Blogs

There’s a quote that’s stuck with me for some time from Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom: "You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so f***ing smart, how come they lose so goddamn always?"

American urbanists and bike advocates are smart, or at least well informed. We know how important cycling is. We are educated about cycling cities in other parts of the world and how they are so much better for health, well-being, economics, traffic, pollution, climate, equity, personal freedom, and on and on...

https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/micromobility-urban-design-car-free-infrastruture-futurama/600163/

Late last month,  published a piece with the somewhat incendiary title “How placemaking is tearing apart social housing communities.” The article tells a distressing story of a local east London council forcing the relocation of social housing residents so the estate could be refurbished, and how years later, hundreds of units remain empty as displaced residents have yet been able to return. The details as described are a little murky — or perhaps I just got lost in the British English — but the author, Nye Jones, was crystal clear on one point: placemaking was to blame...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/01/16/how-placemaking-can-empower-urban-communities-not-tear-them-apart/