Mass Urban

Architectural + Urban Research Mass Urban is a multidisciplinary design-research initiative concerned with contemporary cities and urbanism. Mass Urban was co-founded in April 2011 by David Lee and Cliff Lau. Website: http://www.massurban.com/ FB: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mass-Urban/129166763835571

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WORKABLE CITIES: BRIDGING THE GAPS is a three-part workshop series that explores the gaps and opportunities in our region’s urban development process to create a platform for creative transformation. UNCOVERING ALTERNATE FUTURES, the third and final Workable Cities session, will take participants to Newark, NJ, to explore new models and frameworks for community and urban development in the NYC metropolitan region.

For those of you in the New York City area, do check out an upcoming workshop in Newark on November 14 3-5 pm with Mass Urban’s project partners, Open Communities and 3x3 Design.  RSVP to reserve a spot! http://bit.ly/1Zm80tY

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The Missing Link Between Diversity and Community

The surprising and complex role that segregation plays in increasing a neighborhood's social capital.

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Seattle is often seen as progressive and Mayor Ed Murray has framed his annual budget as such. But some, including those in city leadership, say the budget doesn’t go far enough to address inequality.

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Half of small businesses don’t make it past the first five years, and owners lose everything trying to pay off the loans. The Working World lets co-ops stabilize before repayment even begins.

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So far, the state isn’t stepping up to build a solar-powered future. That leaves the bulk of the work to residents.

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When we work together, share meals together, and laugh together, we’re repairing relationships to the soil as a community.

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As the country recovers from the April earthquake, there’s one urban planning element global health advocates should note.

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Yes! Magazine:

Video: How This Brooklyn Neighborhood is Putting Healthy Food in Business      A co-op training program in Brooklyn could serve as a model for other cities looking to combat the effects of gentrification for long-time residents.                                                                                                                                                                                                         

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Architect Rafael Herrin-Ferri talks about his exhaustive photographic documentation of Queens' lively housing stock and identifies creative alterations that reconcile building forms to changing demands and desires.

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The U.S. Forest Service rethinks urban ecology.

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We can’t allow the tech giants to rule smart cities

Technology is transforming global cities. But we need to think hard about who controls a system where all people and things are tracked, all of the time

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Op-Ed: Local leaders and housing advocates need to take action to preserve at-risk units.

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'Nothing's changed': 10 years after French riots, banlieues remain in crisis

Despite years of emergency assistance, residents of the suburbs that erupted into violence in 2005 are still waiting for things to improve

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The 27 patterns that make up the world’s cities and suburbs

A beautiful and exact guide to how we don’t build cities like we used to.

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In Chelsea, a Great Wealth Divide

In Chelsea and other neighborhoods like it, dizzying economic transformations because of an influx of wealth have affected the residents of less means in both obvious and insidious ways.

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Complete Streets Concepts Are Now Being Applied Worldwide

Dehli announced a major new Complete Streets program that will redesign urban roads to favor walking, cycling and public transport over car traffic. This is very good news. It shows that the Complete Streets concept is now being applied worldwide.,

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CityLab: 

“In Paris, Plans for a Seine Reinvention

Mayor Anne Hidalgo has announced an "almost philosophical project" to take the famed river's quayside back from cars.

Feargus O’Sullivan. 7 May 2015

Paris seems to be getting less and less motorist-friendly by the day. Following a set of promises to slash diesel usage, extend lower speed limits and bar polluting cars from the city core, Mayor Anne Hidalgo this week announced a plan to thoroughly reclaim the quayside on the right bank of the River Seine for pedestrians. With cars already banished from a long strip of the Left Bank, the Seine in central Paris will as of summer 2016 be entirely encased within two lush, motor-free parkland buffers. Sounding more French than ever, Hidalgodescribed the plan as “an urban, almost philosophical project, which consists of seeing the city in another way than through the use of cars.”

Image:  Rendering of a proposed Seine quayside park space. (Luxigon)