Rounding off the week, sharing some of the diverse mix of reading I completed the past couple of days.
📰 TRANSPORTATION, COMMUNITY & THE COMMON GOOD
I absolutely love this 4-page, accessibly written article by Michigan Catholic Conference on the vital role of public transport for residential health, educational flexibility (for children and adults), community resilience, access to quality, healthy food and more.
📑 UN-SUSTAINABLE URBANISM: THE CHALLENGE OF “LOCK-IN”
By Michael Mehaffy // MDPI
As someone developing expertise on ‘urban resilience’ (with a focus on specific dimensions), reading about the failures of dominant models of auto-centric urban planning and criticism of the lack of ‘actionable urban sustainability goals’ is essential. The author notes, ‘the United Nations’s 2024 Sustainable Development Goals Report noted, progress on Goal 11 (sustainable cities) has been woefully inadequate, with less than 30% of the indicators ‘on track or target met’. I value the approach taken in the paper, identifying in depth what unsustainable urbanism is and encouraging change in policy, education and practice.
📰 UMBERTO ECO, PLANNING EDUCATION, AND URBAN SPACE
By Dean Saitta // Planetizen
A rich and brief piece that you can digest on a 10-minute public transport commute with lessons learned from a conference on various urbanism themes and an interesting emphasis on the concept of the flâneur in urban studies and walking as a pedagogical strategy and approach.
https://www.planetizen.com/node/84742/umberto-eco-planning-education-and-urban-space
📑 MOVING BEYOND WALKABILITY: ON THE POTENTIAL OF HEALTH GEOGRAPHY
By Gavin Andrews et al.
Being committed to a transdisciplinary and holistic approach as an urban studies and walkability researcher and advocate means, for me, a commitment to always learning – from diverse groups as well as disciplines. This was a great primer on the health geography approach to walkability. I was also excited to see the authors assert that ‘that there is a need for research that will ’employ diverse qualitative methods – including community mapping, diary techniques, creative narratives, storytelling and photography to (…) tell ‘other stories’ including those of policymakers, health professionals and diverse social and cultural groups’.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S027795361200617X
📰 THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: AN EMANCIPATING CONCEPT
By Matthias Lecoq // metropolitics
Another insightful and brief read that you can digest on a 10-15 minute brief public transport commute. I really appreciate the call at the end of the article to urge us ‘….to collectively rethink our situation, or otherwise run the risk of no longer being able to respond to the challenges we face.’
https://metropolitics.org/The-Right-to-the-City-An-Emancipating-Concept.html
📑 POSSIBLE WORLDS: HENRI LEFEBVRE AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY
By Mark Purcell // Journal of Urban Affairs
I am still, admittedly, finding my way with Lefebvre’s thought and language. Last week, while visiting an atmospheric mountain city in southern Poland, I began ‘The Urban Question‘, and two decades ago while studying at Cornell in the beautiful city of Ithaca I was immersed in Lefebvre’s ‘The Production of Space’ amidst stacks of other reading (much like today….). This is a great paper to digest related on what the author writes is Lefebvre’s argument ‘that the project for inhabitants, scholars, activists, and practitioners, what he calls an “urban strategy,” is to recondition our senses, away from the city and toward the urban.’ http://faculty.washington.edu/mpurcell/jua_rtc.pdf
📑 URBAN DENSITY AFTER JANE JACOBS: THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF DIVERSITY & EMERGENCE
By Stefano Moroni // City, Territory and Architecture
A great read on the ‘pitfalls of traditional urban planning and its anti-density agenda’ contrast with the contemporary ‘density-oriented planning’. The emphasis on density itself not being the issue but rather, as Jacobs asserts (and who is richly referred to throughout), ‘merely one of the crucial conditions of urban diversity.’ https://cityterritoryarchitecture.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40410-016-0041-1
Friday Greetings,
Annika
