Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

Mark Lamster and Alexandra Lange at Places:The Design Observer discuss Supertall - a recent exhibit on the world's tallest buildings at New York's Skyscraper Museum. The exhibition focuses on buildings built between 2001 and 2016 that are taller than the Empire State Building (100 stories plus) - a total of 48 projects worldwide. Lamster notes, "The irony is that these supertall buildings are designed to be iconic, memorable signs for the cities that build them, but their similarity works against that desire, and instead we seem to be creating placeless modern places that look great in ads for luxury automobiles."

Image from Places:Design Observer

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Well, here it is: Spacington. The new look of 21st century urbanism- well, kind of. The truth is there is nothing here yet, and that is because this is just the beginning. Every week this plot of land, slowly or quickly, will become our Sim City version a 21st century urban city.

During the week the Spacing team and myself will attempt to develop Spacington into a walkable, densely populated, diverse cityscape. Borrowing some suggestions from urban theorists such as Jane Jacobs, Jan Gehl, and Ken Greenberg, as well as the LRT focus of 21st century urbanism, Spacington will become a simulated version urban city we all want. Check the blogs every Thursday and keep on track with our city's evolution.

(Editor's note: In the upcoming national issue of Spacing, senior editor Dylan Reid presents his outlook on urbanism for the next century)

Oh, and for all you Sims gurus out there, join in and comment on the cities development. Give us your suggestions, disagreements, or encouragement, and help us build Spacington into the best 21st century urban city.

It begins now folks, so post away will pre-planning suggestions.

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

Grist talks to urbanist Witold Rybczynski about his recent efforts to call out Richard Florida for playing "fast and loose" with income statistics for American urban centres. Florida posited a positive relationship between density and household income, using figures for metropolitan areas rather than city centres. Rybcyznski wants to shed light on what we believe to be true about the city and whether we have the data to back up those beliefs.

Image from The Atlantic

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Dorchester Square looking towards the north, as seen last fall. The prominent statue is a monument to Montrealers who fought in the Boer War. Extremely unpopular amongst Francophones, who saw it as an imperialist war that didn't concern them, Anglophones rallied around it as loyal British subjects.

Vieux-Rosemont council district.

Last week Vieux-Rosemont city councillor Pierre Lampron resigned, citing personal reasons. Having previously been the president of SODEC and later vice-president of Quebecor, he was presented as a star candidate (well, as close as it gets in municipal politics) by Louise Harel during the 2009 election.  And when Benoit Labonté was expelled from the party, he became Vision's candidate for chairman of the Executive Comittee. After losing the mayor's race, Harel named him as the Official Opposition's finance critic.

Lamrpon further explained his reasons for resigning in an interview with Rue Masson, essentially stating that he found being an opposition councillor tiring and that he wanted to move on to other projects. While not particularly expected, this resignation does not come as a big surprise to city hall observers. After Vision's loss in the last election, some wondered whether the former executive would be interested in being a "mere" city councillor. Moreover, in 2010 he suffered health problems and was absent from city council for a few months.  And finally, he had also been criticised for not being very present in his district.

This resignation means that in the next few months a by-election will be called to elect a new councillor. The outcome of the election will not change the balance of power on either the Montreal-wide city council or the local borough council. It will, however, be an important test of strength for the opposition parties. In 2009 Pierre Lampron won 42% of the vote against 34% for Projet Montréal's Christine Gosselin, a relatively unknown newcomer.

One of the key questions for the next elections is which party will manage to attract the bulk of the soft-progressive, anti-Tremblay vote. In 2009 that part of the electorate split between Projet Montreal and Vision Montreal. Both parties will be keen to use this by-election to show that they have momentum and to position themselves as the best, most viable alternative to the decade-long control of the liberal machine over city administration.

Vision Montreal, while the official opposition,  has had a somewhat difficult time, often seeming directionless. Other than a pro-centralisation stance the party doesn't have a coherent... well... vision, and it has often fallen into simplistic, populist attacks on the mayor' policies. Projet Montreal has at times had a rough ride in the media, but it has been largely  successful at imposing itself as the most coherent and substantive opposition to Mayor Tremblay. A victory for Projet would give it a more credible claim to being the true opposition, and it would likely mean that in the next elections the party could hope to at least consolidate its support and win across other central-city boroughs. A Vision win, on the other hand, would mean that the official opposition is still in the game, at least in francophone-majority neighbourhoods.

The election date has yet to be set, and the candidates have not yet been nominated, but this already promises to be a hard-fought campaign.

