Planning Pool

Portland Food Carts: Photo by Author

In Portland you might enjoy a steaming bowl of curry, while in Accra a spicy box of jollof.  Both purchased for a low cost and in a convenient location.  What is known as a cart in Portland or New York, a kiosk in Accra or Moscow, might also be a booth, pavilion or a stand.  Each is a different form of micro-enterprise that plays an increasingly important role in our cities today. A kiosk is an efficient way for an individual to start a business with low costs and short time, while providing an immediate service to an urban area.  Congruently, the vibrancy of a neighborhood can be accentuated through the articulation of these small forms.  But … Continue Reading

The issue of homelessness is at the forefront of debates, both formal and informal, and is a reality I see every day in Vancouver, Canada. As the 2010 Olympics start take over the city, many wonder what will happen to the city’s large homeless population.

Housing and Development Board flats in the Little India district of Singapore. Thanks to Linkway88 for the Creative Commons photo.

In contrast, homelessness is widely believed to be nonexistent in Singapore, a city state in Southeast Asia. More than 85% of the Singaporean population lives in housing subsidized through the Housing and Development Board (HDB), Singapore’s public housing authority. This week, the … Continue Reading

This fence is known as a bicycle graveyard due to high chance of theft. St. James Town has terrible bike facilities.

A few months ago, I wrote about Jane’s Walks, a yearly weekend of walking tours in cities all over the world. Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in one of these walks, held especially for the Creative Places + Spaces conference. It took place in one of the most curious neighbourhoods in Toronto – St. James Town. After a major zoning change in the 1950s, maximum heights were raised drastically, and developers quickly bought up the Victorian homes in their way. In … Continue Reading

Finalists have been announced at the Reburbia Suburban Design Competition! Cast your vote for the best idea before midnight tomorrow (Monday, August 17).

Currently leading the vote count is Galina Tahchieva’s Urban Sprawl Repair Kit. It offers design solutions for integrating existing suburban prototypes like drive-through restaurants into a more diverse, cohesive and walkable urban fabric. The “T-trees Social Housing Project” has the second-greatest number of votes – it proposes nifty-looking modular towers topped with windmills that supporting prefabricated social housing units.

Meanwhile, an article in yesterday’s Edmonton Journal describes the fierce community resistance that stands in the way of proposals to modestly densify Edmonton’s older single-

For all of the attention paid to our inefficient cities and the need for higher building standards, the elephant in the room is how to retrofit the housing stock that we already have.  It’s not a sexy task, but the truth is that building new domiciles for everyone, or even most people, is way out of the question.  

When lobbying for the recently adopted American economic stimulus package, President Barack Obama hit the media circuit touting the stimulative effects of home-weatherization.  Though hardly inspirational (John Stewart had a field-day with the mundane soundbites), Obama hit on an important need, especially in North American suburbs.

Tom Zeller, editor of the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog, recently began a video series documenting the weatherization of his Colorado home.  His project is likely to be replicated millions of times over … Continue Reading