News

“The planning is based on questions such as: How do we want to live and get around in urban spaces in the future? What qualities are important to us as individuals and as a community? And what functionalities can’t we do without?” explains Constanze Döll, press secretary for the Tegel Projekt, which is developing the area, called the Schumacher Quartier. While the final designs are not yet complete, the project has several guidelines. First: People take priority, not cars."

https://www.fastcompany.com/90769791/an-abandoned-berlin-airport-is-being-transformed-into-climate-neutral-car-free-neighborhood?fbclid=IwAR1A4A0XFz27_o401ZbFaehpuOFcmNAxDRyjG9KuvuW9IAcbStDI7PyHj-k

"Spatial age segregation occurs when individuals of different ages do not occupy the same space and, thereby, lack mutual interactions. Evidence suggests that bringingdifferent age groups together could have a number of societal benefits that range from the reduction of ageism and the risk of isolation in later life to the promotion of socialization between the young and the old."

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0198971522000734?token=F554F9B72A067AFDF568AAE50FDCD07A4E96A1903FD9DAF96D6499252B997316C963579AC697F49B7B65EBC97A1A9A70&originRegion=eu-west-1&originCreation=20220603132356

A plan backed by New York City Mayor Eric Adams would repurpose 25 percent of the city’s street space for multimodal transportation and pedestrian plazas.

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2022/05/117186-nyc-25x25-plan-would-reclaim-13-central-parks-cars?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-05192022&mc_cid=a88b4593bf&mc_eid=b9p0fICGm0

Former long-term CPM president Larry Koff's letter against closing the Hynes Convention Center is a good read. 

The Boston Globe_Death of the Hynes would cap the neglect of a valuable resource_04 27 22.pdf

Carol Todreas, CPM members, reimagines retail for the downtown

Read Carol's article

The City of Austin says it will give people from gentrifying neighborhoods priority in the application process for more than two dozen homes it's selling to low-income families,” reports Audrey McGlinchy for KUT.

“This is the first time the city plans to use what it calls a ‘preference policy,’ which was approved by council members in 2018,” according to McGlincy. Planetizen shared news of the new policy in September 2021, when the city identified a development site for the program. The deployment of the law, originally intended for late 2019, was delayed by the pandemic.

“To benefit from the program, people first need to be making less than Austin's family median income; for a single-person household that amounts to $69,250 a year,” according to McGlinchy. “Additionally, people need to prove they've been affected by gentrification or that they have generational ties to the city. That can mean they live or have lived — as far back as 2000 — in a neighborhood in the process of gentrifying; that's the process in which wealthy people move to a historically middle- or low-income neighborhood and housing costs rise.”

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2022/04/116839-austin-now-taking-applications-its-right-return-gentrifying-neighborhoods?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-04182022&mc_cid=53a1ad4cfc&mc_eid=b9p0fICGm0

“Roads and street networks are designed for kids to walk in a safe manner,” Kato said. Among the factors, he said: Drivers in Japan are taught to yield to pedestrians. Speed limits are low. Neighborhoods have small blocks with lots of intersections. That means kids have to cross the street a lot—but also keeps drivers going slow, out of self-interest if nothing else.

The streets themselves are also different. Many small streets do not have raised sidewalks but depend on pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers to share the road. Curbside parking is rare, which creates better visibility for drivers and pedestrians and helps give the smaller streets of big Japanese cities their distinctive feel. In fact, I first heard about Hajimete no otsukai from Rebecca Clements, a research fellow at the University of Sydney who has written a dissertation on Japan’s approach to parking: Car-buyers must show proof of an off-street parking space to make their purchase. For Clements, the show is evidence of how Japan gives children a “right to the city....”

https://slate.com/business/2022/04/old-enough-netflix-do-japanese-parents-really-send-toddlers-on-errands.html?via=rss_socialflow_facebook&fbclid=IwAR21j4F6QzDVFY7oErQJFDgrZINxSyQXicqbphsW-a8v8V9tLsZ9EG3kVXY

By Mark Favermann, urban designer, public artist and member of CPM Executive Committee.

Given the current situation, any attempts to enrich our knowledge of the built environment are valuable.

To paraphrase my thoughtful, scholarly friend and colleague Dr. Nir Buras, architectural literacy empowers everyone to engage in what should be a public dialogue about urban design, enabling planners and designers to propose forms that the public can understand and appreciate. At its heart, the urban experience is egalitarian. Everyone should be able to comprehend architectural language and its approaches.

Read more.

As mayor of an inland city in southern Brazil across three decades, Lerner transformed a metropolis of just under 3 million residents into a thriving, globally famous laboratory of livability. Lerner died this week at the age of 83, leaving behind a legacy of high-return, low-cost urban innovations that have been copied all over the planet. You live in his kind of city more than you think you do, and in a well-run world that would be even more true.

https://www.curbed.com/2021/05/jaime-lerner-curitiba-mayor-brazil.html?fbclid=IwAR3LipZMtNoMOzxq8qA-Cz1zHbMPspd0kdHQ-NT3uLfkBza1hRhLDOfxarI

principal at Todreas Hanley Associates and long time CPM member, shares her thoughts on the current state of the retail business.

https://nerej.com/right-now-in-retail-by-carol-todreas