April, 2012

There’s barely a city in the western world that hasn’t at some time sought to re-create the success of high profile technology innovation districts like Silicon Valley within its own boundaries. Mostly these attempts have involved establishing small publicly funded research/technology parks within or close to universities. As well as Silicon Valley, the usual suspects [...]

High-rise housing gets a pretty bad press in Australia. It’s frequently criticised for over-shadowing, generating high-speed winds, and destroying streetscapes and views. Skyscrapers have high life-cycle emissions compared to medium density housing and in some instances are associated with mental illness and socially dysfunctional behaviours. But it gets worse – some observers reckon it’s an [...]

Many Sydneysiders have taken enthusiastically to architect David Vago’s idea, inspired by Manhattan’s High Line, of turning the Sydney Monorail track into an elevated walking and cycling path. When the Sydney Morning Herald posed the question in its on-line survey, “should the Monorail be replaced with a High Line similar to New York’s?”, 81% of the [...]

One of the most persistent ideas I see in urban policy is that the physical environment should be designed to provide more opportunities for casual and random interaction between people who’ve never seen or heard of each other before. The “stranger multiplier” – the concept that accidental contact with complete strangers can significantly increase social [...]

I saw a driver scare the bejeezus out of two cyclists this morning by driving up close and giving them a long, loud blast with his car’s horn. This wasn’t a toot; it was a sustained, high-power burst at pointblank range. What probably provoked the ‘attack’ is the cyclists were riding in tandem side-by-side. The [...]

Here’s another building I’m listing on my No Street Cred Register – it’s a recently completed museum and housing development at 1280 Park Ave, Manhattan (Hat tip to Market Urbanism). Designed by Robert Stern, One Museum Mile is notable for its almost complete failure to offer anything to the street. It joins some of my [...]

I didn’t know that Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne have the largest concentration of privately funded motorways of any cities in the world until I read this recent paper, How different are Australian cities?. It’s written by Qld academics Glen Searle, Jago Dodson and Wendy Steele and has a few other surprises and curiosities too. The [...]

The Fairfax press reported yesterday the Victorian Government is considering a proposal to abolish the mandatory 6 star energy rating for new houses and renovations, and replace it with a voluntary industry code. This morning however, The Age reports the Premier, Ted Baillieu, has done an about-face and ruled out any change. If the Government really [...]

In his new book, Coming apart: the state of white America 1960-2010, American conservative Charles Murray argues that a new upper class and a new lower class have developed in the US since the early 1960s that are so far apart “they barely recognize their underlying American kinship”. The top and bottom of white America increasingly [...]