Local Government
Melbourne City Planner Rob Adams: “Bigger Cities are Better Cities”
From the YouTube Description: As Director of Design & Urban Environment for the City of Melbourne with nearly 40 years experience as a practising architect and urban designer, Rob has produced a large number of strategic urban design solutions and projects in addition to design-research based urban projects and strategies, and has attracted over 100 [...]
Are days numbered for one-way streets?
While for years many people have favored one way streets as a quick way to get in and out of town, they have come under recent fire as being ineffective and confusing, but new evidence shows that like roundabouts, their negative perceptions fade once implimented. A new look on one-way streets from the National Post [...]
Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell defends cities, Obama budget
Grand Rapids Mayor took to mlive.com yesterday morning with an article defending cities and the Obama budget. The former city commissioner and ordained minister’s editorial list’s off a healthy number of reasons why he supports the budget as our President has proposed, citing a lack of local funds and struggles in keeping services such as [...]
The Horrors of Opening an Ice Cream Shop in SF – By the SF Planning Department
You have to respect planners that favor stripping down red tape and making new business easy. This video, produced by the San Francisco Planning Department, shows what a pain it can be for new businesses to open a simple ice cream shop. A great short piece on regulation. 37.7749295 -122.41941550000001
Cash strapped Los Angeles may have to pay for new sidewalks. Will your city?
Ever since president Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities act of 1990, we have seen countless entities in the private sector fall to lawsuits claiming that their facilities were discriminatory against the disabled. Over two decades later, we are seeing frustrations shift against those who are supposed to keep the best interests of the people [...]
Perceptions on Density: Is it too crowded in Big Sky Country?
Out west lies a massive state with a relatively low population – the big Sky State of Montana. With the population of Montana officially crossing over the 1 million person hurdle, you wouldn’t think there would be much of a fuss. After all, Montana has more senators than it does house representatives (by comparison, the [...]
Highway to Greenway
In Madrid, Spain, when a highway becomes noisy and pollutant, they bury it underground and put a park on top. The New York Times recently featured Madrid Rio, an urban park created on top of a once above ground highway. The article touches on other urban areas turned green as well, but Madrid Rio seems [...]
Clean The City, of Visual Pollution
An article from Good highlights the astonishing law that Sao Paulo, Brazil passed back in 2006 that aimed to clean up the city. That is, of visual pollution. The Clean City Law was a bold move to take down and manage signage throughout the major city. The video above highlights before and after shots of [...]
Don’t Worry, The Code Officer Will Handle It From Here
Code enforcement exists in Detroit, MI. No, really. But in case you ever wondered what they did (you know, to pass the time) the Detroit Works Project has an idea. Under Mayor Dave Bing, Detroit will enact a triage type strategy that targets healthy neighborhoods with code enforcement crackdowns. The idea is to protect the [...]
Beware The Windsor Hum (or, shut up America!)
Anyone preparing for the impending war with our neighbors to the south, Canada? Well, it turns out that there will be at least a legal battle considering that something with it’s own science fiction sounding name, “The Windsor Hum,” has been a terrible nuisance for residents of Windsor, Canada. Detroit’s neighbor to the south is [...]
© 2012 The Urbanist Dispatch. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Designed by 