Freeways Without Futures
Communities across North America are facing a watershed moment in the history of our transportation infrastructure. With cities, citizens, and transportation officials all looking for alternatives to costly highway repair and expansion, these ten campaigns offer a roadmap to better health, equity, opportunity, and connectivity in every neighborhood, while reversing decades of decline and disinvestment.
Savannah's mysterious historic plan
I mentioned Savannah's unique grid plan in a previous post, but this video explains the odd history of this city plan a little better. James Oglethorpe's plan was a mixture of a number of different city plans available at the time and he is a big reason why modern day Savannah is such a pleasant place to walk and explore.
Why do so many U.S. cities have gridded streets?
The video above is pretty great. I've always known about NYC's grid plan based off of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, but I didn't know the actual grid type is unique to several cities in the US. NYC's grid plan is based off of long rectangular blocks whereas cities like Savannah are based off of block units that are subdivided into smaller blocks. Barcelona is another city with a unique grid system based on supercells.
It all reminded me of the book The Greatest Grid which explains how NYC's own grid system was created. If you're curious, The Museum of the City of New York has a section dedicated to the grid. And of course, the NYPL is a wealth of information on this topic.
Berlin is Becoming a Sponge City
I really like this kind of city design. Where the natural elements are infused into the architecture of the man-made. Where waste is minimized and reusability is key to sustaining the life and businesses above ground. I'd love to visit Berlin one day to see this.
How to fit 7.4 billion people in one city
I really enjoyed watching this video explaining how 7.4 billion people (roughly the population of the entire earth) could hypothetically survive in one city. The video first describes a bunch of densely populated places that either exist or existed (looking at you Kowloon Walled City!) in the history of the world and then proceeds to imagine what it would be like for the entire population to live in those city limits. Doesn't sound like fun. Crazy to think though that places like this exist where you literally can't turn a corner and not see a human face.
