We have spoken a lot over the years about the benefits of narrow and pedestrian-focused streets. Most recently, I even ran around Europe with a laser distance measuring device to collect a few field samples. Here’s an example from Marseille and here’s an example from… Read More
Five cities. Five stories. Here is a short film by Nils Clauss and Neil Dowling, which recently premiered at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. (If you can’t see the embedded video above, click here.) The film is named after this year’s Seoul Biennale… Read More
Over the weekend I learned about a unique feature of South Korea’s housing market. It’s called jeonse. And the way this housing contract works is that, instead of tenants paying a monthly rent to their landlord, they pay a huge lump-sum amount up front. Usually… Read More
I am surprised, although maybe I shouldn’t be, by how quickly many seem to be allegedly turning their back on cities. According to the New York Times, cities were “losing their allure” well before this pandemic, and this might just be the tipping point. The… Read More
I just spent the last 7 minutes listening to this brief historical overview of Seoul by The Urbanist, while I bounced around the city on Google Street View, admiring the coverage of their transit network and the density of their low-rise neighborhoods. I love Street View and… Read More
On September 2, 2017, a research project by several MIT laboratories – called Gangnam Poop: Underworlds in Seoul – will debut at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. Here’s an excerpt from the exhibition description: A vast reservoir of information on human health and… Read More
Toronto’s Director of Urban Design, Harold Madi, recently did a 20 tweet series on boulevards. And since today is Gardiner East day, it seems appropriate to share it with you all. Thanks to Shawn Micallef for using Storify to put it all together neatly. If… Read More
Earlier today I tweeted this: What Other Cities Learned: These five tore down highways and reaped the rewards. http://t.co/aR8STHTX9o #urbanism pic.twitter.com/I07iwRF8EP — Brandon G. Donnelly (@donnelly_b) December 17, 2014 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js It’s a link to an article talking about 5 cities – New York, Milwaukee, Seoul,… Read More
In 1980, the last train ran on an elevated corridor on the west side of Manhattan known as the High Line. Originally built in the 1930s, the trucking industry had made these trains obsolete and service was halted. At this point, neighboring property owners began… Read More
I care a lot about transit. I fundamentally believe that it needs to be the backbone of any well functioning and thriving metropolis. As the global economy continues to become an increasingly more urban one, we are seeing the rise of cities at a scale… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 