Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• Bungalows are the most common type of building in Chicago. The iconic homes, mainly built between 1910 and 1940, offered an accessible first home to many urban families. WBEZ takes a look at the history of the bungalow and considers what type of housing might qualify as its 21st century counterpart.
• Alternet salutes the top 5 smartest policies enacted by American cities in 2010: Denver Public Schools’ Spanish-language radio show, Pittsburgh/Allegheny County’s new development wage law, New York City’s juvenile justice reforms, Austin’s transportation bond which targets complete streets and Cleveland’s lawsuit against sub-prime mortgage lenders.
• “Statistics have to evolve. You have to make them relevant,” says Notre Dame economist David Betson. That’s the idea behind the US Census Bureau’s new suite of proposed poverty measurements, alternatives to the current metric – a relic of the 1960s. According to the Washington Post, in 2009, the current measure classified 14.3 percent of Americans as impoverished; under the alternatives, it could have been as low as 12.8 percent or as high as 17.1 percent.
• Passengers on NJ Transit now have the option ride in relative silence between Trenton and Manhattan. But as the New York Times reports, keeping the quiet car quiet is easier said than done.
• Map mavens take note: the New York Times now offers block level mapping of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2005-2009.
• Andres Duany, the father of New Urbanism, reflects on the trials and tribulations of public participation in planning and the tension between seeking input and getting things done in Architect Magazine. “Conventional public participation makes the mistake of privileging the neighbors, the people who live within a half-mile of the given proposal…You can’t confuse neighbors with the community as a whole.”
Photo by Ed. B.
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