In Bath, England, the posture of a street mime inspires inquiry as to his role–is he merely emulating a statue, or is he performing aside a public right of way because he has been denied the opportunity in a private place?
Author: Chuck Wolfe
Charles R. (Chuck) Wolfe, M.R.P., J.D. provides a unique perspective about cities as both a long time writer about urbanism worldwide and an attorney in Seattle, where he focuses on land use and environmental law and permitting. In particular, his work involves the use of sustainable development techniques and innovative land use regulatory tools on behalf of both the private and public sectors. He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington, where he teaches land use law at the graduate level. He contributes regularly to several publications including Planetizen, CityLab/The Atlantic Cities, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, Grist, seattlepi.com, and Crosscut.com. He blogs at myurbanist.com.
one more postcard not to send to an urbanist
One more, this time in the embedded video below.
Your urbanist friends will not like the Burb Twins, potential antagonists to the new development and consumption patterns which characterize Richard Florida’s The Great Reset.
Enjoy, and for the original “six postcards not to send to an urbanist,” click here.
one way to green an urban space
Artist/environmental sculptor Ran Morin’s “Floating Orange Tree” in Jaffa, Israel: the dawn of “urban forestry” in the ancient port’s historic center.
Making wok-able urbanism more walkable
Discussions by Christopher Leinberger and others frequently reference “walkable urbanism,” premised upon increasingly compact, dense neighborhoods.
Ironically, on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, one of the city’s best examples of such neighborhood form, the evening depictions below show the historic, auto-based Dick’s Drive-In as a pedestrian center. Nearby, a classic parking area stands in front of a wok venue.
As the everyday urbanism of neighborhoods such as Capitol Hill evolve, chances are that “wok-able” and “walkable” will more completely align.
This article appeared in slightly different form in Crosscut, here.
two new postcards of “urban renewal”: cottage style and green
The Thoreau-like cottage first identified here presents imagery of renewal in the urban woods. Collectively, these vignettes present a city cabin on the way to rebirth in an era of green, retaining existing walls as an element of land use permitting, in order to facilitate such rebuilding in a constrained, hillside setting. Small-scale projects like this one may be the true harbingers of the changing American metropolis.