The so-called "prototypical average suburban American white middle-class family". Source: ThirdAge.com

One of the most politically charged and ideologically loaded question in the field of metropolitan studies is that which concerns people's motivations to live where they live within a given urban region - i.e., why some people choose the suburbs over the city, or the countryside over the suburbs, etc. In the US, this question has strong racial overtones because of the raging debate (outside of academia, mostly) as to whether black residential segregation in central cities is the result of blacks choosing to self-segregate.

(It's not, a least according to Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser, but the debate still rages. Just type "blacks choose to live" in Google and you'll see).

Whatever the case may be, liberal (and neoliberal) economists believe that individuals are, by and large, autonomous, rational utility-maximizers. In other words, they assume that people make decisions - including their choice of residential location - based on a clear set of preferences (about such things as "peace and quiet", "commuting time", "privacy", "access to recreational amenities", etc.) which are themselves more or less idiosyncratic. Some people prefer the "bundle" of characteristics they find in the suburbs, and that is all there is to it.

As an aspiring social engineer (I'm only half joking), I - as other urban planners and aspiring social engineers - am interested less in the "revealed preferences" of suburban dwellers as in how these preferences are formed. Are people's residential locational preferences really idiosyncratic (i.e., somehow inherent to each person)? Or are they somehow influenced by the environment in which we are brought up, as suggested recently by a group of researchers at Laval University? To paraphrase the article from Le Soleil which reports on the findings of these researchers, is there a "suburban gene"?

Seeing as the article didn't really answer the question - or attempt to answer it - I decided to do a bit of research myself. I remember distinctly that in planning school we were told that the best predictor of where one ends up when one has kids is the kind of (sub)urban environment where one grew up. Childhood memories supposedly trump all other preferences and "acquired tastes". However, I couldn't find the exact reference so I did a bit of research online and found this very interesting Australin "twin study" which looks at the locational decisions of identical vs. non-identical twins to see 1) if twins' choices are correlated and 2) if identical twins are more or less likely to make the same choice as non-identical twins.

Notwithstanding the very real definitional difficulties involved in trying to determine what is urban, suburban and rural (an important subject which deserves its own separate post), the research design proposed by Whitfield and colleagues is an interesting one - and perhaps the only allowing us to really get at this question of "nature or nurture" in the formation of residential locational preferences. And the results are truly fascinating: both "additive genetic" and "shared environmental" influences are important, both the former becomes more important with age whereas the latter seems to become less influential (see Figure 1 below, reproduced from the article).

So what does it all mean? Well first of fall, it is interesting to note that both nature and nurture matter. But more interestingly: nature and nurture do not matter to the same degree at different stages of life (assuming that older cohorts are different simply because they are older and not because of some unobserved variation between cohorts). Note that subsequently a Dutch study and a Swedish study replicated the same research design and that the first one did not find evidence of "additive genetic influences"; however, both studies did find that environmental influences from childhood were important determinants of residential location choice - especially for younger people.

Some of you might ask (quite rightly): why does this matter from a policy, planning or social science perspective? One thing to observe, it seems to me, is that growing up in the absence of density replicates the absence of density. It follows, then, that we need to continue densifying the suburbs because that is the only way we can make density more acceptable to the next generation. Indeed, if "shared environmental influences" (i.e., environmental influences from childhood) explain 50% of the variance in residential location for people between 35 and 40 (i.e., people with young children or about to have them), then we need to influence the "shared environmental influences" of their children... so that they will find a wider range of options acceptable when they are making locational decisions 35 years from now.

Just to be clear: I do not imply here that density is aesthetically better and that we need to impose these aesthetic views upon those who have "objectionable" sensibilities. People's sensibilities are what they are and I am not judging them. I am simply observing that low density living is self-perpetrating - and that since we can't afford (economically or ecologically) to live like the inhabitant of Aurora in Azimov's The Robots of Dawn, we will need to tame density or way or another.

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

Anthony Flint at The Atlantic Cities explores the expansion of urban highway removal across more North America centres and notes the cultural tensions that can flare when such a major piece of infrastructure is slated for demolition. Also worth checking out, the Atlantic Cities has a slideshow of urban highways on death row.

Video from WorldScott

For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you have an Urban Planet worthy article you'd like to share? Send the link to urbanplanet@spacing.ca

WHAT: Spacing's 2nd national issue release party
WHEN: Friday February 3rd, 2012, 9pm-1am
WHERE: Canvas Lounge (99 Powell St. in Gastown)
HOW MUCH: free! (mag costs $5)
RSVP: Let us know if you can come at our Facebook event listing

The editors of Spacing and contributors of Spacing Vancouver are excited to announce that the magazine will host a release party at the Canvas Lounge in Vancouver to celebrate the publication of the newest national issue. We will have some fun activities and a few door prizes.

