In this video, Bristol Mayor George Ferguson talks about the reasons why his city is the European Green Capital for 2015: creativity, resiliency, and a high quality of life. He also discusses some of the economic challenges the city is facing and how he hopes to confront them. He says “. . . I recognize … Read more
Dick Jackson launched the 51st IMCL Conference in June, in his terrific talk on Advancing Neighborhood Health Equity. “We have to remember that the built environment is social policy”, Jackson emphasized. “All too often in the past, we have increased inequity of health between the wealthy and the poor neighborhoods through our planning, and transportation … Read more
The latest issue of Landscape, the journal of the Landscape Institute, features an excellent article entitled “Promoting the Liveable City” which discusses our favorite topic: livable cities! They look at definitions of livability, including IMCL’s definition, and various livable cities initiatives around the world. We are thrilled that IMCL was mentioned in this article and … Read more
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
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 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
Charles Montgomery, author of Happy City and Keynote Speaker at this year's 51st IMCL Conference, recently posted this excellent interview with livable streets advocate Mark Gorton of Streetfilms.
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
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
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