• Food Culture in Boston (or lack thereof) – Greater Boston Area – Chowhound

  Interesting article about the Boston foodie culture, and how it measures up to other cities.

  tags: restaurants boston foodies

• A Sculpture of Our Transportation Future – Arts & Lifestyle – The Atlantic Cities

  I looked at the video included here, and I thought, “this is simultaneously retarded and brilliant.” Chris Burden reminded me of Robert Moses (implied in Burden’s artistic construct is an infrastructure for automated cars that can easily obliterate any neighborhood in its vicinity), and at the same time I think he’s on the right track (no pun intended) in predicting the end of driver-controlled driving. So, on 2nd thought, scratch “brilliant”…
  QUOTE
  “It’s a hopeful future,” Burden says. “Cars will have an average speed of 240 miles per hour as soon as Google gets all their cars up and running. Because the future of automobile transportation is that there won’t be drivers anymore.”
  UNQUOTE

  tags: atlantic_cities chris_burden cars infrastructure sculpture installations video

• The Science of How We Walk – Commute – The Atlantic Cities

  I left a comment on this:
  QUOTE
  Not every society reacts to pedestrian congestion the same way. A recent comparison of Germans and Indians revealed that although people from both cultures walk “in a similar manner” when alone, their behavior varies greatly in the presence of others. As one might expect given the densities of their respective countries, Indians need less personal space than Germans do, according to the researchers. As a result, when Germans encountered traffic during a walking experiment, they decreased speed more rapidly than Indians did. “Surprisingly the more unordered behaviour of the Indians is more effective than the ordered behaviour of the Germans,” the study concludes [PDF].
  UNQUOTE
  My comment:
  Re. the Germans slowing down when in a crowd vs the Indians not lessening their pace as much: I’m really curious to know whether Moussaid’s research has anything to say on who arrives at their destination most efficiently / quickly? Is it more efficient to act counter-intuitively to your body “needs” and just to continue plowing through a crowd, body contact and all, even if your acquired cultural norms demand more distance? Since the study says the “unordered” behavior is more effective, it suggests it does get the job of moving from A to B done more efficiently, yes? This is fascinating, I think.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: cities atlantic_cities eric_jaffe walking pedestrians socialtheory

• Transit Stations May Actually Cut Down on Crime – Commute – The Atlantic Cities

  Interesting. Evidence suggests the opposite of what most people have been conditioned to believe (that public transit allows crime to seep into neighborhoods).
  QUOTE
  The fear that crime follows transit – or worse, that transit breeds crime – is a common one. The general public is often quick to assign causality whenever a crime takes place in or around a transit station. Anecdotal theories are many: transit stations attract city criminals to a new population of victims; criminals can linger at public stations freely without suspicion; travelers may not be familiar with their surroundings and therefore susceptible to crimes. But the empirical studies are few, and many of those that do exist have found no transit-crime connection.

  A new report in the December issue of the Journal of Urban Affairs goes a step further and suggests that not only do transit stations fail to increase crime – they may even impede it.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: transit crime cities atlantic_cities eric_jaffe

• What Neighborhoods Need to Succeed at Walkability – Commute – The Atlantic Cities

  I wrote about the same thing on my blog recently, with respect to the neighborhood centers in Portland OR: the really successful ones draw in plenty of visitors from *outside* the immediate neighborhood, and they become attractions for people from surrounding areas. See: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/yulelog/2011/12/19/city-of-villages/ and scroll down to the section “Hungry and hungrier”…
  QUOTE
  For the formula [of walkable, viable neighborhood commercial centers] to work, the businesses must also be large enough to draw some customers from outside the neighborhood:

  The tricky part is that the business concentration needed to encourage walking appears to be larger than most neighborhood residential populations can support. Given that, suburban regions should focus both on fostering pedestrian centers and on knitting those centers together with transportation networks, though such networks need not accommodate only cars.
  UNQUOTE
  To be read in conjunction with Why Do Some Neighborhoods Get Overrun With Chain Stores, While Others Don’t?
  http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/01/why-do-some-neighborhoods-get-overrun-chain-stores-while-others-dont/909

  tags: urban_design walkability retail atlantic_cities kaid_benfield

• Where Does Crime Go After Public Housing Projects Are Demolished? – Housing – The Atlantic Cities

  An argument for making neighborhoods/ streets “nicer” as a means of returning power to residents so that crime is lessened.
  QUOTE
  Did these neighborhoods become safer because better housing telegraphed to the residents that their communities were valuable?

  “If there is crime in an upscale neighborhood, everybody would come together, people would be up in arms, they’d demand the police pay attention, they’d say ‘let’s get more patrols in here!’” Cahill says. “Low-income residents in a lot of poor areas, they’ve just given up on the police, they’re not treated well by the police. They feel like the problems are too large for them to address. This is returning that sense of power to the residents, increasing the community’s capacity to do something about their situation.”
  UNQUOTE

  tags: crime urban_design atlantic_cities housing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted: 01|15|12 at 7:25 pm. Filed under: links.

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