FUCK YEAH URBAN DESIGN

An urban planner based in Pittsburgh trying to figure out how to make this blog useful again.

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

You can fight it, you can lie about it, you can say that the sky is falling, but you can't keep a good bike lane down.

Janette Sadik-Kahn, Streetfight

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

But focusing on helmets for all users perpetuates the misimpression that biking is an inherently dangerous and obscures the underlying problems with our streets.

Janette Sadik-Kahn, Streetfight

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

Do better in 2018–do away with these design crimes.

8. RETAILERS APPROPRIATING THE LANGUAGE OF URBAN DESIGN

“We don’t call them stores anymore, we call them town squares,” Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, proclaimed during the tech company’s September keynote. The retail landscape is shifting and with shoppers moving online, retailers are experimenting with new models for physical spaces. Stores are still important touch points for brands as they introduce customers to their products, sensibility, and philosophy. The latest gimmick to get you inside? Framing them like community centers and public space.

Last year, Apple began appropriating the physical features of town squares by inserting trees and benches into its global flagship, in San Francisco, downplaying the products on display, and dedicating more space for people to gather. The same motif repeats in Apple’s newest marquee store in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Nike recently announced plans to develop a new flagship in New York City and emphasized building community through all of the new features in the space: a members-only club, a sneaker bar for advice, lockers for pick-ups and returns. Retail is essentially becoming the new “third space.” While Starbucks was the initial chain to capitalize on this notion almost a decade ago, there’s a big difference when the product is a $2 coffee and $200 sneakers or a $2,000 computer.

Co.Design‘s Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan summed up why stores can never really be town squares: “Without the budget or political support to create new public spaces in cities, it’s no surprise that corporations have stepped in,” she writes. “But the subtle shift in nomenclature matters. Stores will never be public spaces. They are regulated, surveilled, and designed by companies for specific purposes.”

What I would like to see instead are actual town squares that are designed as thoughtfully–and with as much investment–as Apple stores. Considering the $47 billion tax break it’s about to receive,I think Apple should get into the business of constructing actual public space, not retail in public space’s clothing.

[thisiscitylab]

When the Ping An Finance Center was finally completed this year, it reached the pinnacle of Shenzhen, China’s obsession with high-rises. Standing 1,965 feet high, the sleek 115-story office building is the second tallest in China and fourth tallest in the world. It’s also the tallest new building to come from this year’s record-setting boom in skyscraper construction.

Around the world, there are a staggering 144 new towers that reach above 200 meters (660 feet) tall. That’s more than have been built in any other single year, according to a report from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. That includes an unprecedented 15 “supertall buildings,” defined as reaching at least 300 meters (980 feet) tall.

2017 Set a Record for Most New Skyscrapers in One Year

[Illustration: Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat]

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

2018

To say I have neglected this blog is an understatement. 2017 was a year of major changes for me. I had just completed my first full-time planning job and enjoyed a brief period of independent consulting thereafter. However, for stability’s sake, I could not remain in my beloved Richmond. I applied to a job with a private firm in Pittsburgh, interviewed, and accepted. I would describe this as a dream job as I am free from focus, meaning I work on preservation plans, transportation plans (especially bike ped), land use plans, and urban design projects.

If I can get used to the single digit temperatures of this beautiful city, I think I’ll have some interesting things to share with all of you in the future. I am tentatively taking the AICP in May, so you might even see this blog as an outlet for my thoughts as I study for the beast. 

Thanks for the follows, hearts, and reblogs. Good luck this year!

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

Speaking at public hearings, local residents and business owners invoke Jacobs-like language as a smokescreen to fight Jacobs-like projects. They oppose plans for walkable neighborhoods and bike lanes , claiming that they might congest traffic, make streets less safe, and pollute the environment or erode property  values. By invoking Jane Jacobs, many NIMBYs today are effectively arguing that roads should be kept the way Robert Moses wanted them.

Janette Sadik-Kahn, Streefight

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

We found that if you make more road space, you get more cars. If you make more bike lanes, you get more bikes. If you make more space for people, you get more people and of course then you get public life.

Jan Gehl

[ch00o1nkiii11i1-deactivated2022]

Robert Crumb’s depiction of the gradual metamorphosis of a single plot of land from virgin wilderness to urban decay in 12 panels - 1979

[stoweboyd]

The right to access every building in the city by private motorcar, in an age when everyone owns such a vehicle, is actually the right to destroy the city.

Lewis Mumford (via stoweboyd)

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

Well . . .

What now?

“What else is there to do but to do the work?”

Don’t move to Canada- remain in place and make it better than it is. 

[humanscalecities]

Justin Gerdes ‏@JustinGerdes  6 nov. For the 1st time since Copenhagen started counting traffic entering the city center, there are more bikes than cars

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

Why Housing Is The Political Issue Candidates Aren't Talking About

Presidential candidates aren't talking about a problem that affects a huge swath of our population.

“One thing I believe is important is that we promote sustainable homeownership versus homeownership for homeownership's sake”

It seems like politicians who do wish to engage in this difficult conversation believe the solution to our housing problems is to target homeownership through subsidies and support programs. Do families need to own their own homes to be happy and successful? 

[sprawlnation]

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

The Cities Of The Future Will Be Great If We Figure Out How To Make Them Affordable

While cities increasingly become out of reach for all but the wealthiest, there is a raft of solutions from around the world to make more housing and...

Thinking a lot about this in my own city and other cities I’d like to live in. 

[humanscalecities]

How much space do people take up in different modes of transport? 

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

I grew to disdain the suburbs, their artificialness and sterility. But I could never shake them entirely. There was some kind of weird fascination and attraction that I (and I think many others) can't quite get out of my system.

David Byrne, Bicycle Diaries

[fuckyeahurbandesign]

The city is a means to a way of life. It can be a reflection of all our best selves. It can be whatever we want it to be. It can change, and change dramatically.

Charles Montgomery, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design

Stay positive, planners/designers!