Urbanism Raw Influencer Feed 
Raw Feeds Notice: within our raw, real-time feeds, the Sociative distillation engine has eliminated ~99% of the noise you see in a typical Twitter feed, however these feeds have not yet had the final touch of human curation you see on our home page and topics. As a result, it's normal for great stories to be accompanied by a few stories that are somewhat off topic or roughly formatted. [ more ]
Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini Unveil the New Abnormal
Institutional Investor
2 mentions — 2 days ago
Forget the New Normal. Five full years after the financial crisis, we’ve entered a period of increasing global uncertainty and instability that’s almost certain
Yes, Toronto City Hall Is a Joke, But It's Not All Rob Ford's Fault
The Atlantic Cities
4 mentions — 18 hours ago
Toronto, a city that’s built its brand on the principles of peace, order, and good government, has been the recent subject of some very bad press. The still-evolving scandal involving Mayor Rob Ford and a video that allegedly shows him smoking crack cocaine has transformed his tenure from ...
Canadian mayors face corruption, drug allegations
today.com
2 mentions — 2 days ago
>>>now to a couple of scandals in two major cities north of the border that have people asking what's going on in canada.>> reporter: montreal mayor left police headquaters declining to comment on the 14 corruption charges he is facing before hopping into a cab. he arrived more ...
Getting Freaky With the Trash Cans
Next City
3 mentions — 13 hours ago
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to reinvent the phone booth got us thinking about other staples of the city street that could do more, or at least do what they do better. In Philadelphia, there’s been a tempest in a teacup over the Big Belly solar ...
Making Food Stamps More Effective at Regular Grocery Stores, Not Just Farmers' Markets
The Atlantic Cities
3 mentions — 16 hours ago
Getting fresh, nutritious, affordable food to the people of Michigan can be a challenge, especially in the state’s economically struggling cities. According to the nonprofit Feeding America, the state has a 17.9 percent rate of food insecurity, a rough measurement of families who aren't sure where their next ...
Saudi prince eyes world's big cities for mile-high tower
asiaone.com
2 mentions — 2 days ago
DUBAI - Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal says he is looking at the world's largest cities, including Shanghai, Moscow, London and New York, as possible locations to build a mile-high skyscraper that would be the world's tallest building by far.The prince is inviting Dubai's biggest real estate ...
New Pentagon Mandate: Make Military Bases Livable, That’s an Order!
Streetsblog Capitol Hill
7 mentions — 2 days ago
This article is the first in a series about the U.S. military’s new embrace of smart growth planning.Military installations around the world are in the midst of a livability revolution. Here's a plan to add transit at Washington's Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Image: Urban CollaborativeRep. Earl Blumenauer wasn’t exaggerating ...
SEMCOG to vote on I-94, I-75 expansions
Mode Shift: Move Together
7 mentions — 3 days ago
DETROIT—The General Assembly of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments will soon finalize both short and long-term priorities for transportation funding in the region.Two documents — the 2040 Regional Transportation Plan and the 2014-2017 Transportation Improvement Plan — will be voted on when the body convenes this Thursday,
Questioning Cleveland’s Undying Faith in Development
Rust Wire
3 mentions — 2 days ago
Cleveland is a real estate town, someone once told me. We’re home to Forest City Enterprises, Developers Diversified. Real estate development is part of the culture here and often seen as the highest form of economic development, probably just sort of by default, without thinking about it.We’re just ...
Park Preservation and Urban Placemaking
Sustainable Cities Collective
2 mentions — 2 days ago
The Trust for Public Land Park Score index ranked the “City of Lakes” Minneapolis, Minnesota as the #1 Park System in the Nation, with New York, NY coming in second. The city’s park system scored high in every category, which includes the size of the parks, the amount ...
Architect Ego Trip or Necessity for a Modern Metropolis? Paris Debates Skyscrapers
Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and Devel...
2 mentions — 11 hours ago
Following Mayor Bertrand Delanoe's overturn of a ban on buildings over seven storeys high, Paris is planning a dozen new skyscrapers outside the city centre. Debate over the towers is destined to become an issue in next year's municipal elections. 40 years after the controversial Tour Montparnasse put ...
