Friday Funnies

A new cartoon from the brilliant Ian Lockwood! About the artist: Ian Lockwood PE is a Livable Transportation Engineer with Toole Design Group, a WBE firm that does planning, landscape architecture, engineering, and training to evolve cities to be increasingly walkable, bikable, and economically and socially successful. Friday, July 18th, 2014: Friday, July 11th, 2014: … Read more

2014 IMCL Lewis Mumford Award to Mayor George Ferguson and Bristol City Council, Bristol, UK

The 2014 International Making Cities Livable Lewis Mumford Award will be awarded to Mayor George Ferguson and Bristol City Council for their leadership in creating a Healthy Bristol for All. The award recognizes Bristol’s outstanding leadership in: “Working to enhance streets for social life and celebration, for pedestrians, bicyclists and public transit, and reducing the negative … Read more

New Research Shows That Established Neighborhoods with Older, Smaller Buildings Perform Better

New research conducted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation on the built environments in Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, DC shows that “established neighborhoods with a mix of older, smaller buildings perform better than districts with larger, newer structures when tested against a range of economic, social, and environmental outcome measures.” As our cities … Read more

Bravo Bristol!

Congratulations again to the City of Bristol, UK, for demonstrating to the world that a city can be a fun place to live, and a street can become a place for people, not only a channel for cars and buses! This unique event, together with other public events Bristol has organized, will increase Bristolians’ pride … Read more

A Celebration of Beer Gardens Around the World

By Kai Bates – IMCL Urban Design Consultant A recent report on the Landscape Architects Network about a beautiful pop-up beer garden in Philadelphia and a healthy dose of spring weather got us thinking about all of the wonderful beer gardens we have seen around the world. So, we thought it would be fun to … Read more

Earth Day 2014 – The Time for Livable Cities is NOW!

By Kai Bates – IMCL Urban Design Consultant In April 1990, there was a global resurgence of environmentalism around the events of Earth Day 1990. There was a great deal of positive energy, youthful enthusiasm and passion about the environment at that time, which transformed many (including myself) into environmentalists. Many of us became strong … Read more

The Public Realm and the Good City

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D.(Arch.), Director, IMCL For decades, the significance of public urban places and their role in facilitating public life was ignored by those responsible for shaping the modern city. It was only when cities all over the world were inundated by cars and threatened by the loss of the public realm, that … Read more

Preventing a Global Condo Bubble Collapse – and Slowing Inequity

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D.(Arch.), Director, IMCL The rapid profusion of high-rise investment condos around the world is widening the gap between rich and poor and leading to a worldwide housing bubble, according to economists. Global billionaires are demanding sky-high properties as safe real estate investments to store their surplus dollars. As of March, … Read more