Feargus O’Sullivan is doing a series in CityLab right now on the “home designs” that define four European cities: London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris. The first one is on London’s classic “two-up, two-down” design, which refers to a two storey home with a living room… Read More
All posts tagged “density”
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The anatomy of density
Urban environments can be dense in many different ways. This is a topic that we have discussed on several occasions here on the blog. But this working paper by Solly Angel, Patrick Lamson-Hall, and Zeltia Gonzales Blanco — called The Anatomy of Density — is… Read More
Eliminating single-family zoning
There is something happening in many North American cities right now. We are starting to question the supremacy of zoning for only single-family homes. This past summer, the state of Oregon passed policy requiring cities of 25,000 people or more to allow duplexes, triplexes, and… Read More
Paris and Vancouver population densities compared
In this January 2018 report from the Fraser Institute, they pegged the average population density of Paris to be about 21,067 inhabitants per square kilometer (2014 population year). It is the second densest city in their report after Hong Kong, but the densest in Europe.… Read More
Transit investment & density (in San Francisco)
This recent Streetsblog article about the possibility of turning the M Ocean View line in San Francisco into a kind of subway is a good reminder about the always important connection between transit investment and density. The question I always pose to myself is, “If… Read More
Barcelona from above
Barcelona is one of the densest cities in Europe. And Márton Mogyorósy’s recent photo series, called Barcelona from above, does an excellent job of demonstrating that. My favorite photo is this one here, showing La Barceloneta neighborhood adjacent to the beach: None of the buildings… Read More
European-style height, but not density
As I wrote about last month in this pithy post, the relationship between building height and density are often misunderstood. They mean different things and so the implications for our cities can also be vastly different. I woke up this morning to a couple of… Read More
Height vs. density
This Planetizen article (2014) by Brent Toderian surfaced over the weekend. It is about tall buildings and why we should be focused more on how they are designed, as opposed to just how tall they are. Brent talks about this in terms of “density done… Read More
The disappearing urban advantage
The New York Times has a recent article up talking about the disappearing “urban advantage” for low-skilled workers. It is based on the work of MIT economist David Autor. Here is a chart from the article plotting wages against population density from 1950 to 2015: The… Read More
Invisible walls
This is an interesting working paper by a team of researchers at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management. The paper examines the relationship between urban density and organized violence, first in Colombia and then within a sample of 200 global cities. The finding is that… Read More
