Revitalizing downtown is an ever-relevant topic in London, as I’m sure it is in most cities. (There may be cities where downtown isn’t an important part of the story; those are cities I don’t want to live in.) Last night we had a bit of a thing here as part of Downtown London and the [...]
urban planning
Something occurred to me while I was reading Paul Berton’s editorial about changes in the way we get around: through all of the arguments about who should own the streets and sidewalks (e.g. Toronto’s proposed right-turn ban, Vancouver’s planned cycling lane conversion), the most vocal people seem to be using absolute, race-like (i.e. racist) categories and assumptions. [...]
As much as I’d personally love London to be like Vancouver or Chicago — with a dense, vibrant, creative urban core — it isn’t, and we need to get over that fact. As much as I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of James Shelley’s From My Bottom Step post about car-less living (and I’ve got some very similar [...]
I see a controversy on the horizon. It might not seem realistic now, but it could turn into one of those things where, by the time it actually presents itself, it’s too late to do anything about it and your opinion doesn’t even matter (like Wall Street excesses generating the financial crisis). So I’m speculating a [...]
… from here. To support my last argument, a few indications towards the massive changes we’ll experience in 2009. 1 - Retail: No doubt we’ll hear a lot more about this on Monday and throughout January as the Christmas numbers come in. Nobody expects it to be pretty. Felix Salmon points to this unencouraging WSJ graphic:
