In my City Talk column today, The importance of maximizing access to public spaces, I try to connect the dots of recent columns — and others dating back many years. Casual readers might see my newspaper work as a series…
“What distinguishes thriving cities from those that stagnate and decline is a group of people [Jane Jacobs] calls the “squelchers.†Squelchers, she explains, are those political, business, and civic leaders that divert human creative energy by posing roadblocks and saying “no†to new ideas.”
From Tom Vanderbilt’s Sidewalk Science; The peculiar habits of the pedestrian, explained:
[William “Holly”] Whyte, in his films of New York City street life, identified the street corner as an important factor in urban dynamics. Here was a zone of serendipity where people encountered one another beneath the blinking walk man, where they paused to chat before parting, where they formed small convivial islands just as pedestrian flow was surging most strongly.
Philadelphia Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron takes an interesting look at suburban and exurban development — and the prospects for recovery in the wake of the housing bust.
Could Manhattan have ended up being laid out with something other than its simple grid, which gives the New York City borough its distinctiveness? The answer is yes. Until the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 was implemented over a period of…
In my City Talk column today, I talk about how inordinately happy I was to be able to buy beer last Sunday — even though I didn’t actually buy beer and will hardly ever take advantage of the newly legalized…
In my City Talk column today — When third place isn’t so bad — I talk again about Ray Oldenburg’s theory of third places: In his book The Great Good Place, Oldenburg demonstrates why these gathering places are essential to…
Sometimes in arguing for the full restoration of the Oglethorpe Plan, Savannah preservationists get accused of various forms of nostalgia — of arguing for preservation for the sake of preservation, of ignoring contemporary needs.
But those accusations show a fundamental lack of understanding about the grid system established by General Oglethorpe when he founded the colony of Georgia in 1733.
Russell Shorto’s op-ed in the NYT — The Dutch Way: Bicycles and Fresh Bread — is a must-read for those who think America needs to break its addiction to automobiles, especially in congested urban centers. Before I quote from it,…
After debuting at the 2010 Venice Biennale, “Cronocaos†— an exhibition about the increasingly urgent topic of preservation in architecture and urbanism by OMA / Rem Koolhaas — is now at NYC’s New Museum. And it’s sure creating some interesting…
In my City Talk column today, How many tourists does Savannah want?, I mention three unresolved issues that all raise questions about tourism in Savannah: How many tourists do we want? What kind of tourists do we want? And what…
I’ve studied and written a lot over the years about what makes cities work. Many of my ideas have independently coincided with, been refined by, or directly flowed from the minds of Christian and Amy Sottile, who have done truly…
As you can tell by my overly long title to this post, Savannah’s new Cultural Arts Center will have many effects — all positive, I think — assuming it is sited, designed, and administered well. I write about the site…
