MetaFilter posts tagged with urban

City of Bikes

kliuless — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:55:36 -0800

Car-free cities: an idea with legs
Car-free neighbourhoods are no unrealistic utopia – they exist all over Europe.

Street Lit

trojanhorse — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:33:42 -0800

"It's urban, it's real, but is this literature? Controversy rages over a new genre whose sales are headed off the charts"

Examples of Urban Lit from Amazon:

Gardens By The Bay

Joe Beese — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:29:42 -0800

The Gardens will put in place a pervasive garden ambience and quality living environment from which Singapore's downtown will rise, and steer Singapore to the forefront of the world's leading global cities. (via)

We live in the city of dreams, We drive on the highway of fire

Toekneesan — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:59:08 -0800

David Byrne has just published a new book about bicycles called Bicycle Diaries. A long time rider, Byrne muses on how the world looks and works from the vantage point of a cyclist. It's getting pretty good reviews. To launch the book, Byrne is touring the US and arranging public forums. Each event features a civic leader, an urban theorist, a bicycle advocate, and Byrne himself speaking about bikes in cities. Here’s a schedule of the upcoming events. He’s also designed some bike racks for his hometown of New York City. Special Bonus Links! Byrne's review of Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities by Jeff Mapes A map of Byrne's Bike Racks. A three part tour of Byrne's New York studio. David Byrne on the perfect city. (Previously)

The Loss of Human Scale: Old Hong Kong vs New Hong Kong

milquetoast — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:43:38 -0800

For the last two years, Flickr user HK Man has been collecting old photos of Hong Kong, finding the exact spots at which they were taken, and taking them again. The result, from his first photo of Victoria Harbor to a more recent one of Nathan Road, comprises a chronicle of Hong Kong's unrestrained vertical development over the past few decades. In a similar vein, Gwulo is a community site for "for everyone that is interested in old Hong Kong" and includes photos, mysteries, and discussions -- such as this one about old Kai Tak Airport. More on HK Man at URBANPHOTO here and here. Bonus Kai Tak videos: Overview and Landings over Kowloon.

Detroit schools urban exploration & reclamation.

Item — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:49:39 -0800

Urban exploration has been featured here once or twice before, but Jim Griffioen's site photo-documenting his discoveries in and around Detroit deserves a look. Griffioen was recently interviewed [direct mp3 link] on the American Public Media radio program The Story. Jim is most interested in schools. He's taken photos of trees growing through books and other things left behind. Recently Jim has gone beyond documenting what he sees and is reclaiming what he finds. He collects abandoned library books and other school supplies and gives them to community centers. Previously - blog post by Griffioen on Detroit's abandoned Belle Isle Zoo

Robert Moses is rolling in his grave!

geoff. — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:03:06 -0800

Seoul, Portland and San Francisco: 4 cases for destroying highways to save the city.

Making Policy Public

netbros — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:14:59 -0800

Urban Omnibus is an online project of the Architectural League that explores the relationship between design and New York City's physical environment. They are featuring Making Policy Public, a program of The Center for Urban Pedagogy, through their articles about Vendor Power and Predatory Equity. "Just as we were beginning our collaboration, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a predatory equity building in the Bronx widely recognized as the birthplace of hip-hop, was being overleveraged by a predatory developer. This was not only a case of people potentially losing their homes; but also of New York City losing its heritage and culture. The threats are social and cultural as well as economic. Through their work helping tenants organize and speaking to lawmakers and media sources, (we) knew that the poster would have to address two different audiences: 1) Tenants who wanted to know how the law and predatory equity practices could directly affect them and 2) decision-makers who would need inside information to take action. They imagined the publication’s goal was to mobilize tenants in affected and at-risk buildings and to convince politicians and banks to recognize the problem and take immediate action. We agreed finding a way to visually explain predatory equity was the best place to start."

"This Place Matters"

Miko — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:31:16 -0800

National Trust Releases 2009 List of 11 Most Endangered Historic Places , including Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple. Additional detail and sites from past years here.

Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video

dhammond — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:43:52 -0800

"The Cleveland Tourism Board gave me 14 million dollars about 8 months ago to make a promotional video to bring people to Cleveland. As usual, I waited till the last minute and I ended up having to shoot and edit it in about an hour yesterday afternoon. I probably should have invested more time."

When terrorists attack Office Depot, we'll be ready!

educatedslacker — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:53:50 -0800

Urban Camouflage deals with the question how to camouflage oneself and one’s identity in the urban space. Our costumes are inspired by the «ghillie suits», the military camouflage suit. It was an adventure to wear the suit in the stores because of the conflicts with the employees, the reaction of the customers and also to see the pretty well camouflage effect in a real situation.

