Futureville Vancouver
The intersection is congested not by suburb-bound SUVs but by people on foot, great thick columns of them splashing across the crosswalk like ducks, unconcerned that you might have a bitter hour to go...
View ArticleMe Want More Square Footage!
The psychological matrix that fuels our desire for more square footage also ensures that we will be thoroughly unsatisfied once we settle into a larger house. This bad news comes from a growing army of...
View ArticleParis: The Happy City
Paris has joined a global movement that seeks to change not just streets but the very soul of urban spaces. Its adherents believe that cities can become engines not just of economic growth. But of...
View ArticleCitizen Hern
If you’ve caught the fear, if you wince every time your children leave the stoop, if you wish someone would make this town safer, take heart: Hern has a prescription. See full story here: Citizen Hern...
View ArticleMeanwhile in Portland
See full story here: Portland (PDF) TweetThe post Meanwhile in Portland appeared first on Charles Montgomery.
View ArticleA Tale of Two Desert Cities
A new city of a quarter-million people? Why not? This is the United Arab Emirates, where inventing new cities has become the sport of kings. Read on in enRoute Magazine: A Tale of Two Desert Cities...
View ArticleGrim Repo
The foreclosure economy is booming. Repo tour operations have launched all across the US. The Internet is clogged with listings of bank-owned homes and “distressed sales.” This may seem a tad...
View ArticleThe Good Earth
See full story here: The Good Earth (PDF) TweetThe post The Good Earth appeared first on Charles Montgomery.
View ArticleThe Archipelago of Fear
Seven years after the Taliban’s ouster, Kabul was supposed to be a bastion of stability, from which peace and prosperity would ripple across Afghanistan. But the failures of reconstruction may...
View ArticleThe Secrets of the World’s Happiest Cities
When we talk about cities, we usually end up talking about how various places look, and perhaps how it feels to be there. But to stop there misses half the story, because the way we experience most...
View ArticleWhen Cities Stop Subsidizing Sprawl, They Save Money and Get Happy
Most of us agree that development that provides employment and tax revenue is good for cities. Some even argue that the need for jobs outweighs aesthetic, lifestyle, or climate concerns—in fact, this...
View ArticleHow Urban Design Influences How Many Friends You Have
In some ways, their behavior was predicted by decades of sociology similar to Baum’s campus studies. The front doors of the town houses all led to semiprivate porches overlooking the podium garden....
View ArticleWhen Neighbors Tore Down Their Fences, Incredible Things Happened
American cities are experiencing a crisis of social disconnection, and urban design is part of the problem. On the one hand, people who live in car-dependent neighborhoods on the ever-expanding...
View ArticleOn the Sunny Side of the Street
Of course, we are all free to behave as we wish as we wander across the stage of any city. We can choose to be kind and open-hearted no matter where we travel. But when you develop the habit of...
View ArticleUsing Urban Experiments to Find Happier Streets
Architects and urban designers have long claimed the power to influence human well-being through form and aesthetics. None were so confident as the modernists, whose insistence on functional and...
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