Yule Heibel's Library tagged urbanization →  View Popular, Search in Google

Must-see.
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The film, “Thinking Cities,” focuses on how cities are using Information Communications Technology (ICT) to start to come up with these solutions. It highlights interesting projects in cities like Boston, Seattle, and Stockholm where ICT is being used right now to address issues like waste, energy use, and civic engagement.
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cities geoffrey_west urbanization smartplanet

In the "12 days of Christmas" tradition, a series of ideas for affordable housing and good density.

vancouver affordable_housing michael_geller urbanization

A trend that might balance out the trend toward online retail?
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As retirement looms for the older Boomers, 17 million, or 25 % of the cohort, will be senior citizens within the next decade.

Baby Boomers have indicated in analyses that they are most concerned with obtaining affordable housing. They will also want to be in communities that are walkable or have public transit for both philosophical and physical reasons.

It is likely they will prefer and eventually have to stop driving. For this reason, it is likely they will seek smaller, easier shopping formats that are closer to home.

Indeed, walkability has become an important factor. Zillow, the popular online real estate database, in July 2007 began rating the walkability of the property to retail and transit infrastructure and other services on a scale of 0 to 100.

For these reasons, we believe the Baby Boomers will either be inclined to move to or remain in urban areas. Also in the near term, they are unlikely to retire at typical retirement age.
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retail shopping cities urbanization urbanism boomerism real_estate

New publication from the Lincoln Institute, downloadable as PDF. Abstract on this webpage; excerpt:
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The key findings show that on average, densities in developing countries are double those in Europe and Japan, and densities in Europe and Japan are double those of the United States, Canada, and Australia; and that on average, the annual growth rate of urban land cover was twice that of the urban population between 1990 and 2000. Most of the cities studied expanded their built-up area more than 16-fold in the twentieth century. At present rates of density decline, the world’s urban population is expected to double in 43 years, while urban land cover will double in only 19 years. The urban population of the developing countries is expected to double between 2000 and 2030 while the built-up area of their cities can be expected to triple.

The research suggests that preparation for the sustainable growth of cities in rapidly urbanizing countries should be grounded in four key components: the realistic projections of urban land needs; generous metropolitan limits; selective protection of open space; and an arterial grid of roads spaced one kilometer apart that can support transit.
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lincoln_institute cities urbanization density

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As urbanization occurs alongside these rising obesity rates, this presents an opportunity to change people’s behaviors through sustainable urban design, active transport, and policies that encourage physical activity and other healthy ways to live in cities.
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obesity urbanization cities trends

Great article by Jonah Lehrer about Geoffrey West and urban metabolism(s).
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It’s when West switches the conversation from infrastructure to people that he brings up the work of Jane Jacobs, the urban activist and author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” Jacobs was a fierce advocate for the preservation of small-scale neighborhoods, like Greenwich Village and the North End in Boston. The value of such urban areas, she said, is that they facilitate the free flow of information between city dwellers. To illustrate her point, Jacobs described her local stretch of Hudson Street in the Village. She compared the crowded sidewalk to a spontaneous “ballet,” filled with people from different walks of life. School kids on the stoops, gossiping homemakers, “business lunchers” on their way back to the office. While urban planners had long derided such neighborhoods for their inefficiencies — that’s why Robert Moses, the “master builder” of New York, wanted to build an eight-lane elevated highway through SoHo and the Village — Jacobs insisted that these casual exchanges were essential. She saw the city not as a mass of buildings but rather as a vessel of empty spaces, in which people interacted with other people. The city wasn’t a skyline — it was a dance.
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socialtheory jonah_lehrer geoffrey_west santa_fe_institute urban_energy urbanization nyt

Very worth reading, on "The Cities We Want," by Witold Rybczynski
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All the cities that have experienced vigorous population growth during the second half of the 20th century—Houston; Phoenix, Ariz.; Dallas; San Jose, Calif.; Atlanta, Ga.—have grown by spreading out. These are horizontal cities, with generally low population densities, typically fewer than 10 people per acre compared with 15 to 20 people per acre in the older, vertical cities. Horizontal cities depend on automobiles for mass transportation and on trucks for the movement of goods. In a horizontal city, the difference between city and suburb is indistinct. People in both live chiefly in individual houses rather than in flats or apartment buildings, and the houses are organized in dispersed, semi-autonomous planned communities that are different from the urban neighborhoods of the past. Versions of the dispersed city can be found in large cities such as Los Angeles, small cities such as Las Vegas, and in the metropolitan areas surrounding all cities, old and new.
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witold_rybczynski slate_magazine urbanism urbanization urban_development cities

Article reports on research (noted & bookmarked earlier: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/ucl-hpd060109.php) arguing the benefits of density (in early urban settings), which accelerated intellectual and cultural development.

urbanization urban_development urban_energy cities population density

Report on a new study by University College London that high population densities enable cultural & technical innovation. This directly results in modern human behavior, by which the authors mean "a radical jump in technological and cultural complexity," including "symbolic behavior" (abstract & realistic art, body decoration, etc.; music, and other technical innovations). The study aims to explain why advanced behavior and technology only begin to "explode" around 45,000 years ago - even though humans had been around for 160,000 to 200,000 years.

