Business Insider recently released an article outlining the 16 greatest cities in human history. Although it appears that the main criteria to make this list is population, it is nonetheless an interesting read and provides a population comparison of the past population to today’s population. Take a look: The 16 Greatest Cities in Human History.
“The 16 Greatest Cities in Human History”
28 04 2011Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: london, rome
Categories : Lists
San Francisco: First Impressions
25 04 2011
Well, it’s been exactly a month since my last post. Things have been incredibly busy for a number of different reasons, but perhaps the main reason is my recent move from Toronto to San Francisco. And as you may expect, I am excited by the chance to live in a new urban environment complete with it’s merits and it’s faults.
Obviously, I came to San Francisco knowing that it’s incredibly expensive, has a huge homeless problem and is quite dirty in areas. And to be certain, all of these are definitely true. But there are so many things that make it one of the most desirable cities to live in. There are very few other cities that can boast such a beautiful natural surrounding. The city has also done an amazing job integrating it’s history into the present. And most of all, the city is truly beautiful and boasts a certain energy that you can’t find almost anywhere else.
But I thought i’d mention some things you may not know about the city. Below are some random thoughts (both positive and negative):
- The downtown area caters mainly to the 9 to 5 crowd and to tourists. Toronto (my former hometown) had a downtown that was far more convenient to anyone living there.
- The city has a very extreme class division. More than any i’ve ever seen in any other city i’ve lived in.
- San Francisco is truly a city of distinct and fantastic neighbourhoods.
- There are more pedestrian laneways and streets than i’ve seen in any city in North America.
- Despite being a very green city transit wise, San Francisco still has a horrible traffic problem.
So there you go, some of my first thoughts about the city after living here for a week. And while these are merely my first impressions and do not hold any real weight given that i’ve only lived here for a week now, I am certain that the longer I live in the city, the better I will understand the urban fabric that makes this city so unique.
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: san francisco
Categories : Opinions
Museums Need Permanent Exhibits
24 03 2011Recently, the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum in Seattle closed it’s doors on several of the museum’s most permanent exhibits: the Experience Music Project’s Northwest Passage Exhibit and the Science Fiction Museum’s main galleries featuring the Fantastic Voyages exhibit, Homeworld exhibit and the Brave New World exhibit. Each of these more general permanent exhibits are being replaced by far more specific and temporary exhibits detailing the history of Nirvana, props from Battlestar Galactica and a whole area devoted to Avatar the movie.
While i’m a fan of Nirvana and relatively enjoyed Avatar, I don’t quite understand the need to replace permanent exhibits that provide a museum with a bit of stability with temporary exhibits that may not appeal to as wide of a breadth of people. The closure of the Northwest Passage in particular makes absolutely no sense. The Seattle music scene is world famous and this exhibit was a perfect introduction into this exciting music scene.
But this example is not an isolated incident. Museums are increasingly scrapping the idea of a permanent exhibit for an increasingly for-profit motive of bringing in as many customers as possible. And in order to do so, this often means replacing ‘aging’ permanent exhibits with more exciting temporary ones. The problem is that these exhibits tend to be far more specific and can often isolate a large group of museum goers. More importantly, permanent exhibits provide a real base for a museum. So while our museums become more and more expensive and more showy, they are increasingly lacking the depth they once had. Bring back the idea of permanent exhibits.
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: experience music project, permanent exhibit, seattle
Categories : Opinions
The Interactive Singles Map
10 03 2011First of all, I must apologize for the lack of posts in the last little while. Things have been extremely busy and I will be moving in the next short while so all the preparation for that has swallowed up a lot of my time. What that also means is there will be very few posts for the next month or two as well.
Anyways, I am currently re-reading Richard Florida’s great book, Who’s Your City (which I would recommend to anyone with any interest at all in urban studies) and found the chapter on where young singles choose to live particularly interesting. On one of the pages, Florida displays a map of the United States in which different cities are colour-coded by whether there is a surplus of single females or a surplus of single males. However, I have found a more interactive and more detailed version of this map in which you can filter by a specific age range. It seems that in our younger generations, there are generally more single males in about 2/3 of the cities. However, once you reach the 40′s and above, the trend shifts drastically the other way to the point where almost every single city has a surplus of single females in the older generations. This is probably fairly obvious, but no less interesting. Anyways, take a look and have fun:
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: richard florida, united states, who's your city
Categories : Maps
The World: Now and Then
19 02 2011The Amazing Stuff blog recently posted an interesting look at certain cities through the times with the blog post The World: Now and Then. The mix of cities are certainly a touch random (including a really interesting look at the Upsala Glacier), but it’s still very compelling stuff indeed:
- New York City
- San Francisco
- Dubai
- Shanghai
- Newcastle upon Tyne
- Upsala Glacier
So take a look and be amazed!
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: dubai, new york city, newcastle upon tyne, san francisco, shanghai, upsala glacier
Categories : Photos
Toronto Transit Commission Takes Stance on Whether to Privatize Toronto Public Transit
4 02 2011For anyone who lives in Toronto and takes the subway fairly regularly, you may have noticed the posters discussing the potential negative outcomes of privatizing Toronto public transit and using Vancouver, Melbourne and London and examples of why not to privatize public transit in Toronto. You can read the full story in the Toronto Sun article entitled ‘Keep TTC public‘ about the 1/2 million dollar campaign by the TTC to make people aware of why the TTC shouldn’t be privatized.
