Urbanism

Driving Detroit (http://media.freep.com/drivingdetroit/stories.html) is a series of articles from the Detroit Free Press that documents a four-month odyssey through all 2,700 miles (4,350 kilometers) of Detroit's over 2,100 streets. The idea of this unusual roadtrip was to get a unique view of Detroit; a short-term, street-level survey of the city's 138 square miles (357 square kilometers), and a snapshot of the city many insist is coming back.

From Cyburbian Dan: Throughout North America, and much of the world, Buffalo has a reputation as a solidly industrial city, a place of factories, smokestacks, and simple, hard-working, unpretentious folks who like professional football, cheap beer, big American cars, fattening foods, professional football, classic rock radio, and professional football.

The Buffalo metropolitan area's manufacturing workforce is now down to about 11 percent of the total workforce, near the national average. Physically and culturally, however, Buffalo still feels like a tough, heavily industrialized city.

From Cyburbian Larry Felton Johnson: I've taken a new set of photos of Glenwood Park in Atlanta. I haven't captioned or edited them yet, but wanted to post them as soon as possible. A lot of construction has gone on since I last did walkthrough photography. I'll really be glad when they open the streets leading directly into North Ormewood Park. My guess is that they're keeping it sealed off until construction completes on the part of the development on the eastern edge. One good thing about Glenwood Park is that both physically and symbolically they're connecting it to the older surrounding neighborhoods.

From Cyburbian mgk920: I has truly amazed me how very fragile enclosed mall shopping centers have become in the past decade or two. What was once a crowded and sometimes attractive gathering place of shopping, mingling and plain old people watching of the post-WWII era can come crashing down within a breathtakingly short time.

The latest case in point is the former Port Plaza Mall, now called Washington Commons, in downtown Green Bay, WI. It was opened in 1977 as a very large two-level new construction downtown mall, added on to a few years later (about 1984), and throughout that time was a fun place to visit, wander around and buy a few things, even for someone who lived here in Appleton.

From Cyburbian Canasian: I live downtown St. John's. Here is a small presentation of some areas around my house. Hope you enjoy! It is the capital city of Newfoundland and Labrador, with a metro population of 200,000.

From Cyburbian jsk1983: These pictures were taken on November 4 (Sunday) in the late afternoon. The main street in Chinatown is Wentworth and that is where most of the pictures were taken. Some businesses are located along Cermak Rd. as well as in a newish mini-mall across Cermak.

From Cyburbian b3nr: All your talk of your crazy American cities with their 'grids', 'subdivisions' and 'zoning' plans and whatnot inspired me to explain the anatomy of what an British city actually looks like and what effects their growth and form. With the aid of a handy new function on livemaps. (You can extend this to most Irish cities too).

Part one is the photogenic historical city core. Part two will be the less photogenic inner city suburbs and part three, the sprawling seemingly endless outer suburbs, employment areas and 'big box' retail and office space. The other two parts will be posted later this week or next week.

From Cyburbian cutyskip: What are the best cities for artists? Most of the nation's largest cities are becoming less and less affordable, making it harder for artists to live on a budget and find workspace. Moreover, modern communications make learning about new artists easier than ever, taking away some of the traditional roles of museums and galleries.

Smaller cities are noticing, and making an effort to attract artists - which ones do you know of?

Read about Providence, R.I., New Orleans, Cleveland and Minneapolis

From Cyburbian ablarc: Meanwhile, back in the mean streets of the urban jungle, we find that the architecture is actually fairly varied, with storybook tudor, mediterranean mission, steakhouse modern, arts and crafts -- and even coloniale -- all making an appearance in perfect harmony: stylistic variety unified by a consistent scale, which in turn is the result of a similar frequency of event and detail, and especially of the small increment of development. Think how disruptive of the scale a large footprint building would be here—especially a single-story large footprint building, such as a standard supermarket.

Over a two-year period, the creator of New York City Walk (http://www.newyorkcitywalk.com) walked on every street in Manhattan, documenting the experience on his Web site.

Subtopia (http://subtopia.blogspot.com) was started as a site where random research broadly on the topic of a ‘military urbanism’ would be gathered. As time went on, Subtopia evolved into an ongoing chronicle of how different Orwellian trends in urbanism engaged a larger geopolitical process of materializing cities. In the world of urblogging, Subtopia is one of the more fascinating and unique destinations.

The intent of Urban Age (http://www.urban-age.net/), "a worldwide investigation into the future of cities", is to shape the thinking and practice of urban leaders and sustainable urban development. Urban Age is structured around international and multidisciplinary events and research supporting the creation of a new urban agenda for global cities. The Urban Age agenda links the physical to the economic, environmental and social, providing urbanists with the tools to apply, tailor and refine innovation.

The Channels (http://www.tulsachannels.com) is a vision for development of the Arkansas River through Tulsa, Oklahoma. The project would consist of three man-made islands encompassing 16 hectares intended to provide land for low- and high-rise mixed-use residential, office and retail space development. The islands would stand in a 20 kilometer long reservoir created by construction of a dam immediately downstream of The Channels. Other project features include the use of solar, wind, and hydroelectric generation capabilities and the provision of civic gathering space.

From Cyburbian cityskip: What are the best cities for artists? Most of the nation's largest cities are becoming less and less affordable, making it harder for artists to live on a budget and find workspace. Moreover, modern communications make learning about new artists easier than ever, taking away some of the traditional roles of museums and galleries.

Smaller cities are noticing, and making an effort to attract artists - which ones do you know of? Read about Providence, New Orleans, Cleveland and Minneapolis.

Worldview (http://www.worldviewcities.org) is a web-based project of the Architectural League of New York that invites architects from around the world to present reports on what is new and interesting in architecture and urbanism in their cities, with a particular focus on cities and regions that are not adequately reported on by the mainstream architectural press. The city reports contain information on the architectural and urban historical context of each city, brief essays on contemporary issues of importance, and a look at current work and practitioners.