Tag Archives | urban design

The Pros and Cons of Saberurbanism

By on May 21, 2013 in Uncategorized

I have been a baseball fan all my life. I went to my first Twins game at Met Stadium when I was less than a year old (or so I am told), and saw them win the ’91 World Series from the upper deck of the Metrodome. I’ve been following the sabermetric revolution since 2001, [...]

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4-to-3 Road Diets: The #1 Thing Cities Can Do Right Away to Improve Quality of Life

By on January 15, 2013 in Infrastructure, Transportation

I have been re-reading Clay McShane‘s Down the Asphalt Path, an absolutely fascinating history of early 20th century urban engineering and street design debates. The history of asphalt may not sound interesting to you, but the book is absolutely filled with facts that amaze and astound, particularly if you pay any attention to contemporary transportation [...]

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Will Rybak follow through on his plan for “Washington Boulevard”?

By on December 4, 2012 in Plans

Five years ago, RT Rybak made my day. Somehow I ended up at an event he was hosting at the Riverview Theater. I think I had glanced at an announcement in the newspaper, some sort of meeting about architecture and city planning for Minneapolis. Being an underemployed urban peripatetic, I had nothing better to do. [...]

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The Limits of Pop-Up Urbanism

By on August 14, 2012 in Governance, Infrastructure, Plans

Over at my blog, I wrote today about some of the problems that both Minneapolis and St Paul have had in constructing bike infrastructure in over the past few years. In both cases (a cycle track and a bike boulevard), the city had drawn up a decent plan but had botched the implementation. Instead of [...]

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Vibrancy Is For People

By on July 18, 2012 in Streets

Thomas Frank has been making the rounds. Not only has he assumed Lapham’s editor’s chair at Harper’s and re-ignited The Baffler, he lately published a characteristic diatribe that wickedly skewers how the term “vibrancy” is used by non-profit funders, civic boosters, and artists as a façade for economic stability. Don’t get me wrong, I love [...]

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Sunday’s Openstreets: a temporary quantum leap into an alternate reality

By on June 8, 2012 in Uncategorized

What if there was a parallel universe (like in Quantum Leap or Fringe) where Minneapolis wasn’t almost completely dominated by the automobile? What if there’s a place where the city is almost the same, but ever-so-slightly different (kind of like Canada), subtly redesigned so that streets became a pedestrian paradise? What if you could say [...]

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Departing Barmi, next stop San Rafael

By on March 16, 2012 in History, Media

For better or for worse, children are the future, and that’s why it’s important to get them started thinking about cities now.  Just like many children are unaware that meat comes from animals, many children are unaware that suburbs come from cities, or that many cities were once suburbs, or of numerous other urban paradoxes [...]

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Forgive and Forget

By on March 5, 2012 in Transportation

Last month an organization called TRIP, in conjunction with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) released a report on the hazards an aging population create in our auto-based transportation system. The report, titled Keeping Baby Boomers Mobile: Preserving the Mobility and Safety of Older Americans, identifies an important problem. Unfortunately, these [...]

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Experimental Cities: DIY, Pop-Up, and Temporary Design

By on February 16, 2012 in Uncategorized

Anyone who hasn’t been to New York City in the last few years will immediately notice a few changes to the urban landscape. Most obviously, Broadway Avenue, New York’s “main street,” has a whole new look and feel around Midtown Manhattan. The Bloomberg Administration, let by his transportation Commissioner, has transformed Broadway into a decent [...]

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Edina Promenade and Centennial Lakes

By on January 20, 2012 in Land use, Smart Growth, Transportation, Uncategorized

This past weekend, I took advantage of the 30-something degree weather to go on a walk with my wife and infant daughter. We decided to check out the Edina Promenade and Centennial Lakes area in Edina because I’d never been there and it just seemed like something every respectable Twin Cities urbanist should be aware [...]

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