American cities are notoriously spread out. Since the highway building boom of the 1950’s American cities have moved strongly away from public transit and walk-ability towards a more auto dependent infrastructure. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on our roads and highways alone (1)(2). In rural areas, this road and highway infrastructure…
Category: Urban Design
Post related to how buildings create urban spaces go here.
How to make affordable housing super expensive
A long list in no particular order.
The Most Beautiful Urban Spaces in Barcelona
The purpose of this post is to highlight some of my favorite urban spaces in Barcelona and get a better understanding of what makes these spaces so wonderful and successful. I am using the term Urban space here to indicate any space, facility, street, plaza, buildings, or infrastructure that is open to the public free…
Live better with more food, more energy, and less water!
Many people in this world behave as though our economy is a zero sum game. But, in most cases, it is not a zero sum game. In many cases simply re-arranging our thinking or our systems can actually support a better economy and more biodiversity with fewer resources. This article is a perfect example of…
Tiny Homes are Not the Answer
America should be ashamed that, despite being the wealthiest country on earth with one of the most vibrant business scenes, we still have a massive amount of homelessness. To address this issue some people have proposed building tiny homes for the poorest to make homes more affordable. The thought behind this idea is that smaller…
Can Autonomous Private Vehicles Eliminate Traffic Jams?
Many people hail the arrival of the autonomous car as a solution that will alleviate traffic congestion by reducing accidents and allowing for coordinated and fluid motion of traffic. While these characteristics of future driving automation that are not yet possible may indeed help improve traffic they will not eliminate traffic jams nearly to the…