Planning Pool

I would not want to malign planners for becoming interested in sociology—it is a common complaint in the field, indeed, that most planners aren’t interested enough. But a little sociology can be a dangerous weapon. (p. 349, The Organization Man)

The Organization Man, by William H. Whyte, is a key American sociology text of the mid-1950s. References to it still pervade current sociology and planning literature, which is what prompted me to borrow the only copy from the Vancouver Public Library.

Whyte’s subject is the generation of young white-collar men who worked for large American corporations. For Whyte, their conformity and social orientation represented such a severe break from traditional value systems like the Protestant Ethic that he feared a troubling … Continue Reading

Inch by inch, row by row...urban agriculture challenges residential zoning in San Francisco. (Thanks to Little City Gardens for this great photo!)

Earlier this spring in San Francisco a team of experienced urban farmers signed a land use agreement for a plot of land to expand their growing market-garden business.  Unlike most productive urban landscape in cities, which are community gardens or NGOs, Little City Gardens is a for profit enterprise. Owners Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Galloway have set out to experiment with the economic viability of urban farming by designing a financially self-sustaining urban farm business.  The new plot is an expansion of a smaller garden that was started in the Mission District, where they have been providing specialty salad mixes and organic produce to local … Continue Reading

Silva Cell installation on 4th Avenue in Seattle. Thanks to SDOT on Flickr for the Creative Commons photo!

Wondering what’s under streets has always been a favourite daydream of mine. The juxtaposition of green cities, with vibrant trees emerging from endless paving evokes images of intrepid root networks spreading out beneath the smooth exterior.

Silva Cells, a “modular subsurface integrated tree and stormwater system that holds unlimited amounts of soil while supporting traffic loads beneath paving and hardscape,” is a technology that  makes it easier for trees to survive and thrive in cities. The system provides an area for roots to spread in uncompacted soil and to share resources. The modular units can be laid out as bridges between soil volumes, connecting street tree roots … Continue Reading

While some cities are staring to get savvy with organic waste management in municipal composting programs, rarely do you see an integrated approach to sewage or other…less desirable…animal byproducts that creates energy. Biogas is a time-tested technology for the anaerobic processing organic waste to create two very valuable byproducts: methane gas (energy) and nutrient rich sludge (fertilizer). The energy can be piped and used in stoves, heating systems, refrigerators – basically anything that runs from gas (including machines like generators that produce electricity).

A basic biogas system. Thanks to the Unesco Training Manual for this diagram!

Some clever communities, like Bern, Germany, are even compressing the gas and using it as fuel for buses. Although Vancouver’s Olympic Village does deserve credit for passively extracting heat from sewages for … Continue Reading

The Our Lady of Victory Basilica in Lackawanna, NY, a place I never would have seen if not for a fantastic tour from a fantastic Couchsurfing host.

I admit it – I thought it was strange and dangerous at first. But then one of my less-intimidating female friends tried it,  and not only did she survive; she had a fantastic time. I no longer had an excuse – I had to plunge forward and try Couchsurfing. Once I did, my eyes were opened to a completely new way of travelling. I realized that there are over a million people around the world willing to open their homes to me and show me around their city. Not only does it make travelling cheaper and more interesting, but … Continue Reading

Want to explore the urban form of London or Berlin but lack the time or plane ticket to visit in person? 3D models of real cities are coming online for exploration and interaction. Besides fun for virtual tourists, the models inform innovative planning applications.

Anyone who has ever modeled a building in AutoCad or Google Sketchup can attest that modeling an entire city sounds impossibly time-consuming. However, thanks to new technologies in data analysis, processing, and remote sensing (from airplanes! with lasers!) basic 3D urban data can now be generated automatically. This makes the 3D modeling of large areas technically feasible, although still prohibitively complex (PDF conference paper behind the link).

The first entire city to be made available on Google Earth in 3D was Berlin, Germany. Created by the State of Berlin’s Senate Department of Urban Development and a host … Continue Reading

To start off Tech Week, we’re going to talk about something that is near and dear to the hearts of many urban planners – Google Maps! Here’s a Top 10 list of great features in Google Maps:

1. Directions – You already know that you can get directions from A to B on Google Maps, but did you know that you can get those directions for transit or for bikes? Just click on “directions” on the top left hand corner – the train looking thing represents transit directions and the bike icon represents cycling directions. They aren’t perfect, but they are pretty good!
2. Street View – Street view is a great way to nab some precedent images or other images that show what the street looks like today. You can capture a screen shot of the street view and then import … Continue Reading
   

That’s right — the ever-illusive flying car is back, only this time it’s ready for full deployment in the 4th Quarter this year. Of course, flying cars aren’t a new idea, but they’re apparently gaining steam once again. I chose the following as our weekly video because I’m baffled as to what a person does with a flying car. If you’re looking for a fun and frightening exercise, try to imagine what civilization would look like if we all had our own Terrafugia Transition. Read more…

Is this plaza for people or the building? Thanks to Neils displayed on Flickr for this great Creative Commons photo!

Urban regeneration and cultural heritage were the focus of World Expo Theme Week in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. “Nowadays, cities have grown in height, but they are having identical faces,” stated Ruan Yisan, a renowned expert on ancient building. The issue is twofold. Ruan believes designers lack confidence in their culture. In addition, newness is valued above history and culture. Solutions discussed at the forum included heritage protection and placemaking by responding to locally distinct geography, climate and tradition.

However, some places go too far in confronting the uniformity of modern cities. The notorious Bilbao Effect, in which the construction of an architectural oddity stimulates economic … Continue Reading

In Vancouver, as in many cities in North America and Europe, June is officially Bike Month. To celebrate, the Planning Institute of British Columbia’s South Coast Chapter presented a summer bicycle tour on June 19 for local planners and cycling enthusiasts.

The theme was “Health and the Built Environment”, so the morning began with a chat about the implications of walkable and bikeable environments for public health. Next, the cyclists took to the streets and bike lanes to tour Vancouver’s cycling infrastructure, lead by a dream team of local transportation planners and cycling advocates.

My twelve favourite pictures from the morning are in the slideshow below…

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