« February 17, 2008 - February 23, 2008 | Main | March 2, 2008 - March 8, 2008 »

February 29, 2008

Micro-housing affordable to buyers, profitable to developers

There is not a desirable city that exists that doesn't have a lack of attainably-priced housing, and it's been covered pretty extensively. Smaller homes have been one of the most logical answers, and developers are starting to agree to the point investors have termed the smallest end of these offerings...

Microhousing is defined as very small one-two bedroom units, 300 to 500 square feet, with an emphasis on shared amenities like fitness facilities, party rooms with kitchens, libraries, laundry rooms, and car-sharing. While they are more expensive to build per square foot, they also sell at a higher dollar value per square foot, with the key benefit to first-time home buyers being a much lower price point to own rather than rent.

Pictured is downtown San Francisco's Book Concern Building, a five-story microhousing redevelopment of a 1906 historic landmark, with its 60 units starting at 275 square feet. When dealing with building codes that limit numbers of stories and not height, mezzanines often do not count as a story.

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 28, 2008

A 'Google Maps for pedestrians'

Say you live in a walkable city and want walking directions as opposed to driving directions to a destination across town. You're in luck if you live in London and perhaps soon in Boston, thanks to Walkit, a Mapquest for people on foot.

Check out the map above - notice how the suggested walking route cuts right through several parks and with no regard for one-way streets. It even calculates calories and CO2 saved based on walking speed and compared to other means of transportation. You can even choose low pollution routes that avoid ambling near heavy traffic.

It's a nice complementary tool to Walk Score, which rates how walkable a given city address is.

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 27, 2008

CNU's placemaking 2008 'Charter Awards' announced

If you want to know which New Urbanism projects New Urbanism architects were most inspired by in 2008, check out the Congress for the New Urbanism's (CNU) annual Charter Award winners.

While these fall on the opposite spectrum from crowdsourcing and tend to be more baby boomer/upscale, they still provide important design lessons learned. Here are ten of the fifteen winners that are more urban:

Region, Metropolis, City, Town Scale:
Louisiana Speaks Regional Plan; Louisiana
A Civic Vision for the Riverfront; Philadelphia, PA
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology; Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

Neighborhood, District, Corridor Scale:
Woodstock Downtown; Woodstock, Georgia
Oakwood Shores; Chicago, IL
Rockville Town Square; Rockville, MD (pictured, and profiled previously)

Block, Street, Building Scale:
The Vision for Marion Square; Charleston, SC
Atlantic & Pacific Development; Montgomery, Alabama
Almeria Row; Coral Gables, Florida

Student Award
The North End Plan; Michigan City, IN; Andrews University, School of Architecture

What do you think of these projects?

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 26, 2008

What do clocks and clouds have to do with enlivening cities?

Continuing our look at the contemporary Remixing Cities: Strategy 2.0 paper profiled in the previous entry, author Charles Leadbetter defines city problems as two different kinds:

Clocks - Manufacturing or fixing clocks is complicated, focusing on hardware and professional skills, with measurable inputs and outputs using tried and true tools. Clock problems include increasing the supply of affordable housing, improving mass transit or implementing bike sharing programs.

Clouds - They are diffuse and impossible to pin down, requiring "cultural and behavioral change that yields intangible benefits of greater trust, respect, tolerance and social capital." Cloud problems include making a neighborhood feel safe, establishing a creative buzz, or building a vibe that attracts local, independent businesses and gazelles.

Having two unique kinds of problems is fine... except that cities often possess only clockmaker tools. You can't blame them - clouds are made up of countless numbers of water particles, just like individuals in a city. A cloud will change only if the behavior of the individual particles change. So how do you motivate thousands of citizens individually to make a difference?

As Charles emphasizes, "Public services are most effective when they enlist people as participants to do more for themselves. We need a new approach that will allow people to participate in creating solutions together that are tailored to their lives. That is where the lessons of the social web come in. Cities that can develop these approaches best will be at a comparative advantage in addressing wider quality of life issues and attracting talent to drive innovation and growth."

In other words, if it's a clock problem, fix it as a clockmaker would. If it's a cloud problem, crowdsource it.

See page 13 of the Remixing document to view a clocks and clouds diagram.

Image source: ricksaxby and Floating Imitations.

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 25, 2008

Remixing Cities - a must read

If there's one research document to read to better understand how crowdsourcing can be applied to cities publicly, peruse Remixing Cities: Strategy 2.0, published by CEOs for Cities. As you can see on the cover and the paper's official description, "explore how co-creation and innovation can transform public services and unleash the talents of all citizens", it's based on the principles of crowdsourcing.

The author, Charles Leadbeater, advises companies, cities and governments worldwide on innovation strategy, and these principles will be captured in his upcoming book, We-Think: The power of mass creativity, which "charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning."

One key distinction is that crowdsourcing public projects involve all citizens, which crowdsourcing private projects involve only those people who share in the vision of the project itself.

Learn more about crowdsourcing models applied to placemaking and economic development here.

Posted by Neil | Link to Article | Comments (0) | TrackBack