The Nib’s recent comic about Jane Jacobs vs. The Power Brokers (i.e. Robert Moses) is a good little overview of her lessons and legacy. But I don’t understand the claim that developers co-opted her ideals in order to exploit and gentrify urban neighborhoods. According to… Read More
Over the long weekend, and across a couple of flights, I read Perfect City by Joe Berridge. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Each chapter focuses on a different world city, starting with the one and only Toronto. From New York to Singapore and London to Belfast,… Read More
I was looking through my photo archive this past week (which is all on an Apple Time Capsule) and I came across this photo: I took this photo in the winter of 2011 on a snowboarding trip to Lake Tahoe. It’s of the San Francisco… Read More
“We came to Toronto,” she says, “because it’s a place where you can work, it’s a place where you can live well, it’s a place where there is hope.” –Jane Jacobs (1971) It was my birthday this week (May 2nd). But it was also the birthday… Read More
I am sure that a lot of you know where the title of this post comes from. It’s a riff on one of the most important and influential books in the world of city planning: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane… Read More
For the past week or so I’ve been seeing the proposed Kettle Boffo Project in Vancouver make the rounds online. Here’s a rendering of the project, which is located at Commercial Drive and Venables Street: The reason it has been making the rounds is that a… Read More
“If the decision ultimately of the council is to support the hybrid I think frankly it’ll be a major step backwards and you’re going to miss a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’ll be very frank, we’ll be the laughingstock of the world.” -Paul… Read More
This May 2nd at 1:00pm I’m going to be participating and speaking at a Jane’s Walk here in Toronto called, Gardiner Expressway: To be or not to be? The other “walk leaders” include Andrew Hilton, City Councillor Jaye Robinson, Ed Levy, Kyle Baptista, and architect… Read More
This month’s issue of Monocle is centered around fashion, style, and retail. And one of the most interesting pieces is a report on small retail spaces. The argument (which you can read in the preface shown above) is that micro retail spaces are incredibly important… Read More
Houston Sunrise by Cliff Baise on 500px Urbanists generally don’t like to talk about cities like Houston. It sprawls. It’s car oriented. It’s over air-conditioned. In other words, it’s the antithesis of the dense and walkable cities that urbanists today like to tout as being… Read More
