An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Urban Culture, Space, Architecture, and Design
In November 2013 I chaired a session called “Scholarly Blogging: What? Why?” at the Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH) meeting in Toronto. The purpose of the session was to bring together scholars in the United States and […]
In recent months there’s been a lot of talk about dead suburban malls and what we should do with them. Last September Ellen Dunham-Jones of Retrofitting Suburbia fame (co-authored with June Williamson) got the ball rolling in an interview with […]
I personally don’t think that it is. However, Denver Post Fine Arts Critic Ray Mark Rinaldi gives the opposite impression to thousands of readers via a recent opinion piece called “Did Diversity Miss the Train in Union Station Architecture?” The […]
It’s not the White City that would likely come to mind first, i.e., Daniel Burnham’s spectacular grouping of neoclassical buildings at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, made famous by Erik Larson’s book. Rather, it’s a white canvas tent […]
Witold Rybczynski started the latest go-round with a piece for the New York Times Magazine. Rybczynski laments the globalization of civic architecture by a handful of internationally known practitioners or “starchitects.” He asserts that architecture is a social art rather […]
Denver is earning a reputation as a city to watch for 21st century placemaking. Its Lower Downtown (LoDo) historic district—a mixed-use area now 25 years in the making—is a revitalization success story. The city is making major investments in transit-oriented […]
The ideas at issue are presented in the short video featured in this recent CityLab story. Several “Leading Voices” in today’s conversation about cities were asked this “Big Question”: What’s the Number One Thing We Could Do to Improve City Life? […]
This week Jeff Selingo writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education that location is becoming increasingly important as a factor that can determine a university’s success or failure. He argues that institutions located in cities enjoy a strategic advantage by […]
I’m pleased to have been invited to write for the public interest urban planning website Planetizen. In keeping with the theme of Intercultural Urbanism my inaugural essay briefly describes the philosophical and practical commitments of an approach to urban planning […]
On New Year’s Eve 2013 the staff at Atlantic Cities (now City Lab) ran a story about “Urbanist Buzzwords to Rethink in 2014.” These buzzwords included popular favorites such as “placemaking”, “smart growth”, and even “gentrification.” Readers were urged to […]
The New York Times just ran a story about the steps that Honolulu is taking to crack down on the homeless in an effort to shore up its tourism industry. Homelessness is up 32% in Honolulu over the past 5 […]
The dust-up exemplifies a wider fuss among urbanists, and the Buffalo front is just the latest one to be opened up. Colin Dabkowski of the Buffalo News started it, with an “open letter” to New Urbanists who had just completed their […]