School of Hard Knocks.

dersins — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:59:24 -0800

"This is the safest place these kids have," Mr. McMonigle explains. "No matter how crazy it gets here, no matter how bad the school is, it’s still better than what’s waiting for them out there when they leave. The irony is that after all the bitching and the moaning about how they don’t want to be here, at the end of the day you can’t get them to go home!" School of Hard Knocks is a heartbreaking 7-part series of articles about kids with behavioral problems in a Philadelpha high school. [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] [via mefi projects]

Picture London without Londoners

Kattullus — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:24:17 -0800

Abandoned London is a Flickr set by photographer IanVisits of London on Christmas morning when the city is (almost) denuded of people. Very disorienting if you've been to London (or any major city, really). I got this via William Gibson's blog and I'll let him describe it in his inimitable way: "Christmas, particularly in the early morning, has always seemed so much more liminal to me than New Year's eve. Spectral, deeply in-between [...] something about the way in which traffic, pedestrian and vehicular, controls one's depth of field, fragmenting and animating the experience."

Causing false public alarm

tkolar — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:53:11 -0800

As those of you on the wrong email lists can probably guess, Snopes is overflowing with gang initiation rumors. What you may not know is that the New Jersey police recently arrested someone spreading those stories for "causing false public alarm." On one hand, I'm having a hard time equating this directly with yelling fire in a crowded theater. On the other hand, I'm not sure I would miss Aunt Betsy if she was deprived of her email privileges.

Meet you at the Circl-Serv!

Miko — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:26:57 -0800

"The plans for Victory City have evolved over a period of 38 years, nurtured by the vision and dedication of Victory City's inventor, Orville Simpson II [no relation]. Mr. Simpson conceived of the general idea of Victory City in 1936, when he was only 13 years old. Afraid of being ridiculed, Mr. Simpson kept his ideas about designing and building the City of the Future to himself … a secret vision he held in his mind... It wasn't until 1960 — after he had embarked on a lucrative career in real estate investing and apartment building management — that Mr. Simpson decided to make his ideas about Victory City known to the general public."

Till human voices wake us

plexi — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:19:48 -0800

Alone Together. In American lore, the small town is the archetypal community, a state of grace from which city dwellers have fallen.

Yet the picture of cities—and New York in particular—that has been emerging from the work of social scientists is that the people living in them are actually less lonely. Rather than driving people apart, large population centers pull them together, and as a rule tend to possess greater community virtues than smaller ones.

Holmes' and Watson's World

digaman — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:01:27 -0800

One minute and four seconds in London, 1904. Birkbeck College professor Ian Christie rediscovered this footage in an archive in Canberra, shot for a travelogue by film pioneer Charles Urban.

Let's Eat!

Eekacat — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:11:42 -0800

Will Allen, the founder of Growing Power, an urban farm in Milwaukee, has won a MacArthur Genius grant. Growing Power uses aquaculture, vermiculture, and sustainable agriculture to raise food in an urban environment. Chefs of the region have taken notice, but that's not Growing Power's main purpose. Congratulations to only the second farmer to win a Genius Grant. I liked this urban grass roots story of someone trying to make a difference, and glad to see him rewarded for his effort.

Things to do with skips

parudox — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:21:27 -0800

New uses for skips. Skip recipes. Find a skip. Public domain occupation with skips. Guerrilla art skips. Skipcar. [Via]

The Colors of Decay

Hollow — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:46:28 -0800

Keith Thorne has stunningly colored pictures of decaying urban spaces on his Flickr stream, including some taken at an abandoned German military hospital that once treated Adolf Hitler. A few pictures feature himself. Via.

The Changing Face of the Inner City

digaman — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:43:58 -0800

Are you a young middle-class creative type (probably white) who has chosen to live in an urban neighborhood that your parents would have shunned? Have the families that formerly lived in your neighborhood (probably not white) been pushed out by soaring rents and real-estate prices to the city fringes or suburbs? The New Republic on demographic inversion.

Yes, I'll take the full insurance coverages please.

allkindsoftime — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:56:53 -0800

Rental Car Rally. (From the guys who brought Street Wars to NYC). That is all.

Get yer urban exploration/dead mall fix right here

limeonaire — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:59:13 -0800

"Q: What the hell is this site about? This is a site about urban exploration in the Ozarks." Abandoned water slides, underground tunnels, abandoned buildings and half-demolished malls throughout Missouri were all once fair game for this blog, and remain fair game for those who post in Underground Ozarks' forums.

Urban pranks

CunningLinguist — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:46:00 -0800

From the Improv Everywhere people comes the Urban Prankster blog to keep track of delightful shenanigans around the world.

"Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways"

nthdegx — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:07:05 -0800

Humble abode: Loftcube // Rucksack House // Micro-Compact Home // Superadobe // Zigzag Cabin // Tree Sphere // Mirador // La Petite Maison du Weekend _ all via.