Urban Design
Fixing a Blank Wall Streetscape With Storefront Retrofits
Every city has places where the buildings present a blank face to the sidewalk. A dark, recessed arcade deadening the pedestrian environment or a soulless concrete wall fronting a windswept plaza.
September 5, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast: Poor Door Von Spreckelsen
In this week's podcast, Jeff and I take on the infamous New York City "poor door," designed to keep tenants of affordable units segregated from the wealthy residents that occupy the rest of the high-rise at 40 Riverside. In the process, we take on the assumptions and methods that cities use to provide housing, and by the time we're done, we've blown a hole in the whole capitalist system.
August 4, 2014
How One-Day Plazas and Bike Lanes Can Change a City Forever
This post is part of a series featuring stories and research that will be presented at the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference September 8-11 in Pittsburgh.
July 29, 2014
William H. Whyte in His Own Words: “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”
When I first got started making NYC bike advocacy and car-free streets videos back in the late-1990s on cable TV, I didn't know who William "Holly" Whyte was or just how much influence his work and research had on New York City. A few years later I met Fred and Ethan Kent at Project for Public Spaces. I got a copy of Whyte's 1980 classic, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, which in its marvelously-written, straightforward style is the one book all burgeoning urbanists should start with.
July 25, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast: Helmet Hair
Did you wear your helmet when you biked to work this morning? Whether you did or you didn't, it's up to you. So why are there so many people shrieking about it? On one side, the 85-percenters, overstating the protection helmets offer against head injuries. On the other side, the 3-footers, claiming that it's actually safer to go helmetless because drivers give you more space and a host of other reasons. Some recent hysteria around bike-share and head injuries fueled this fire. I'm not sure Jeff and I put that fire out with our discussion, but we at least tried to make some sense of it.
June 24, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast: Let Them Drive Cars
Quick quiz: What city is the world leader in highway teardowns? San Francisco? Portland? Madrid?
April 9, 2014
Our Cities Can’t Afford So Many Rooftop Spas
First, let me be clear: Tomorrow is April Fools, not today. This is real.
March 31, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast: Knight Rider Rides Again
It was a dark and stormy day in San Francisco and Jeff Wood stayed dry in Woonerf studios, recording the Talking Headways podcast with co-host Tanya Snyder, who was bitter that days after the spring equinox, Washington, DC, was getting hit with another snowstorm.
March 27, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast: From the Free Market to the Flea Market
You think the conflict between Uber and regular taxi drivers -- and cities like Seattle -- is bad? Check out how new taxi apps in China are upending the transportation system and central economic planning. Meanwhile, in Houston, a flea market has brought revitalization without gentrification to a depressed area near the airport, and now an urban design firm is bringing in pop-up infrastructure like mobile libraries and grocery stores, along with sidewalks and bikeways. And Californians are proving that the culture shift away from the automobile and toward other modes of transportation is happening -- maybe even faster than we'd thought.
March 18, 2014