#nprcities

[npr]

Berlin is an on-again, off-again capital with a darker history than most cities in Europe.

It served as the epicenter of Hitler's Third Reich and was nearly wiped off the map at the end of the last World War. Berlin was also the flashpoint of the Cold War between the United States and Russia. Their conflict split the city into two, leaving residents on either side cut off from each other in every way imaginable for a generation.

Still, visitors hoping to relive a John le Carre Cold War spy novel today are likely to be disappointed. Most traces of the Berlin Wall and other landmarks delineating East and West have been torn down or moved since Germany reunited nearly a quarter-century ago.

German planners have made a concerted effort to erase the divisions between the two Berlins. But here's the catch: These costly changes — especially the ongoing removal of communist-era architecture — have fostered resentment among many residents in the eastern part of the city. Many feel the buildings are an important part of Berlin's history that are worth protecting.

In Berlin, Remaking The City Can Rekindle Old Frictions

Photo credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

[socialmediadesk]

[social sandbox] On The Road and In The Cities and At The Conferences

Howdy everyone,

NPR AND FRIENDS: Looking for a few people on the road again 

Wright Bryan is looking for reporters on field reporting trips to blog for the On The Road tumblr. If you’re heading out domestically or internationally and would like to contribute, please email him. (Here’s a list of all of the trips we’ve taken so far.) 

Kudos to Patti Neighmond for taking the Twitter plunge and to Gisele Grayson for tweeting up a storm today! Help em out! Follow your coworkers! (h/t to Rachel Ward for passing along Gisele’s tweets.)

How Serri Grasile is using the same hashtag over a period of time to create continuity within a digital series. 

Serri Grasile: "With the relaunch of the [ATC] Cities Project, we wanted to do a callout that would bring people into the first theme: where we live and how nature interacts with our urban spaces. On Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook, we asked for photos/stories of nature reclaiming its space and have received over 600 images so far. Emily Bogle posted this great one on the NPR Instagram yesterday and says it’s already one of their most-liked photos ever. I’ve also started to collect them in a Storify, which lives on this page on NPR.org.

  Part of the success here comes from the multiple hits in multiple places with a single hashtag, #nprcities.

  Here’s our timeline:

  Thursday – posted original photo on NPR and ATC Instagram, NPR Tumblr, ATC Facebook, ATC and Cities Twitter

Friday – posted user submission on ATC Facebook and Instagram and NPR Twitter

Sunday – posted on NPR Facebook

Tuesday– posted NPR.org Storify on NPR and ME Facebook and homepage, posted another user submission on NPR Instagram

Wednesday – Storify still on homepage, will post on ATC Facebook and Twitter again

TBD future – we plan to do a little on-air segment related to the callout results that will again ask for submissions”

THE WIDER WORLD

Russell Lewis and Tamara Keith both sent along this new curated section on the NYTimes homepage. It’s *very* interesting to think of a homepage or place as a central repository of what the NYTimes considers important. 

PRACTICAL ADVICE

I’m in Chicago for the next few days at the Online News Association conference. The hashtag is #ONA14. I will pass along any cool tricks, tips or projects I see. If you’re also at ONA and see something for the Sandbox, please let us know so we can share it with the rest of the news organization. (For that matter, that goes for any conference you attend: if you send it to us, we can circulate to the rest of NPR.)

See something? Learn something and want to share it with the group? Pass it along! 

melodykramer

[npr]

We've been wowed by your response for the Cities Project assignment! Instagram user @katedoo shared this discovery from Fellsmere Park in Malden, Mass. Keep submitting photos of nature reclaiming spaces in your community with the tag #nprcities on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram and we may feature it on our Instagram or on NPR.org.

NPR Cities: Nature Reclaims Its Space

You can follow all the stories in the Cities Project here. 

[npr]

The Washington Coliseum, where the Beatles played their first gig stateside, has seen better days. After 10 years as a transfer station for Waste Management, it's now used as a parking garage. The building's exterior shows signs of nature returning despite being in a rapidly changing D.C. neighborhood. 

The Cities Project is back with some stories about nature encroaching on our urban environment. We notice it when there's a hurricane, but it happens in small ways, too.

 We want your photos and stories of nature reclaiming space in your community, in ways big or small. It could be in an empty lot gone to seed, a vacant house full of bats or a flower pushing its way up through a crack in your balcony or sidewalk. Plant or animal stories welcome. Tag your image with #nprcities – we may share your contribution on the radio and NPR.org.

Photo credit: James Clark/NPR

[laurajanebrubaker]

Behind the facade of the former 26th District Police Headquarters in Kensington.

Philadelphia, Penn.

[npr]

Epochs last an awfully long time. We're talking millions of years. Well, some scientists are kicking around the idea that the earth has entered a new one. Technically, we're still in the Holocene period. But perhaps, these scientists say, humans have so influenced the direction of the planet that we should think of this as a new epoch called the anthropocene. Check out the above video for a  visualization of this idea.

In connection with the NPR Cities Project today, NPR Blogger and astrophysicist Adam Frank suggests that the anthropocene is really the epoch of the city. Just look at the east coast from way up in an airplane, he says.   

-Franklyn Cater

[npr]

Visit Original Link

Conjunto music used to be a staple in Austin, Texas. Blending polka and mariachi influences, Conjunto reflects a broad diversity of foreign cultures represented among migrant farm workers. You can hear it in this City Life Snapshot - part of the NPR Cities Project.

Baldomero Frank Alvarez Cuellar, of Rancho Alegre Radio, is working to bring Conjunto music back at the Moose Lodge in Austin, TX

Thanks to Delaney Hall of Austin Music Map at KUT in Austin - a Localore project from the Association of Independents in Radio.

Photo: Delaney Hall / KUT

[npr]

Red lights in all directions at this intersection allow people to cross diagonally from one corner to the other in the heart of Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown. This is called a Barnes Dance, as All Things Considered Host Melissa Block learned this week in an interview with Gideon Berger of the Urban Land Institute.

"It's named after the pioneering traffic engineer, Henry Barnes," says Berger.

Until last year, the city that had the most intersections of this kind in the United States was Denver, Colo., where Barnes once worked. 

The conversation was part of the NPR Cities Project.

Traffic light timing may seem mundane but it affects us every day. And it's tricky. Cities used to focus mostly on getting the times right for cars. But increasingly, they're trying to take all modes of transportation into account.

"As they do that they're making their jobs a little bit more complicated, but they're also thinking about how people behave in the real world," says Berger.

Photos: Franklyn Cater / NPR