Take a look at New York

The Changing New York Hudson River Waterfront

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"Beach": The build of the World Trade Center (source: BLDGBLOG via Untapped Cities).

Please click below to see an evolution of the World Trade Center allotment:

A tool to help your city leaves out crisis

 Coming back to city branding ideas, it would be interesting recovering the book Branding New York: How a City in Crisis Was Sold to the World by Miriam Greenberg.

 New York’s troubles in the 1970s were severe even for the time, according to the book:
 Getting off a Greyhound at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a visitor might find a brochure pressed into their hand with a picture of a death’s head and the words, “Welcome to Fear City”. The brochures, which warned people to stay off the subway and to avoid going out after dark, were a protest by city workers angry about fiscal austerity measures.

 Well, nowadays ten billion “I HEART NY” shopping bags later, the city’s branding push continues healthy.

 But there's more. The trick is a coordinated, centralized city branding sprawling every area of the city and its governance, to revalue it.

 What good it does for a city to shout about how wonderful it is or the cool new shop in the privileged neighborhood, when anyone can see that is a place where something has gone terribly awry: discrimination, segregation, disinvestment, poverty, corruption, gentrification, sprawl, etc.

 The secret key of the city branding is the people -even the smart and talented ones- that do not want to live in your city and, acting in their own best interest, may be moving away every day.

And the winner question is: Do people want to live in your city?

The "High Line" effect

 Before it gets the "starchitecture" critical stage, from here we're defending this advice about it:

 The "High Line effect" should be viewed more broadly as a holistic approach to urban design that suggests how to transform existing urban landscapes to meet contemporary needs. 

 And the point is, a truly succesfully city doesn't consist on its individual buildings or parks, but on how those components work together.

Semàfors de Barcelona

EL LECTOR EXPONE:

Carmen Pérez Serra, Barcelona

Viajo muy a menudo a Manhattan y siempre que regreso a pienso que el Ayuntamiento debería copiar los tiempos de los semáforos de paso de peatones de Manhattan. En la Gran Manzana, cuando aparece la señal de cambio de luz puedes seguir cruzando la calle al mismo ritmo que has empezado. En Barcelona, como te encuentres a mitad del cruce y se encienda el semáforo ámbar, o empiezas a correr o, por supuesto, no llegas a cruzar la calle, con el peligro que eso conlleva. ¿Por qué no copiamos las cosas que funcionan en otras ciudades y nos las aplicamos? Esto no cuesta dinero y, en cambio, evitaría caídas y otros sustos.

LA RESPUESTA:

Anna Plantada i Sagrera

Dept. Comunicació Àrea de Prevenció, Seguretat i Mobilitat Aj. Barcelona

Temps suficient per creuar.

Cal considerar que no hi ha dues ciutats iguals. Manhattan i Barcelona no poden tenir els mateixos cicles semafòrics ja que les seves geometries i condicionants urbans són diferents. Els temps de pas de vianants queden directament relacionats amb les fases semafòriques i tots els usuaris de la via pública.

A Barcelona, el criteri de velocitat del vianant i distància a recórrer es programa per reguladors semafòrics que tenen en compte la intermitència. Aquesta intermitència afavoreix el temps suficient per acabar de traspassar el carrer. Cal, però, no sortir de la vorera en el període d'inici de la intermitència; respectant les normes, es pot fer el creuament amb seguretat.

-vía La Vanguardia (12/03/2012).

Social life of small urban places

This old, yet witty and original film is about the open spaces of cities and why some of them work for people while others don't.

-by William H. Whyte via MASNYC.

Beginning at New York's Seagram Plaza, one of the most used open areas in the city, the film proceeds to analyze why this space is so popular and how other urban oases, both in New York and elsewhere, measure up. Based on direct observation of what people actually do, the film presents a remarkably engaging and informative tour of the urban landscape and looks at how it can be made more hospitable to those who live in it.