People have probably heard Cleveland’s rather humorous slogan when advertising the city (“At we’re not Detroit”), yet there has been nothing funny about Cleveland’s population over the past decade.  A blog post from 2009 on the Cleveland.com blog sums up the sentiments of the city pretty easily in the first paragraph:

Some cities will be toasting the decennial census next year, celebrating population gains and a bright future. But it’s likely there will be no champagne corks popping in Cleveland City Hall. The city is losing people at an alarming, trend-setting pace.

In the past decade, Cleveland has lost 10 percent of it’s population.  Once one of United States more prosperous city’s, Cleveland has been a gross reminder of what the past decades has done to former manufacturing centres and while cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia record population increases in the last few years, Cleveland has yet to get off the ground.

Unfortunately, there are a number of factors working against the city: a high crime rate, a cold climate and very few job opportunities.  This doesn’t bode well for the next decade and along with other rust belt cities such as Buffalo, Toledo and Detroit, it will be interesting to see if Cleveland can re-establish itself.  Pittsburgh has.  Will Cleveland be next?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user S. Yume

I recently took a small trip over to Vancouver for the Canada long weekend.  Vancouver has always come across as a cleaner, fresher city in comparison to my current hometown of Toronto although it does have a horrendous homelessness issue.   Anyways, after I landed in Vancouver, I quickly found out that one could simply take a subway to the center of the city.  This certainly isn’t anything new, but what I did find quite fascinating was just how recent the subway line, better known as the Canada Line was put into place.  It opened in 2009, 15 weeks ahead of schedule.

I find it quite remarkable that in this day in age, a city is still able to successfully build and financially support such a giant development and even finish it ahead of schedule when most major projects fall short by months or even years.  This also truly hits home since Toronto lacks any high speed public transport to the airport and it looks like it may never happen as it apparently is too costly.  But one has to wonder why when a city like Vancouver is able to succeed at building the same thing.  I took a look at Wikipedia for some financial information on the subway line and it was apparently paid for by a private-public partnership.  The total cost was approximately $2.054 billion and the main sources of funding were the Canadian Government ($450 million), Government of British Columbia ($435 million) and the Vancouver Airport Authority ($300 million).

While one has to wonder how much of a role the 2010 Olympics played into making this project a reality, I will note that the Wikipedia article also specified that the project had been in the works since the early 90′s, long before Vancouver had been announced as the host of the 2010 Olympics.  While the Canada Line project was a massive disruption for the city as many roads were torn up, it still was considered a justifiable risk since it completed the important link between downtown Vancouver and the Vancouver airport.  Maybe other cities should wake up and stop using the cost as an excuse.

Well, as the G-20 summit descends upon my current home of Toronto and protests and chaos begin, I wondered if there are any long term effects on a host city for the G-20.  Typically, an enormous amount of money is spent on such an event and the current price tag for the G-20 summit and the G-8 summit combined (the 2010 G-8 summit is taking place 3 or so hours north of Toronto) is a whopping $1 billion.  One would think that with such an enormous price tag, there would be some kind of long term impacts.

I took a look at the Wikipedia entry for the Pittsburgh 2009 summit.  Interestingly, the city was chosen due to it’s economic recovery from it’s depressing post-manufacturing days.  And while the Direct Energy Business greened the city’s electrical usage during the two days of the summit, there was no information pertaining to the long term effects on the city.

However, one has to believe that such a massive event must have an effect on the future efficiency and effectiveness of the city’s police department for if it can handle something  as chaotic as the protests for the G-20, surely the police force must be better equipped for any possible future protests.  So as Toronto becomes a zoo of protesters over the next couple of days, I hope that the economic and social costs of such an event are outweighed by the future benefits.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Being Michael

The Seattle Center is, for many, the heart and soul of Seattle.  It is also a major draw for tourists to the city.  Yet, shockingly, the center will reach it’s 50th birthday in 2012.  Since it’s beginning as the grounds for the worlds fair back in 1962, the Seattle Center has always been a mixed use development with attractions, museums, shops and open green space.  Recently,  the old school amusement park, Fun Forest, has vacated the Center leaving a large parcel left for possible new development.  Unfortunately, since then everything has been a bit of a mess.

Firstly, a museum developed to the famous glass blower Dale Chihuly, who is from the Seattle area, was proposed.  The museum promoted the fact that it draw a large amount of tourists and would be an extremely profitable edition to the center.  However, as soon as the Seattle residents found out about the museum, they began to protest and protest loudly.  Their main argument was the fact that their public land was being turned into yet another private museum.  They certainly have a point, yet the most popular alternative seemed to be more open green space.  Apparently, someone forgot to remind the residents that the Seattle Center isn’t Central Park.

However, since then, the public has been allowed to submit alternative proposals.  So far, there has been some very intriguing ideas.  One such idea is a mystery and legends museum.  It certainly sounds like a lot of fun and it’s price tag is much smaller for a visitor than the Dale Chihuly museum.  Another proposal suggest moving one of the local independent music stations to the center.  If the residents were angry about a museum moving in, a radio station would seem like an even more outrageous idea.  A third proposal, as expected, asks for more open space.  Big surprise.

