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.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
• Londoners got their first “X crossing” this week at Oxford Circle, one of the city’s busiest downtown intersections. For Torontonians who want to compare, BBC News has a great slide show of London’s version of the pedestrian scramble.
• “waiting for a signal when no cars are in sight [is] ridiculous and anti-urban”.
• Bologna, Italy may soon be home to a sleek 5084 meter solar-powered monorail system. Designed by Ghini Associati, the “Energy Belt”, which would user solar energy captured from photovoltaic panels at each station and along the track’s southwest side, is being proposed as a quick transit route from the main train station in Bologna to the airport.
• The Los Angeles cyclist community is hoping to see the “justice system’s commitment to protecting the rights of bike riders” as the now infamous assault trial of Dr. Christopher Thompson finishes up its third week. Thompson is on trial after pulling in front of two cyclists (with whom he been exchanging nasty words) and slamming on his brakes. The two cyclists suffered from severe injuries–cyclist Patrick Watson went face first into Thompson’s rear widow and cyclist Josh Crosby was propelled onto the pavement. While Thompson claims he didn’t intend to hurt the cyclists the case has become a rallying cry for the city’s bike community.
• The City Fix Mumbai Blog looks at what “the world’s cheapest home” could mean for urban India. The Tata Group (the company behind Nano car) is currently building 1, 000 units of the 390,00 rupee (US$8,500), 283 square-foot home outside Mumbai.
photo by Mike Roberts
3 comments
The blog about “world’s cheapest home” worries about “suburbanization” in 3rd world countries as people move into decent and affordable housing. However, if you look at the proposed development, you will realize while it is going to be on the fringe of the city, it is probably going to be denser than Toronto downtown core. It is basically the same story in major cities in China, where “suburb” means clusters of highrise apartment building packed together. Not that it does not create problems, but their problems are vastly different from what we have in North America.
last week in toronto i experienced something very similar to the story about L.A. it was so clicheed — a road-raging SUV driver didn’t like that i had taken a lane to protect my safety on a downtown side-street near city hall. the driver pulled up behind me, honked his horn, then pulled fully into the lanes of oncoming traffic to get around me, then cut me off in my lane and abruptly stopped dead for no reason. i managed to get away from that vehicle as quickly as possible without anybody being injured.
while that was a very bad experience, i think that many drivers in downtown toronto are very gracious people who have looked out for my safety before. this was just one bad and terribly dangerous apple.
It’s actually Oxford Circus (not Circle)but still good to see that Toronto is ‘ahead of the pack” on X Crossings :->