Stories tagged with "urban planning"

Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Green NYC

Posted by The Interloafer on May 3, 2006 - 10:17pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: carbon, emissions, greenhouse effect, urban planning [list all tags]

Last Thursday I mentioned that my biggest take-away from the recent energy solutions conference here in town was a PowerPoint slide from Charles Komanoff, who noted that the average American pumps as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a day as the average person in the rest of the world puts out in a week. Charles was kind enough to forward me a link to his presentation (PPT!), which includes the slide in question:

I think those of us who ride transit, cycle or walk to work in New York can take a little solace in that we're not as bad as rest of the country.
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Jane Jacobs 1916-2006

Posted by Glenn on April 25, 2006 - 12:22pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: jane jacobs, new york, new york city, oil, peak oil, robert moses, urban planning [list all tags]

We will miss you Jane and we will keep fighting for your unique vision of better cities. You helped us realize all the little things that were right in front of us that makes cities great. Your work will be continued by organizations like Transportation Alternatives, Municipal Arts Society, NYC Street Renaissance, Open Plans, and many, many others. Your legacy is found not in what you built, but in what you taught us to preserve. Long after the buildings and highways that Robert Moses built have crumbled, your ideas will still be discussed, talked about and embraced by future generations.

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Urban Renewal for the 21st Century

Posted by Glenn on March 9, 2006 - 2:15pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: automobile, oil, peak oil, traffic, urban planning, urban renewal [list all tags]

There's a revolution afoot. A revolution in city planning that reinforces the attributes that makes cities great - dense mixed use buildings, pleasant pedestrian friendly streets, efficient mass transportation and interesting mixed use public spaces. This revolution de-emphasizes the role of the automobile in the dense urban environment, challenging the conventional wisdom that cars are essential to moving people around the city.

None of these ideas are new, indeed many point out that this is just going back to the pre-1920s organic urban development that was in place before the automobile obsession of the last 85 years. Cities did pretty much as much they could to open themselves up to the automobile, but issues of traffic congestion, pollution, pedestrian/cyclist deaths and noise/honking have persisted and worsened over time. The tide is now shifting against the automobile in the urban environment. Not because drivers are finally willing to sacrifice their automobile for the public good, but because the public is finally realizing that they have been sacrificing their lives and the quality of their lives for an illusory economic benefit.

A new report released in February at the Urban Center (Madison and 51st Street) gives hard data to support this shift. It showed that passenger automobiles serve little to no economic function in the Manhattan Central Business District (Manhattan CBD = South of 60th Street). Key Findings below:

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