Walk [Your City] wants to encourage all city residents to get to know their city via their feet, therefore making cities more accessible and affordable for everyone.
“Want to get more feet on the street? Here are the tools you’ll need to plan, create, and install an effective Walk [Your City] campaign, tailored to your goals and community context.” Here’s a page on how to get started
Photo Credit: Emerson-Alecrim in San Paolo, Brazil
The French artist JR describes this Manhattan based project:
“Last month the New York Times Magazine reached out to me to think about a project together… I told them I have been working for a year on Immigration and I would love to continue what I started on Ellis Island in the city. So, we started looking for people who arrived less than a year ago. We chose 15 coming from all over the world. I photographed them walking in the city … all of them completely unknown… living in the shadows of the city and learning English slowly. We pasted Elmar, 20 years old who came from Azerbaijan, on the floor of Flat Iron Plaza in New York City. The image was 150 feet high. People walked on him all day and no one really noticed him… Today he is on the cover of the NYtimes magazine… while everyone else is in the shadow.”
Read more at the NYTimes.
“Creating a city that is inclusive, lively, healthy, and sustainable means designing for human needs and inviting for public life to flourish in many different ways. Some keys to this approach include walkability, bikability, public space and public transportation.” –Jeff Risom
What can North American cities learn from Copenhagen about adapting and evolving city culture? Helle Søholt and Jeff Risom of Gehl Architects share engaging observations and innovations in this video.
Feature Photo Credit: Danka & Peter
The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) poses this question – how can we get people more engaged, more productive, and happier at work?
And Emerging.City asks, how will the ideas presented in the video effect our communities, directly and indirectly?
Ron Finley asks, “How would you feel if you had no access to fresh food”? He decided to create this access by taking over abandoned lots. He uses these lots to grow fruits and vegetables throughout South Central LA.
He has taken over 20 gardens and counting. His movement of volunteers LA Green Grounds (and as of this year transformed into a new entity, The Ron Finley Project) plows, plants, weeds, and harvests. Then the group shares the fruits of its labor with many “food desert” communities. He observes, “The drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.”
Now, that’s food for thought!
Watch his Ted Talk and see if it inspires you to become a guerilla gardener in your city.
Photo Credit: LA Green Grounds
From our friends at The Atlantic City Lab, we are sharing one man’s stellar garage sale find which gives a video peek into the past of Chicago’s urban history. The rare footage offers glimpse of the 1940s Chicago landscape. Enjoy!
