5 Tips to Help Your Child “See” Their City

5 Tips to Help Your Child “See” Their City

Increase you child’s awareness of the city that surrounds them with these 5 tips from www.futureplanners.city

As you go through the city with your son or daughter, try these helpful suggestions which aim to open their minds to thinking about community and their important role in the city fabric:

(1) Encourage your children to see the city as theirs, an entity in which they
should give a critical eye, as to what works and what does not and consider
how things can be improved?

(2) Think about what they “see” and how they “feel” as they move through a neighborhood, from the widths of the sidewalks (infrastructure)
to the speed of the flow of car traffic (transportation methods), how is it
experienced?

(3) Introduce concepts of high and low residential density, a high-rise
and a brownstone are different, why?

(4) Reveal that city elements like “urban furniture” from bus stop
benches to bike racks are designed but see if they can discover and
point out un-designed urban furniture that they see in their
communities.

(5) Demonstrate that thinking about their neighborhood and city can
be fun and cool because they become experts on determining what makes
great shared public spaces.

 

 


Photo Credit: Benedetto Davi

What makes a street attractive?

What makes a street attractive? What provides the invitation to stroll or linger?  

Is it the placement of trees that line the street, the storefronts which have glass facades revealing what lies inside or the urban furniture that creates an outdoor living room.  Low rise buildings vs high rises, create density while not overwhelming pedestrians with their heights, opening a view of blue sky.  

A great street is all this and more, and even if we can’t exactly describe the magic combination, we know it when we walk it.

Photography Credit: Aminah Ricks

MORPHOCODE Shows Us NYC In A New Light

Urban Layers is a very cool tool, which helps us understand not only the density, but also the history of the creation of Manhattan’s urban fabric.  It is a flexible, multi-dimensional interactive map created by the architectural firm Morphocode.  It helps anyone with a bit of curiosity explore the dense and complex structure of New York City.

“The map lets you navigate through historical fragments of the borough that have been preserved and are currently embedded in its densely built environment. The rigid archipelago of building blocks has been mapped as a succession of structural episodes starting from 1765.” -Morphocode

Start exploring now.

Image credits: Morphocode
MORPHOCODE graph-overview

 

 

 

Elevating City Life