Wealthy Foreigners Are Clustering In Only a Handful of U.S. Neighborhoods
The Atlantic Cities
3 mentions — 12 hours ago
"The great cities are becoming elite citadels," wrote Simon Kuper this past weekend in a dramatic piece in the Financial Times (our own Emily Badger covered it on Cities Monday). It's not artist-led and bohemian-driven gentrification that's the problem anymore, Kuper argues, it's plutocratization. "The great global cities ...
America's Leading Metros for Venture Capital
The Atlantic Cities
6 mentions — 3 days ago
Author's Note: This is the third in an ongoing series of posts looking at the new geography of venture capital and high-tech start-ups, and the degree to which these communities are shifting from their traditional locations in the suburbs to urban areas.Venture capitalists are the financiers of high-tech ...
Getting Freaky With the Trash Cans
Next City
2 mentions — 17 hours ago
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to reinvent the phone booth got us thinking about other staples of the city street that could do more, or at least do what they do better. In Philadelphia, there’s been a tempest in a teacup over the Big Belly solar ...
Food For Thought: Why Barcelona’s Markets Are “Super” Places
Project for Public Spaces
4 mentions — 3 days ago
“Barcelona residents rank their public markets as the second most valuable public service after libraries” / Photo: PPSWhen you think of the important places in the social life of your community, what comes to mind? Parks, squares, street corners, libraries, schools—these are common answers in many cities. They ...
Conservative Think Tank: Invest in Transit to Boost Metro Economies
Streetsblog Capitol Hill
11 mentions — 2 days ago
Here’s a refreshing take on metropolitan economic health from the right side of the aisle: The conservative Free Congress Foundation says it’s time America got serious about investing in transit in its metro areas.Young, educated people are demanding better transit options and returning to cities, notes a new ...
Are Global Cities Really Doomed to Become 'Citadels' for the Rich?
The Atlantic Cities
9 mentions — 3 days ago
Simon Kuper sketched a dismal picture in the Financial Times over the weekend of the end-game for what he's calling the "great global cities" – places like New York, Paris, London, Singapore, Hong Kong – where the fortunes of a few have become entirely detached from the sputtering ...
Project for Public Spaces
Detroit Leads the Way on Place-Centered Revitaliz...
10 mentions — 3 months ago
You may have heard about downtown Detroit’s big comeback story. Campus Martius has become one of America’s great urban squares. Demand for housing has outstripped supply for months. Major tech firms like Twitter are opening up offices in refurbished historic buildings. The Motor City’s historic core is ascendant.Yesterday,
3D Printing and Sustainable Cities
Sustainable Cities Collective
2 mentions — 17 hours ago
I admit that I am late to the game - and perhaps some of you out there are too. Although 3D printing has been used for a few years, thoughts about its implications for economies and cities hadn’t crossed my mind until recently. This occurred when I was ...
Your Bruised Shins Might Hate You For This 'Invisible Furniture'
The Atlantic Cities
3 mentions — 12 hours ago
A new furniture series by Takeshi Miyakawa presents a perverse contradiction: It's high-end home decor that you want to show off, but the material it's made from is almost invisible to the naked eye. "I swear it's still here," you could see a collector telling the guests. "I ...
New Jersey Herald
Newton begins to review the best ways to get aroun...
5 mentions — 2 days ago
Newton begins to review the best ways to get around townPosted: Monday, June 17, 2013 11:35 PM ESTUpdated:Tuesday, June 18, 2013 9:26 AM ESTNEWTON -- The exercise was to look at three locations in downtown Newton -- Spring Street, Trinity Street or the Route 94/High Street area -- ...
Why there are more deaths than births among whites
Pew Research Center
2 mentions — 3 days ago
The finding that made headlines from this week’s Census Bureau release of new national and state population estimates—that there are now more deaths than births among non-Hispanic whites—is a vivid illustration of the rapid long-term growth in the number of older Americans.But first, you might ask, how could ...
'Best Square' in Paris Returned to the People
Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and Devel...
2 mentions — 2 days ago
Over the weekend, the $30 million revamp of Paris's iconic Place de la République opened to the public. By transforming the square from a place for cars into a place for people, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has earned a distinguished "anti-car" label."On Sunday, Paris Socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë, accompanied ...