So what do I think?  I think the residents are right, to a degree.  What’s best for the center is public space that can also help contribute to the local economy.  In other words, a museum that charges a high admission fee isn’t the answer.  Neither is open green space.   One possibility is to create a new improved and more modern amusement park.  Perhaps one of the most fun aspects of the original amusement park was the fact that people were able to walk around free of charge.  It provided some entertaining people watching and if people felt inclined to actually ride a ride, they could purchase a ride ticket.  Perhaps the reason why the Fun Forest closed was not that an amusement park wasn’t economically viable in the Seattle Center location, but rather that the park was simply too outdated.  Another suggestion is an old style arcade (like the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco) where residents and tourists alike are allowed to go inside, but must pay a quarter or two to actually play or use any of the machines.  Finally, a  Chihuly museum with a far cheaper admission price tag may be able to sway over some of the current protest against it.

In the end, the debate over the Seattle Center continues.  And while the different groups can’t agree on what the right proposal is, it is still very good news to hear that after almost 50 years, the Seattle Center is still very important to Seattle residents.

Under the old measurement, 69% of U.S. communities are considered affordable.  However, shockingly, by factoring in both housing and transportation, that number shrinks to 40%.  Does anyone else find this down right scary?  Less than half of American neighbourhoods are considered affordable.

One might automatically blame the high transportation costs for such a decrease in affordability.  But it seems to be more complex than that.  For instance, traditionally, the farther one travels from the center of the city, the cheaper the housing costs.  Yet, moving away from the center of a city means that the transportation costs increase, perhaps more rapidly than the housing prices decrease causing an imbalance.

However, this blog post suggests that there is good news to all of this:

The good news is that many federal policymakers understand the impact of transportation on land use, housing, environment and affordability.  First, a new partnership between USDOT, EPA and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development to coordinate and invest in sustainable development is included in President Obama’s 2011 budget.   Second, Senator Dodd (D-CT) and Representative Cohen (D-TN) have both introduced livability bills that would establish offices of sustainability in HUD and DOT that would provide competitive grants for transit-oriented development projects throughout the country.  Third, the next federal transportation bill could provide even more funding and incentives to increase transportation choices and greater proximity between housing, transit and jobs.

To learn more about the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, you can check out their site: Housing and Transportation Affordability Index.

But the truth of the matter is that  such known problems with these top 10 lists doesn’t make them any less interesting or amusing to read.  In fact, the opinion piece brings up the recent Economist list of the world’s most livable cities in which Vancouver takes top honors once again.  100% accurate?   Not a chance.  Interesting and thought-provoking?  For sure!

Image provided by Flickr user djKianoosh

Anyone that knows me knows that I love lists.  I have already posted several entries regarding various list including America’s Most Walkable Major Cities and America’s Drunkest Cities.  Well, I have another list for you courtesy of  Infrastructurist: The World’s 10 Greatest Large Urban Park.   At first glance, the list does have many of the usual suspects: Central Park, Hyde Park and Stanley Park.   However, there were some very surprising entries, perhaps the most surprising being the rather small Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  Anyways, take a look at the list.  It doesn’t necessarily go into too much detail but is a fun read and includes some great aerials of each park.

The Livable Streets Initiative is an online community for people working to create sustainable cities through sensible urban planning, design, and transportation policy. We provide free, open source, web-based, resources to citizens working to create a greener economy, address climate change, reduce oil dependence, alleviate traffic congestion, and provide better access to good jobs in healthy communities.

The Livable Streets initiative is a web based resource to link like minded individuals looking to create a more environmentally friendly urban future without the dependency on motor vehicles within the cities.   The site provides a plethora of various resources: blogs, videos and educational programs.  Overall, it seems like a fantastic place to not only educate oneself, but also serves a social medium for those interested in creating a different street-level urban environment.  Please check out the Livable Street initiative site.

As one may expect for a city in west Africa, the gap between the minority rich and the majority poor is extremely large.   The article does an excellent job highlighting life in Makato, a floating slum where residents live a ‘marginalized’ life away from the wealthy of the city.  However, there in no question that Makato is just one of many similar neighbourhoods throughout the giant city centre.

What is most astonishing is some of the facts about Lagos.  These facts include:

Population Growth: 600 000 people/year

Average Population Density: 20 000 people/square kilometer

Current Population: 17 million (which is likely quite low)

Proportion of Households that have reported a murder in the family: 1 percent

You can check out the article here: Lagos: Inside the Ultimate Megacity

For those unfamiliar with the public transportation system in Toronto, let me just say that as far as rapid transit goes, it may be among the worst in all of North America for a city of it’s size.  For the most part, our subway system has no grown in the past 3 or 4 decades and has not remotely kept up with the growth of the city.  It does not have nearly the coverage it should and has made it near impossible to get to certain important locations throughout the city.  If anyone has ever taken public transit from the Toronto International airport to downtown, they know exactly what i’m referring to.  However, as 0f 2008, the government of Ontario committed nine billion dollars to greatly improving the Toronto public transit system including eight new light rail lines calling the project Transit City.  While these light rail lines will not be as rapid as a subway system, they are far more economic and still far quicker than a bus.  These lines greatly increase the coverage of rapid transit throughout the city to such places as the airport.

However, recently, this budget has been cut in half putting the entire project in jeopardy, even after development has already started.  So where does this leave us?  Apparently, in a very similar state we were before the project began.  As a Torontonian who frequently takes public transit, it is a very difficult thing to hear.  There has already been numerous events, groups and coalitions built to stop these massive budget cuts.  So what can you do?  Well, you can go here:  TTCriders.ca where they will give you information on how to either phone or email the government of Ontario letting them know how you feel about these budget cuts.