"Ironically, our finding that successful innovation depends less on how smart you are than how connected you are seems as relevant today as it was 90,000 years ago."

urbanization urban_development urban_energy cities population density

The title is quite misleading since only the first half of Lehrer's article chronicles the city's stressful effects on the brain, while the second half describes urbanism's benefits, and that that it's a question of designing cities so that nature continues to intervene and refresh/ calm / regenerate the brain.

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Given the myriad mental problems that are exacerbated by city life, from an inability to pay attention to a lack of self-control, the question remains: Why do cities continue to grow? And why, even in the electronic age, do they endure as wellsprings of intellectual life?

Recent research by scientists at the Santa Fe Institute used a set of complex mathematical algorithms to demonstrate that the very same urban features that trigger lapses in attention and memory -- the crowded streets, the crushing density of people -- also correlate with measures of innovation, as strangers interact with one another in unpredictable ways. It is the "concentration of social interactions" that is largely responsible for urban creativity, according to the scientists. The density of 18th-century London may have triggered outbreaks of disease, but it also led to intellectual breakthroughs, just as the density of Cambridge -- one of the densest cities in America -- contributes to its success as a creative center. One corollary of this research is that less dense urban areas, like Phoenix, may, over time, generate less innovation.

The key, then, is to find ways to mitigate the psychological damage of the metropolis while still preserving its unique benefits. Kuo, for instance, describes herself as "not a nature person," but has learned to seek out more natural settings: The woods have become a kind of medicine. As a result, she's better able to cope with the stresses of city life, while still enjoying its many pleasures and benefits. Because there always comes a time, as Lou Reed once sang, when a person wants to say: "I'm sick of the trees/take me to the city."
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boston_globe neuroscience psychology nature brain jonah_lehrer urbanization urban_design

Jonah Lehrer discusses Ed Glaeser's recent post in the NYT blog on NYC and why it's "America's most resilient city." Lots of great points, interesting comments thread, too. Closing line by Lehrer nails it.

jonah_lehrer frontal_cortex urbanization creative_class innovation talent edward_glaeser

Great defense of cities by Paul Hawken.
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Urban migration represents a kind of collective wisdom, and how we configure our cities will be critical to our survival. Regardless of the myths about living close to the land, cities are where human beings have the lowest ecological footprint. It takes less energy, wood, material, and food to provide a good life for a person in a city than in the country. Rather than perceive the city as an ecological sink sucking up the resources of the countryside, which cities can do, cities can also be a kind of ecological ark, places where humanity gathers while we peak in population and develop ecological intelligence for a new civilization. There is wisdom in this that is rather extraordinary. It was not predicted that cities might be the best strategy for our long-term survival and well-being. Yet that is exactly what is happening.
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sustainlane paul_hawken sustainability cities urbanization environment ecology

Interesting article (which incidentally puts Vancouver front & centre), blogged by Richard Florida at Creative Class: the subtitle is "the demographic inversion of the American city." It's about how the "inner city" and its "inner city suburbs" are now desirable (and expensive) places to live, creating a 24/7 downtown (desired & theorized early on by Jane Jacobs, eg.), while the less affluent (ok, the poor!) are forced to live on the outskirts (suburbs). This used to be called "gentrification," but Ehrenhalt points out that it's a much more complex process than just that.

Haven't read all the comments to this article, but it starts with some excellent ones -- intelligent observations by readers.

cities downtown creative_cities suburbs gentrification trends urbanization urban_renewal demographics

Hume is on a rant against the Chicken Littles here. I can relate only too well... His description of the fear of change and how this is different from the 60s & 70s relates, I think, also to what I wrote for toward the end of last month (January) for the March issue of FOCUS Magazine. See also my blog entry, Concrete Plans (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/yulelog/2008/02/04/concrete-plans/).

change christopher_hume fear toronto urbanization

Via Regine (we make money not art), a useful link to an Interactive Map: Urban Growth, with timeline, major world cities, and urban-rural split per continent.

interactive_map reference statistics urbanization

- article published in May 2007; "After this year the majority of people will live in cities. Human history will ever more emphatically become urban history, says John Grimond." Rural contribution to human progress has been slight compared to urban contributions.

cities john_grimond megacities the_economist trends urbanization