Urban Design and Walkability
Sustainable Cities Collective
2 mentions — 3 days ago
“Walkers are ‘practitioners of the city,’ for the city is made to be walked. A city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities. Just as language limits what can be said, architecture limits where ...
Learning, Again, Why Plans Sometimes Fail
Citiwire.net
2 mentions — 2 days ago
You’d think I would have known better. After all, I’ve been writing about growth since before they called it Smart Growth, and I’m still writing about it now that it’s “resiliency,” or “sustainable growth” or whatever the next term is. I can’t count how many times I’ve explained ...
Slow Jam
Next City
5 mentions — 3 days ago
This special issue of Forefront is part of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Informal City Dialogues, a year-long collaboration with Forum for the Future and Next City taking place in six rapidly urbanizing cities around the world. The project aims to foster a conversation about creating more inclusive and resilient ...
The Devastating Impact of 30 Years of Sprawl, As Seen From Space
The Atlantic Cities
8 mentions — 17 hours ago
How much have cities in Texas expanded in just the past few decades? A "truckload" I believe is the appropriate regional answer, and now we can actually see those urban centers spread like slime mold with a series of amazing satellite-based animations.Look, here's the Dallas/Fort Worth region from ...
Banning Saggy Pants and Controlling Public Spaces
Next City
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Since 2004 more than 20 cities, counties or parishes in the nation have outlawed “saggy pants” (for a primer on what those are, check this song). Now Wildwood, N.J., a throwback beach vacation mecca on the Jersey Shore, has become the most recent town to join the ranks ...
2013 SPUR Member Party
SPUR
2 mentions — 14 hours ago
2013 Member PartyThursday, June 20 -- THIS WEEK5:00 - 10:00 p.m.SPUR Urban Center + Annie Alley654 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA*Only a limited number of tickets will be available at the door.Your support enables us to carry out our essential work to promote good government and good planning ...
Focus transportation on downtown or neighborhoods?
Greater Greater Washington
2 mentions — 2 days ago
Should the design of major roads and our big transit projects favor moving large numbers of people in and out of downtown? Or should DC focus on making streets feel more like neighborhood streets, and transportation investments that help people travel within and between neighborhoods?
This is the major ...
THE BIKE LOBBY ROLLS ON
POLITICO
2 mentions — 3 days ago
Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz drew widespread mockery when she suggested in an online video that “the bike lobby is an all-powerful enterprise,” while she blasted the New York City bike sharing program as the product of a “totalitarian” city government.All powerful the bike lobby ...
Say Cheese! #Selfies as the New Marketing Campaign
huffingtonpost.com
2 mentions — 3 days ago
Some 27,800 photographs are uploaded to Instagram each minute, according to Pop Photo. That sounds like a lot, until you realize that 208,300 photos are being uploaded to Facebook every minute -- almost 300 million a day and they claim more than 7 billion per month.That may seem ...
Renters Rising
National Housing Institute
3 mentions — 1 day ago
How San Francisco’s housing movement turned an assault on renters into a victory By Fernando Martàand Sara ShorttHousing activists at a rally in April. Photo by Tammy Hung of Chinatown Community Development CenterOn June 11, San Francisco’s united tenant and affordable housing advocates defeated the latest assault ...
America's Most Urban President Should Embrace Its Cities
Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and Devel...
2 mentions — 2 days ago
While he cannot do much to rewrite the Constitution, which favors rural America, or reverse a century of history, which gave rise to the suburbs, Obama, the most urban president, can do more to embrace the city as an innovation incubator.According to Edward Luce, two-thirds of Americans live ...
Detroit’s Regional Planners Need to Kick the Highway Habit
Streetsblog Capitol Hill
2 mentions — 11 hours ago
They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But the people who shape the future of greater Detroit — despite all the urban flight, sprawl, and decline they’ve seen – just can’t seem to acknowledge that they have an addiction to big highway ...
Project for Public Spaces
Five Essential Elements of a Placemaking Campaign
4 mentions — 3 days ago
“If architecture is frozen music, then urban planning is composition, and Placemaking is improvisational street performance.” / Photo: Ethan Kent PPSLately, as we analyze the information generated through the inaugural Placemaking Leadership Council and begin planning the future of a larger effort to promote Placemaking as a social ...