This event is held in conjunction with the annual conference for the Canadian Association of Planning Students (CAPS).

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ISSUE:

• Q&A with Mayor Gregor Robertson: Can he become North America's greenest mayor?

• The Rise of Roadsworth/Peter Gibson: Contributing editor Christopher DeWolf looks back how this stencil graffiti artist transformed the streets of Montreal and changed how we view street art

• Urbanism for a New Century: Spacing senior editor Dylan Reid outlines the urban design trends of the last decade and where city-building is headed in Canada

• There are also loads of photos, book reviews, and features on the details of Canadian cities.

Copies of this issue will begin to arrive for subscribers after Feb 6th. Newsstand copies will be available across Canada the week of Feb. 6th.

Gregor Robertson photos by Mischa Bartkow

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

The Smithsonian Magazine explores Who to Believe?, a Parisian garden in front of City Hall designed by Francois Abelanet. Playing with the traditions of the French garden and Anamorphosis, Abelanet shows that the view of City Hall is quite different depending on where you stand.

Video from WorldScott

For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you have an Urban Planet worthy article you'd like to share? Send the link to urbanplanet@spacing.ca

The back of the  Wilfred Laurier monument, in Dorchester Square, as seen last fall. Its design features the crests of the provinces imbedded in a stylized tree trunk.

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

“The map user has now become the map creator,” says Fraser Taylor, Director of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre at Carleton University. In a recent article on This Big City, author Christine McLaren explores the phenomenon of citizen cartographers. With the proliferation of mobile GIS technology and open-source mapping tools, citizens are increasingly finding and creating new datasets to map and overlay. Traditionally a way for authorities to control their jurisdictions, citizen-driven cartography is being used to hold governments to account.

Image from This Big City

For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you have an Urban Planet worthy article you'd like to share? Send the link to urbanplanet@spacing.ca

Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.

The Video Vancouver feature presented its first original video this week, capturing the atmosphere of Vancouver at the winter solstice, a feeling described as unique amongst Canadian cities.

Yuri Artibise reviews new work by Emmanuel Buenviaje who uses mix of photography and graphic design to create images of his Mount Pleasant neighbourhood that capture the intricacy and history of Vancouver's older and industrial districts.

Members of the Spacing Ottawa diaspora returned this week with posts from their new home cities. David McClelland writes about his observations of Niagara Region's new inter-city regional bus service as a prime example of the question of what comes first: the transit or the riders?

Adam Bentley, a Spacing Ottawa contributor who recently moved to Edmonton, shares his observations of his first several months in the city including its good and planning history. His central conclusion: Edmonton doesn't suck.

As part of the ongoing Altantic Snapshots series Stephen Archibald profiles the Wellington Barracks. Hidden within an active Canadian Forces Base, the barracks is amongst Halifax's most important mid-nineteenth century buildings, retaining significant elements of grandeur.

Like the ends of many north-south streets in Toronto, the bottom of Leslie Street presents a fantastic opportunity to become a gateway to the waterfront. Dylan Reid presents a detailed plan to capitalize on an excellent opportunity at the bottom of Leslie despite heel dragging from the City.

Niki Siabinis completes the tale of her three day cycling journey from Toronto to Montreal within a marathon last day that includes construction obstacles, night riding and lots of sore muscles.

Jacob Larson gives an update on the latest twist in the saga to replace Montreal's aging Turcot Interchange which involves a significant delay caused by sinking ground and wonders if this could be an opportunity for sober second thought.

With an opportunity to share her findings at an upcoming conference, Alanah Heffez seeks reader feedback on Montreal's electronic fare payment system initiating a conversation about intricacies of the City's OPUS fare card.

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

Highways can carve up and scar urban neighbourhoods, which is why many North American cities are looking for ways to cover this infrastructure and restore community. The Chicago Tribune explores the experience of Columbus, Ohio which saw increased pedestrian traffic and business for local stores following the installation of the "Cap at Union Station". But with a $10 million+ price tag, is the cap a viable option for other centres?

Image from PlasticsSafety

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The buried Otter Lake occupied a good deal of the present-day Turcot Yards (courtesy of Walking Turcot Yards) 

The Ministry of Transport has hit a major snag in its plans to replace the crumbling Turcot Interchange.

