What: Bike the Branches (Registration is now open!) When: Saturday, May 11 (Rain Date: Sat., May 18), 2013 10am – 5pm : Bike Ride 5pm – 7pm : Finish Line Celebration Where: All 60 Branches (choose your own route), ending at Central Library For Whom: Bikers, Brooklynites & Library Lovers of all ages Cost: Adults $20 […]
Tag Archives: community
What’s next for urban planners?
As discussed in two recent blogposts, Fringe Planning and Community, the planning profession is at a distinct crossroads. Our short history of little more than 150 years has resulted in only a couple of major paradigm shifts: the grand City Beautiful designs, Modernism’s clean-slate, and oft-reactionary Participatory movement. Mired in politicization and NIMBYism, sustainability and resiliency planning […]
Australian “mockumentary” Babakiueria role-reverses colonization
In 2004 I was lucky enough to study abroad at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. Known as the “Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef”, Cairns (pronounced “cans”) is the last large population center on Australia’s northeast coast. It’s known for its excellent diving, cloud forests and rainforests, cassowaries, its far-north Queensland lifestyle including rat-tails, […]
Community
In the rather sobering article on urban planning that Alex shared in a recent post, there was an intriguing comment about the nature of “community.” The commenter (Blake Chastain) really put into words the uneasy feeling I occasionally have about community-based planning. “Communities are exclusionary; they may seek to be inclusive, but to some extent a […]
Fringe Planning: Doing More, Faster, and Better
In March of 2012, the Malian Army took control of their country’s government, ending 21 years of democratic rule. While the impacts of this coup, including the Tuareg secession and the resultant Maghreb militant takeover, are familiar due to popular media, it is always the smaller stories that fall through the cracks. After the Mali […]
Community Organizing Tools
Hello, Monday! I thought it might be nice to start this week with an optimistic look at citizen involvement in planning, so here are a couple things to check out… For those of you who want in-depth information on making your communities better, MAS has an upcoming Livable Neighborhoods Training day on September 22 at Pratt Institute in […]
What does a library say about its community?
In a previous post I wrote about an upcoming book and event series that discusses open spaces and what the Occupy Wall Street Movement has taught us about the utilization of spaces during times of protest. Whether one agrees with the politics of the movement or not, there are many potential lessons learned from it. […]
Volunteer Opportunity: The Honeycomb Project
In light of the recent Buell Hypothesis post, this group might be of interest… The Honeycomb Project It is a non-profit group (created by two lovely moms) that arranges family volunteer events where parents can participate with their children. Unfortunately for New Yorkers, it is based in Chicago, but for parents there (or parents planning […]
Beyond Zuccotti Park
New York City has these strange beasts called Privately Owned Public Spaces (or POPS) which were put to some significant tests for the first time in recent history during the Occupy Wall Street protests. Many planners were watching the protests to see if privately owned spaces, like Zuccotti Park, could truly operate as public spaces […]
EVENT 7/2/12: The Critical and Activist Practice
The Austrian Cultural Forum New York is hosting an event that explores “what it means to be Critical and Activist in the context of design/art/architecture/urban practices.“ When: MONDAY JUL 02, 06:30 PM Where: Austrian Cultural Forum 11 East 52nd Street New York, NY 10022 Why you should go: Perhaps you want to tap into a […]
