Tag Archive for 'sprawl'

Will Downtown Comebacks Reverse Commercial Sprawl? Yes, It is Happening Right Now.

In Toronto today, a monster new grocery store is opening in an old hockey rink. Purists are appalled, but I am excited. weiterlesen...

Abu Dhabi Unveils Its Shahama and Bahia Green Revitalization Plan

Abu Dhabi’s Urban Planning Council recently unveiled their revitalization plan for a messy 1770 hectare sprawl between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The Shahama and Bahia Revitlization Plan is the result of a concerted collaboration between the Abu Dhabi Municipality, local residents, and prominent community members to develop a coastal upgrade that meets all four pillars of the Es... weiterlesen...

Ponzi Acres: How Sprawl Is Like Bernie Madoff

Image credit Daquella manera Kaid Benfield makes the point that talking about infrastructure is like watching paint dry. He describes a "dinner conversation that won't happen often: "hey - c'mon over and we'll talk infrastructure costs!" So he tries to make the conversation more comprehensible by weiterlesen...

A 72 Hour Challenge Will Make a Dallas Street into a Grand Boulevard, Shared by All

Images Courtesy of Better Block TreeHugger spends a good deal of time bemoaning the arch-rivals of good urban design in America: suburban sprawl and cities that are designed around cars, not people. Agreeing that things need to change, a Texas-based group called Better Block has been busy in the last two years transforming ordinary, car-dominated streets into what they c...Re... weiterlesen...

Behold! The Astonishing Spread of Suburban Sprawl in LA

We talk a lot about the evils of sprawl here on TH -- it's inefficient, energy-intensive, promotes driving, makes you fatter, and so on and so forth. So perhaps you'd be interested to take a look at just how differently real estate developers of the 20th felt about sprawl in LA. These before...Read the full story on TreeHugger weiterlesen...

Meridian 105′s Family Circle is a Sustainable Alternative to the Suburbs

The Family Circle is Meridian 105‘s concept for a new sustainable housing model designed with the lifestyle of families in mind. Planned for the urban perimeter of Denver, CO, the project is designed for families who wish to enjoy the benefits of downtown living. This group finds itself without adequate or affordable housing choices, forced to either rent side-by-side with... weiterlesen...

New Population Maps Show Americans are Still Moving to the ‘Burbs

All images courtesy of Stephen Von Worley at DataPointed If you thought we'd finally gotten over our weird national love affair with unsustainable sprawl, think again -- throughout the period of 2000-2010, many Americans were still migrating from urban areas to the suburbs. Stephen Von Worley, who runs the site Data Pointed, has used census data to make a series of maps that re... weiterlesen...

Helsinki Residents Burrowing Underground, Turning Into Morlocks

Kaid Benfield writes at NRDC Switchboard that Helsinki is building an underground city to avoid urban sprawl. CNN's Richard Quest, " whose effusive reporting style may be to infrastructure what Dick Vitale's is to basketball," explains in a short video tour. It is pretty wild, including industry, a giant cold storage facility, swimming pools and a central heating and cooling s... weiterlesen...

Big Surprise: People Drive Less In Compact Cities With Good Transit

From Sprawl Crawl,By GOOD and Atley Kasky The USA Today headline states the obvious: City's design, transit system can ease gas costs, noting that "a recent study finds that people drive less in compact cities that have extensive transportation systems." And why is a six month old report news today? Gas prices; the more you drive, the more you pay. But what isn't so obvious i... weiterlesen...

Concepts » Queens

by Marc KristalThe 84-block trip south to Times Square is surprisingly speedy. But when I transfer to the 7 for the journey to Flushing–Main Street, its final stop, time slows. The train becomes elevated after entering Queens, rattling over a low-rise sprawl of dirt lots, gas stations, big-box stores, and midrise mid-century apartment blocks, and mile after mile of graffiti... weiterlesen...

When It Comes To Net zero Banks in the Burbs, The Internet Is Wrong About My Being Wrong. I Think.

Image credit TD Bank I thought I was very careful and considered in my discussion of TD's Net Zero Energy bank branch. I described what good environmental corporate citizens they were and how happy I was as a customer. But I did point out that it was plopped in the middle of a sea of asphalt and that the whole exercise was equivalent to taking five cars off the road, far fewer ... weiterlesen...

Car-Dependent Suburbs May Be Slums of The Future, Says Urban Planning Report

Photo credit: Warren McLaren / inov8 A study released by the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) in late 2010 found that "Australia will be forced to rely on huge quantities of imported oil unless it radically overhauls its transport and urban policies" according to The Age newspaper who reported on the findings. They also quote Peter Newman of Curtin University, one of the s... weiterlesen...

Andrew Maynard’s Suburb Eating Robot

If the current US trends of foreclosures and suburban flight continue, one might expect that the suburbs of the future will be desolate, abandoned places. How will we ever recover those large swaths of land and put them back into good use? Enter the CV08, a suburb crushing, land restoring robot designed by Australian architect, and Inhabitat favorite, Andrew Maynard. Its mission... weiterlesen...

Urban Vertical Theme Park Has "Minimal Environmental Impact"

Located at 550 feet from the ground, there is bungee jumping facilities with 3 cantilevered out springboard-like platforms. Conventional theme parks are problematic. Designer Ju-Hyun Kim notes that " for decades, [they] have been the by-product of automobile-centered society and a catalyst for suburban sprawl and traffic congestion." Kim asks: why not put them downtown, where... weiterlesen...

Miller Hull’s Safari Drive Eco Condos Win National Honors

In a desert city known for sprawl, Miller Hull Partnership has delivered an award-winning development that goes to show density can be a good thing. The Safari Drive Condominiums in Arizona recently rocked the 2010 Builder’s Choice Awards, winning the “Project of the Year” as well as the award for “Condos-for Sale Grand.” The modern mixed-use proje... weiterlesen...

Miller Hull’s Safari Drive Eco Condos Win National Honors

In a desert city known for sprawl, Miller Hull Partnership has delivered an award-winning development that goes to show density can be a good thing. The Safari Drive Condominiums in Arizona recently rocked the 2010 Builder’s Choice Awards, winning the “Project of the Year” as well as the award for “Condos-for Sale Grand.” The modern mixed-use proje... weiterlesen...

CicLAvia: Los Angeles’s Open Streets Event Attracted Around 100,000 People (Video)

If It Can Happen in L.A., It Can Happen Anywhere The city of Bogota has made the "Ciclovía" known around the world, and since then it has been spreading to other cities. The concept is simple: Close down some streets to cars and allow pedestrians and cyclists to take over. After years of preparation, Los Angeles has just had its own "CicLAvia" and by most accounts it was a res... weiterlesen...

Does Telecommuting Increase Carbon Emissions?

Inhabitat's Ariel Schwartz headlines a post Tellecomuting, Online Shopping Increase Carbon Emissions, pointing to a Science Daily post that says "working from home can increase home energy use by as much as 30 per cent, and can lead to people moving further from the workplace, stretching urban sprawl and increasing pollution." Science Daily did not link to the study,but quoted ... weiterlesen...