Urban Design
Streetsblog Basics
Eyes on the Street: New Places to Sit on Myrtle Avenue
Combining public seating and tree protection, the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership has begun a second round of street furniture installations. The project is bringing 28 tree guards and 22 benches to Myrtle Avenue between Flatbush and Classon Avenues by the end of the year, joining 40 tree guards and benches that were installed in 2011.
December 7, 2012
Raleigh’s Smart Plan to Grow Inward
Growing Sun Belt cities aren't generally known for their sustainable urban form. But Raleigh, North Carolina is putting the finishing touches on a plan that could break the mold.
October 18, 2012
DIY Urbanism: No Permits, No Red Tape, No Going Back
You have dreamed about striping your own bike lane on your most-traveled routes. You got your street closed off for a block party. Maybe you even spent the afternoon feeding the meter on Park(ing) Day.
October 12, 2012
This Valentine’s Day, Declare Your Love For the Most Beautiful Street
Just in time for Valentine's Day, here is a new and interesting way to compare streets. At www.beautiful.st, you can compare 200 randomly selected streets in Philadelphia, plucked from Google Street View, two at a time. Vote for the most beautiful and two more images pop up for you to compare.
February 14, 2012
New Urbanists Release Principles for Sustainable Street Networks
At the Transportation Research Board's 91st annual meeting here in DC, it's hard to miss the booth handing out copies of a bright blue pamphlet filled with illustrations of busy tree-lined streets, where bicyclists and buses work their way through a bustling urban bazaar. The booth is the Congress for New Urbanism’s “occupation” of TRB, and the pamphlet is their new illustrated Sustainable Street Network Principles, a document aimed at explaining in very basic terms what's wrong with America's streets -- and how to fix them.
January 26, 2012
The Upside of Cuomo’s Convention Center Plan: Urbanism on the West Side
After Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address last week, Streetsblog looked a little closer at the governor's plan to build the nation's largest convention center at the Aqueduct racino in Ozone Park, Queens. Counting on a huge convention center near JFK airport to deliver economic development seemed like a dubious proposition, but the other side of the plan -- converting the Javits Center site on the West Side of Manhattan into a mixed-use neighborhood -- has a lot to recommend it.
January 9, 2012
Rail~volution: Will New Americans Fuel Smart Growth or Suburbanism?
This year’s Rail~volution conference — the annual gathering of livability advocates, urban sustainability coordinators, and transit agency officials – kicked off today with remarks by Chris Leinberger of the Brookings Institution and Manuel Pastor, who teaches demographics and ethnicity at the University of Southern California.
October 17, 2011
Eyes on the Street: Brand New Pop-Up Café on Sullivan Street
Reader Ian Dutton sends these shots of the pop-up café that just went up at "local" -- a coffee shop on Sullivan Street in SoHo. Ian says owners Craig and Liz Walker worked hard to make this public space enhancement happen. Among other things, they had to bring a crew of supporters with them to Community Board 2 when their application to DOT's pop-up café program came up for a vote. Their bid was the only one of six applications to withstand the onslaught from local reactionary Sean Sweeney.
July 15, 2011
Rezoning to Encourage Street Life on Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue
When the Department of City Planning put forward its rezoning of Park Slope in 2003, one of the earliest of the now 111 rezonings under Mayor Bloomberg and City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, it was intended to help turn Fourth Avenue into "a grand boulevard of the 21st Century."
June 22, 2011
Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change
Editor’s note: Today we are very pleased to begin a five-part series of excerpts from Peter Calthorpe’s book, “Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change.” Keep reading this week and next to learn how you can win a copy of the book from Island Press.
January 26, 2011