustain cities, and so much more. Several of the books focus on a specific aspect of city living like green or sustainable design, while other books give the history of how cities came about and why so many people gravitate towards them."



"Updated with a new Introduction by the authors and a foreword by Richard Florida, this book is a comprehensive guide book for urban designers, planners, architects, developers, environmentalists, and community leaders that illustrates how existing suburban developments can be redesigned into more urban and more sustainable places. While there has been considerable attention by practitioners and academics to development in urban cores and new neighborhoods on the periphery of cities, there has been little attention to the redesign and redevelopment of existing suburbs. The authors, both architects and noted experts on the subject, show how development in existing suburbs can absorb new growth and evolve in relation to changed demographic, technological, and economic conditions."

"The American Dream of a single-family home on its own expanse of yard still captures the imagination. But with a growing population —100 million more people expected in the United States by 2050—rising energy and transportation costs, disappearing farmland and open space, and the clear need for greater energy efficiency and a reduction in global warming emissions, the future built environment must include more density. Landscape architect and land planner Julie Campoli and aerial photographer Alex S. MacLean have joined forces to create a full-color, richly illustrated book to help planners, designers, public officials, and citizens better understand, and better communicate to others, the concept of density as it applies to the residential environment."

from: http://www.bookscrolling.com/best-books-living-city/