Data visualization

 "Data visualisation helps us to understand the world. It also has the power to change it."

Remember this post about John Snow, see more in this video.

Cities after the pandemic

“The truth of it is that cities are living organisms, they alter and change,” Mary Rowe, president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, told Vox. “They’re too dynamic, they’re too changing, and they’re unbelievably resilient. It takes a lot to kill a city.”

https://www.vox.com/technology/23818654/future-cities-experts-offices-urbanism

Motivation!

Dan Pink's talk - from the video description "the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace".

What do you think?

City Design

"We broke down liveability into seven “domains”: walkability, public transport, public open space, housing affordability, employment, the food environment, and the alcohol environment. This definition is based on what we found to be critical factors for creating liveable, sustainable and healthy communities."



"Each of the liveability domains is linked by evidence to health and wellbeing outcomes. They are also measurable at the individual house, suburb and city level. This means we can compare areas within and between cities."

from:

https://theconversation.com/this-is-what-our-cities-need-to-do-to-be-truly-liveable-for-all-83967

and from:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170605-the-psychology-behind-your-citys-design

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us,” mused Winston Churchill in 1943 while considering the repair of the bomb-ravaged House of Commons. More than 70 years on, he would doubtless be pleased to learn that neuroscientists and psychologists have found plenty of evidence to back him up. We now know, for example, that buildings and cities can affect our mood and well-being, and that specialised cells in the hippocampal region of our brains are attuned to the geometry and arrangement of the spaces we inhabit."

Fun Friday Links

"This meme was created by Wes Craiglow, Deputy Director of Planning and Development for the City of Conway, AR, and shared with us by the "Transportation Psychologist," our friend, Bryan Jones. He is one of a new brand of engineers who gets how the world needs to change and is working to make it happen. #slowthecars"

from: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/11/1/a-20-mph-street

"In the words of Jan Gehl: “Life happens on foot. Man was created to walk, and all of life’s events large and small develop when we walk among other people. There is so much more to walking than walking. There is direct contact between people and the surrounding community, fresh air, time outdoors …”

from: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/sep/12/walkable-city-worlds-most-new-york-melbourne-fes-el-bali

Fun Friday Links!

https://betterdwelling.com/city/vancouver/a-brief-history-of-foreign-buying-of-vancouver-real-estate/#_

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-housing-on-fire-with-biggest-price-gains-since-1990

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/concord-pacific-affordable-artist-rental-units

http://globalnews.ca/news/3655790/5-new-public-spaces-to-enjoy-in-vancouver-this-summer/

http://www.metronews.ca/views/2017/06/26/how-canada-has-contributed-to-city-building-around-the-world.html

https://www.curbed.com/2017/8/8/16112426/canada-urbanism-tech-toronto-trump

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/luxury-sunshine-coast-development-pits-city-against-citizens-in-expensive-court-battles-1.4227136

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/airbnb-short-term-rental-crisis-mcgill-study-housing-vancouver-bc-1.4240787

https://www.citylab.com/design/2017/07/what-facebook-can-learn-from-company-towns/533832/

http://www.archdaily.com/800496/the-economic-and-social-power-of-walkable-cities

https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2017/08/07/million-dollar-neighborhood

http://www.metronews.ca/news/world/2017/08/07/mexio-city-s-one-word-fix-for-congestion.html

http://shifter.info/forget-all-the-other-reasons-you-should-be-riding-a-bike-this-is-the-one-that-matters/

Fun links of the day!

Mapping Every Single New York City Pedestrian Plaza



"New Yorkers do a lot of walking, most of it very quickly. After all, there are places to go, people to see, and things to do. But there are rare occasions when there is the time and desire for a leisurely stroll. Enter the pedestrian plaza—those stretches, often subsuming actual vehicular roadways, where one can walk, sit, and (occasionally) do a whole host of other things."

from: https://ny.curbed.com/maps/mapping-every-single-new-york-city-pedestrian-plaza

"Everything about gentrification is controversial — even its definition. One recent study by sociologist Michael Barton compared how the New York Times and researchers used the term to talk about city neighborhoods; he found very little agreement about where change was happening. That’s not the only thing we can’t agree on. Gentrification is painted alternately as a destroyer of neighborhoods or a savior of cities. These competing views are driven in part by misconceptions about what the word means and what it entails."

from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-gentrification/2016/06/03/b6c80e56-1ba5-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html

and:

http://newurbannetwork.com/ten-tips-planners-convert-shopping-center-village-center/

Maps of Canada

"It’s always a surprise when people first learn that the very tip of southwestern Ontario is at a lower latitude than parts of California—which got us wondering: How do other parts of the country line up with the rest of the world? Here are the results, using Earthtools.org. Most of the cities on this map, and their global counterparts, lie within less than 50 km of each other, latitudinally speaking, of course. Only Quebec-Ulan Bator and Fort McMurray-Moscow are a full degree apart."



"Here’s a different way to look at Canada’s population. The circles represent the relative population density of each province. And yes, we know people do live in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but there are so few of them, and their geographies so vast, that you’d have to go a couple of decimal places before they’d register."



from: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/putting-canada-on-the-map/

Fun Friday Links

http://www.placemakers.com/2013/05/09/identifying-the-sabermetrics-of-urbanism/


10 steps
http://buildabetterburb.org/ten-steps-toward-pedestrian-friendly-suburbs/

Zombies
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.ca/2016/08/zombie-urbanism.html

The future of cities
"What does “the future of cities” mean? To much of the developing world, it might be as simple as aspiring to having your own toilet, rather than sharing one with over 100 people. To a family in Detroit, it could mean having non-toxic drinking water. For planners and mayors, it’s about a lot of things — sustainability, economy, inclusivity, and resilience.
Most of us can hope we can spend a little less time on our commutes to work and a little more time with our families. For a rich white dude up in a 50th floor penthouse, “the future of cities” might mean zipping around in a flying car while a robot jerks you off and a drone delivers your pizza. For many companies, the future of cities is simply about business and money, presented to us as buzzwords like “smart city” and “the city of tomorrow.”


from: https://medium.com/@oscarboyson/the-future-of-cities-ba4e26c807fe#.3yf4y3ni6

https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/the-true-story-of-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-country-lane/



http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/12/a-chat-with-the-mayor-of-roundabout-city-usa/511466/

and:



"LEED is everywhere you go—just look around. In your neighborhood, your office building, your local school, your church and beyond, the LEED green building rating system is changing how you live, learn, work and play."