Conversations About Where We Live
It is easy to imagine that the streets of our neighborhoods, the sidewalks, the parkways (optimistically called tree lawns here), and our front porches could and should become more active and more suitable for sitting, standing to discuss the news of the day with neighbors, walking and strolling and biking. We have talked here often … Continue reading City in Front, City in Back
Since we began posting here at A Town Square, in November of 2007, it has always been with an eye to using the blog as a research and development platform for a book, or something like a book. Who knows - maybe an HBO mini-series. The book, with a working title of The Next City: … Continue reading Sneak Peek
Image from flickr. "Once we accept that our cities will not be like the cities of the past, it will become possible to see what they might become." Witold Rybczynski, City Life. When he wrote those words in 1995, Rybczynski was actually "glimpsing the urban future," and seeing it as a low-density and low-rise city, amorphous and … Continue reading American Urbanism: Shovel-ready
Lisbon, Cadiz, Casablanca - some of our recent destinations. In each of these cities there is at least one district, or urban quarter, that is dense, rich, bustling with activity, alive, completely walkable, and as ever, fragile. Each faces pressure from gentrification, adjacent development, cars. (Only the Old Medina is so dense that cars are excluded, … Continue reading Vernacular Urbanism, Part IV: Density and Use
A slum in Manila. "All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim." Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins. I continue to search for a vernacular urbanism for the next city. After some reflection, I have concluded that what I am looking for is an urbanism that is local … Continue reading Vernacular Urbanism, Part III
The Algonquin town of Pomeioc. Watercolor by Captain John White, 1585. "...comprising the dwellings and all other buildings of the people. Related to their environmental contexts and available resources they are customarily owner- or community-built, utilizing traditional technologies. All forms of vernacular architecture are built to meet specific needs, accommodating the values, economies and … Continue reading Vernacular Urbanism and the Next City, Continued
"The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand." Italo Calvino Shibam, Yemen, photo by Jialiang Gao: an ancient pattern of dense, high-rise desert urbanism. What should the next city look like, and how should we inhabit the future? I have been puzzling over these questions for quite a long … Continue reading Vernacular Urbanism and the Next City
A Town Square 