Alan Cole has a blog-length tweet about city sidewalks several days after DC's snowstorm: I suspect something similar happens in conservative towns, but Cole points out the dissonance of the local reaction: Most curiously of all, the residents all seem fine with this. If you asked them, … [Read more...]
Are we spiralling into a new dark age? | Analysis and review of Jacobs’ Dark Age Ahead
Jane Jacobs wasn’t optimistic about the future of civilisation. ‘We show signs of rushing headlong into a Dark Age,’ she declares in Dark Age Ahead, her final book published in 2004. She evidences a breakdown in family and civic life, universities which focus more on credentialling than on actually … [Read more...]
Are there places in America with diversity *and* equality?
The relationship between blacks and whites in the residential subdivisions out beyond the suburban ring suggests that middle-class people of both races recognize each other as equals. Among middleclass Americans, at least in the special circumstances of these Pennsylvania communities and others like … [Read more...]
The Duplex: Gateway Drug to Urban Density
After over a century, Berkeley, California may be about to legalize missing middle housing - and it’s not alone. Bids to re-legalize gradual densification in the form of duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and the like have begun to pick up steam over the last several years. In 2019, Oregon legalized … [Read more...]
Pop Culture Urbanism: What Twin Peaks Understands About NIMBYism
Welcome to Twin Peaks: home of black coffee, cherry pie, murder, intrigue, and the endangered pine weasel. To kick off season two of Pop Culture Urbanism, I dive into David Lynch's eccentric nightmare/daytime soap opera world to examine the age old trope of the bad guy developer and how they … [Read more...]
The Urban Planning of the North Pole
You might think the North Pole is the most magical place on earth. But behind the magic, our deep dive into the history of Christmas movies reveals that there's more to it than that. In our firstPop Culture Urbanism holiday special, I explore the urban planning behind the North Pole. Be sure … [Read more...]
How Developers Became Hollywood’s Favorite Villain
If there's one thing that unites TV and film since the fifties, it's the archetype of the dastardly developer - forever destroying homes and hiking rents. But it wasn't always this way. Where did this trope come from, and is it true? This week on Pop Culture Urbanism, I dig into the cronyism and red … [Read more...]
The City Planning Behind Avatar: The Last Airbender
Has the Water Tribe gone full NIMBY? Can Avatar Aang overcome his angry impulse to preserve? Why is Ba Sing Se so segregated? And what can we learn from the success of Republic City? In this week's episode of Pop Culture Urbanism, we explore the trade-offs and complications that every growing city … [Read more...]