Well now, it’s time for my rant…
Having moved to Toronto nearly four years ago, I can truly say that the TTC is the worst public transit system I have dealt with. The ticket prices are astronomical (the price of a monthly pass is double that of Boston’s for example), the staff is extremely overpaid, rude and generally quite lazy, and the coverage for a city of Toronto’s size is abysmal. On top of this, the subway stations are generally dirty and all of the subways and streetcars are old and regularly broken. The fact that there has been so many problems trying to get the light rail projects off the ground highlight the TTC’s inefficiencies.
What I find most insulting is the fact that they bring up Melbourne’s public transit system as an example of why privatization does not work. Most people in Toronto have not likely lived in Melbourne nor have they visited it. Having lived in Melbourne back in 2006, I can set the record straight that Melbourne’s public transit system is a huge step up from Toronto’s. The coverage of the transit system is incredible (whereas Toronto has 3 subway lines, Melbourne has more than a dozen). The prices are reasonable and the trains, trams and buses are both efficient and clean.
So what can I conclude from all this? Well if Melbourne really is an example of what happens when you privatize a public transit system, then I believe Toronto’s TTC should be privatized as soon as possible. So thank you Toronto Transit Commission for helping me realize what the right thing truly is to do.
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: boston, london, melbourne, Toronto, toronto sun, ttc, vancouver
Categories : Opinions
Is it cheaper to rent or to buy?
28 01 2011
Here is another interesting map of the United States, this one presented by Trulia real estate search. This time the map indicates which major cities are cheaper to rent in and which major cities are cheaper to buy in. Topping the list of cities that are cheaper to rent in should come as no surprise: New York City is notoriously expensive to buy a home in. On the other hand, major centers such as Phoenix and Miami are far better for buying a home (perhaps because housing prices fell so drastically in these cities?). The numbers are bit more confusing than the colours and are the result of some complex calculation to determine what is cheaper. But the main point is that the lower the number, the more it makes sense to buy within the city.
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: miami, new york city, phoenix, trulia
Categories : Photos
Are the Richest Americans Also the Best Educated?
19 01 2011
There is a pretty common perception that the wealthiest Americans are also the ones with the highest level of education. Yet, coming up with a way to measure this is obviously a bit difficult. Recently, the U.S. Census’s American Community Survey was able to at least partially put this perception to the test. The Survey was able to create a study that could be mapped on the county level and provide us some key information on high graduation rates, college graduation rates and median household incomes within these counties.
The colours on the map above are created by a combination of three shades. These shades are described below:
Pink: Measurement of high school graduates. The deeper the shade of pink, the higher the percentage of high school graduates.
Yellow: Measurement of college graduates. The deeper the shade of yellow, the higher the percentage of college graduates.
Blue: Measurement of the median household income. The deeper the shade of blue, the higher the median household income.
When you combine these colours, you get a combined measurement of high school graduation rates, college graduation rates and median household income within a given county. You may notice some counties are almost white in colour while others are almost black. The white counties are ones that have a low high school graduation rates, a low college graduation rates and a low median household incomes. The black counties, on the flipside, have a high high school graduation rate, a high college graduation rate and a high median household income.
What is more interesting are the colours in between. The blue-ish shades of green highlight a city with a high median household income yet a low college and high school graduation rate. This would suggest a city that has a lot of highly educated transplants.
Anyways, take a good look at the map. While it may not fully prove the title of this blog post, it is most certainly a very interesting study. And please visit this blog post courtesy of Good.is for more information and a bigger map.
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: U.S. Census's American Community Survey
Categories : News, Photos
The Great Reset by Richard Florida
13 01 2011
Any regular reader of the blog will know that i’m a big fan of the author Richard Florida. Florida has written a number of outstanding books such as The Creative Class or Who’s Your City?. Both books have a heavy urban focus and discuss why certain people decide on certain places to live or the new ways in which the current generations choose to live.
For his latest book, The Great Reset, Florida focuses on the recent recession and how it will change our economy and the way we live. I have currently read half the book and am once again enthralled with the subject matter. Florida relates our current recession to the last two economic crashes (The Great Depression and the Long Depression of the 1870′s) and discusses how these troubled times often brought about the greatest innovation that helped shape how people would live in the future.
As with any of his other books, Florida discusses a number of different urban issues. He touches on the decline of the rust belt cities such as Detroit or Buffalo and the reasons for their decline. Perhaps more intriguing is Florida’s focus on the decline of many of the sun belt cities such as Phoenix or Miami which were almost solely driven by real estate in the last decade. Now that the recession has hit, property prices in these places have been decimated and unlike cities like San Francisco, Boston or Houston, they don’t have much else to rely on economically.
I will provide another post when I finish the book, but for the time being, I recommend anyone who is a fan of Richard Florida or a fan of social economics to pick up a copy of The Great Reset.
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: boston, buffalo, Detroit, houston, miami, phoenix, richard florida, san francisco, the great reset
Categories : Book Reviews
Highlight in Urban Planning: Beijing’s Outdoor Gyms
7 01 2011
Photo courtesy of Alex Balfour, London
Here in North America, the concept of an outdoor gym is pretty foreign (I can only think of ‘Muscle Beach’ down in Los Angeles), yet in Beijing, China, outdoor gyms are a common sight. Since 1998, the government has built approximately 4000 outdoor gyms throughout the city. These gyms create a free and convenient alternative to the rather expensive and often-inconvenient indoor gyms.
The equipment at these outdoor gyms is rather simple: instead of each machine having it’s own weight stack, these machines use the individual’s own body weight to create resistance. And apart from the look of the machines (they are generally in bright colours), they look quite similar to what you would find in a normal indoor gym. You can read more about this excellent urban development here.
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: beijing, outdoor gym
Categories : Urban Planning Highlight
