Leapfrogging / Megacities / Transportation / Urban Planning & Design
The Ghost of a Green Los Angeles
Alex Steffen, 9 Feb 10 Today, I took a long walk through the old neighborhoods of Long Beach: craftsman bungalows, Mission-style courtyard apartment buildings, quaint and walkable streets, old trees shading the sidewalks, the beach breeze blowing through. It put me in mind of...
De-Industrializing the City
Alex Steffen, 8 Feb 10 One of my favorite quotes by Bjarke Ingels: "Engineering without engines. We should use contemporary technology and computation capacity to make our buildings independent of machinery. Building services today are essentially mechanical compensations for the fact that buildings are...
Walkable Neighborhoods Key to Stable Real Estate Says New NRDC Report
Sarah Kuck, 3 Feb 10 Big, red 'For Sale' signs flapping in the wind are the tumble weeds of the 21 century. Signaling emptiness and recent catastrophe, these markers of market disaster are said to have proliferated because of predatory lending and lax standards...
Smarter Planet, the Swap and the Surrealism of Now
Alex Steffen, 27 Jan 10 We're deep in editorial work right now, in case you were wondering about the comparative radio silence. But here's a quick rant to chew on. While I was taking a break from writing about cities of the future, a friend...
New Energy Hubs: Transit-Oriented Development Meets District Energy
Patrick Mazza, 12 Jan 10 Advanced community design models are emerging to provide some of the greatest opportunities for reducing fossil fuel use, climate-disrupting emissions and traffic congestion, while also offering affordable, high-quality lifestyles. Envision living in a community that offers an abundance of local...
