Planning Pool

The view from the top level of the multi-storey bicycle parking lot near Amsterdam's Central Station. Photo by author.

Amsterdam is one of the most frequently-cited examples of a cycle-friendly city, and I recently had the opportunity to experience it from the perspective of the cyclist, the pedestrian, the automobile passenger, and the transit user. I was not disappointed by the transport network from any perspective, and was most impressed by the infrastructure that allows cycling to be a dominant form of transport in the city. Cyclists are accommodated by a vast network of well-connected bicycle lanes, traffic-calmed streets, and plentiful bicycle parking (though still not enough).

Amsterdam’s canal streets are, for the most part, traffic calmed to allow cyclists easy passage without dedicated cycle lanes. Cycle lanes on other … Continue Reading

Alright, so I’m late on this one — people have apparently been excited about tiny houses for awhile now. Regardless, I’m joining their ranks. As cities of greater urban density make attempts at infill development, such as Vancouver’s laneway housing, these diminutive domiciles might look a little out of place in some areas…

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Jarrett Walker cites Personal Rapid Transit as an example of a specific technology that is often championed without consideration for practicality. Thanks to Antonio Edward on Flickr for the evocative Creative Commons photo!

Planning nerds everywhere will doubtlessly share my enthusiasm for a transit planning blogger lecture tour. One of my favourite transportation bloggers, Australia-based Jarrett Walker, delivered a free talk last evening in Vancouver, hosted by the generous SFU City Program.

Describing Mr. Walker as a transit blogger seems too limited. He draws on his background in literary theory to tease out the semantics of transit debates. He actually refrains from picking sides on heated issues such as which technology should be used for Vancouver’s proposed Broadway Corridor line. Instead, let’s … Continue Reading

The following video from VBS details some of the features of the community center and illustrates how Braddock is dealing with the tough realities of decay. Very interesting and certainly inspiring.

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