smallstreeets:

The Old City of Copenhagen is my favorite place in the whole world. There’s something about the way the small streets, colorful buildings, and great public spaces work together that’s unlike any other place I’ve visited. How about we take a little trip there? Google Maps is no substitute for the real thing, but it can give us a taste. 

Here’s a pretty normal street in the Old City. It’s about 30 feet wide. Cars are allowed here. In typical Danish fashion, there are a bunch of bikes parked on the corner. 

a little 2-block tour of Copenhagen on g.maps streetview.

via “What a walkable city should look like”, atlanticcities, 22.05.12.

i should dig up the photos from my day in Copenhagen a year and a half ago. walked around town all day before I noticed that the bikeshare is coin-operated. >___<;; beautiful walk, though, of course.

Mariela Alfonzo and I just released a Brookings Institution study that measures values of commercial and residential real estate in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, which includes the surrounding suburbs in Virginia and Maryland. Our research shows that real estate values increase as neighborhoods became more walkable, where everyday needs, including working, can be met by walking, transit or biking.

read more: nytimes, 25.05.12.

hyde park, chicago. 03.2012. my own photo.

…These community hubs and organizations reflect how bikes help create new shared social spaces. That’s because the bike is an inherently social machine. It has no walls; it’s human powered and we can all (some more than others) try our hand at hacking and repairing them. 

…Bikes have already changed our relationships to each other and the urban environment, but consider the potential for so much more.

Imagine a future where cities go beyond bike lanes and build the urban environment around bikes. What would a bike highway look like? What would city life be like without cars? Imagine a healthier city — no more kids in the Bronx with asthma — and reduced automobile fatalities.

atlanticcites, 16.05.12.

Big Ballers Bike Club: East New York, Brooklyn, 2011.

The award-winning architect and avid cyclist has spent countless hours arguing with city officials and transportation planners when he thinks something is ill thought. 

Potestio’s an advocate of multi-family, mixed-use development, and he’s well aware that such a change not only runs counter to the American Dream but would require, among other things, simplifying city zoning ordinances and creating a better language to talk about the aesthetics of design and integration. He thinks development should follow design guidelines and basic principles and not be hung up on the specifics of whether it’s one house per 5,000 square feet or the height of a building. 

These arbitrary numbers, as he calls them, fight the ability for designers and developers to maximize potential. 

read more: oregonlive, 09.01.10.

visualoop:

(via humanscalecities)