Now is the time to reinvent American cities, says Nicolai Ourousoff recently in the New York Times. The country has fallen on hard times, but those of us who love cities know we have been living in the dark ages for a while now. We know that turning things around will take more than just [...]
Filed under: renewal | Tagged: federal policy | 1 Comment »
The news program 60 Minutes recently featured Alice Waters and the locally grown food movement, visiting the Edible Schoolyard that Waters helped create. The school garden offers a great example of connecting kids to the growing and making of food. Also, Citiwire recently featured an article from Farley Peters on an increased government role in [...]
Filed under: uncategorized | Tagged: community gardening | 1 Comment »
We posted last year about Detroit’s new Dequindre Cut trail, and want to again share a piece from Metropolis magazine on this great project. (The article webpage also features some great pictures of the new trail.) The Cut is the type of project that can show the role of parks, trails and other investments in [...]
Filed under: renewal, transportation | Tagged: bikes, detroit | Leave a Comment »
At Slate.com, Gretchen Rubin, writing for her Happiness Project blog, interviews Julie Morgenstern, who Rubin says “has done a lot of thinking about happiness, as it relates to managing our possessions and time.” Morgenstern’s response to one question provides a nice perspective on the value of city parks in keeping us uncluttered in the mind. [...]
Filed under: health | Tagged: mental health | 2 Comments »
A partnership for livable communities on the federal level? A U.S. Dept. of Transportation and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development initiative will do just this. Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood actually has a blog, where among other interesting posts, he writes about the opportunities of the new partnership. Here are the four goals [...]
Filed under: planning | Leave a Comment »
A profile of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and its founder and president Meg Cheever describes how such an organization can foster renewal through parks and connect a community to its parks. The article, which appeared in Pittsburgh’s Pop City starts: It was a dark time for parks nationwide. Once, a century ago, they were the [...]
Filed under: partnerships, renewal | 1 Comment »
We just learned of an interesting example of un-burying an urban stream to create better stormwater management and a new park in London. CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment), the British government’s advisory organization on such matter in England, has included work around parks in their research, and wrote a case study on [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure | 3 Comments »
Dog parks are one of the hottest trends in city parks, and they can be quite contentious. The Examiner features seven tips from dog-park heavy Portland, Ore. dog trainer Doug Duncan. Mostly common sense stuff here, but some may find it useful in their dog park pursuits. (Details for each in the above link.) Unleash [...]
Filed under: facilities | Tagged: dog parks | 3 Comments »
An article in BrandWeek says to expect more advertisements in public spaces with a bad economy and shrinking government revenues. The initiatives range from naming rights to massive vinyl ad wraps, and the examples abound: Chicago is currently taking RFPs that would allow companies to buy the right to name individual stations stops on its [...]
Filed under: funding | Tagged: advertising, naming rights | Leave a Comment »
Ed Glaeser has some thoughts on how building compactly is better than sprawl, using a somewhat provocative comparison to the Lorax. In a post on the NY Times Economix blog, he notes: In Dr. Seuss’ environmentalist fable, “The Lorax,” the Once-ler, a budding textile magnate, chops down Truffula to knit “Thneeds.” Over the protests of [...]
Filed under: planning, renewal | Tagged: density, smart growth | 2 Comments »