Last week, le Soleil reported that “high level” negotiations between the Ministry of Transport and CN would be required, with ex-premier Daniel Johnson at the helm. The sticky issues include a CN bridge used by motorists in Quebec City, and the MTQ’s plans for the rail company's right-of-way at Dorval Circle and the Turcot yards. Though this certainly means delays in the Turcot project (more on that below), there are also various critics of the government’s plan already seeing the silver lining.

For the Conseil régional de l’environnement (CRE), this presents an opportunity to divert funds away from the unnecessary shifting of highway 20 against the St-Jacques Escarpment and funnel it into much needed transit. Projet Montréal leader, Richard Bergeron, has expressed his exasperation at the MTQ’s inability to manage its own highway projects, and gleefully advised the Ministry to enjoy its final two years dealing with the compliant Tremblay administration.

But what’s the substance of these "high level" negotiations?

Since the dispute is with a private company, details are confidential; however, it may be possible to deduce the source of the conflict. One clue is the apparent ambiguity over who will ultimately be responsible for stabilizing the soil of the ancient Otter Lake. This is necessary in order to relocate CN’s right-of-way against the foot of the escarpment, as detailed by the current plan. Will it be the Ministry itself or one of its contractors working in the “design-build” mode?

In a document released by the ministry, the job of stabilizing the marshy part of the Turcot yards is listed as “suspended”. This may mean that the Ministry has encountered technical problems and is shifting the responsibility to its contractors.  While this does not formally concern CN, it could affect their property; the company would naturally be anxious to see the future of their main trunk line on unstable ground—both literally and figuratively speaking.

The MTQ's plan for the Turcot Yards: Four CN tracks (two primary, two secondary) are indicated blue and orange under 'Pullman' 

If the Ministry is shifting responsibility to its contractor, their projected timeline will need to be revised. Since the project management firm charged with divvying out contracts will first be announced this summer, bids for this specific contract could only be received and evaluated late 2012 to early 2013, at the earliest. The winning bidder(s) could very well take two years to complete the work, ending in 2015. (Excavating this marsh to install high capacity drainage is a big, expensive job, after all.) Recalling that moving the CN line is only preparatory work for the actual interchange replacement, the MTQ’s 2018 completion date is looking very optimistic indeed.

Of course, this whole mess could be avoided (and about $400M saved) by NOT shifting Hwy 20 against the escarpment and leaving CN’s right-of-way in its current path.  While the MTQ asserts that the eventual location of the CN tracks is fixed, most probably there is—like much in this troubled Ministry—more to this than meets the eye.

Full disclosure: The author is currently working with the community group, Solidarité St-Henri, to advocate for changes to the Ministry’s plan for the Turcot.  

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

Spiegel speaks with starchitect Rem Koolhaas about the magazine's new building, generic urban design, the changing role of the architect and the negative outcomes of commercial and bureaucratic impulses.

Image from Spiegel

For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you have an Urban Planet worthy article you'd like to share? Send the link to urbanplanet@spacing.ca

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

We often think of architecture as a permanent art form, but temporary installations are becoming more and more pervasive. Think pop-up shops, post-disaster shelters, mobile food carts, streets cafes and pocket parks. Allison Arieff at the New York Times considers the challenges and advantages that temporary architecture poses to buildings and the planning process.

Image from Alliance for Downtown New York

For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you have an Urban Planet worthy article you'd like to share? Send the link to urbanplanet@spacing.ca

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

When trying to plan pedestrian environments, the answer may be to follow the crowd. Mehdi Moussaid of the Max Planck Institute and Dirk Helbing of ETH Zurich study pedestrian behaviour. Using computer models and particle theory, they analyze decision making patterns of people travelling by foot. When encountering an oncoming pedestrian, will you choose to pass on the left or right? It turns out that factors such as density, culture and grouping have a significant impact on such decisions. As The Economist points out, understanding this behaviour could improve everything from traffic control to emergency evacuations to the haj.

Image from Omar Chatriwala

For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you have an Urban Planet worthy article you'd like to share? Send the link to urbanplanet@spacing.ca

image cc Antoine Belaieff

I've been invited to participate in a conference organized by the association québécoise du transport et des routes (AQTR), called « La mobilité urbaine à l’heure du paiement électronique ». This non-profit works in collaboration with the Ministère des transports du Québec. The conference is geared towards transportation planners, management, consultants, and designers in the public and private sectors. I've been invited to discuss how electronic payment could help improve mobility for transit users.... apparently I'm meant to speak right before the OPUS marketing team. Gulp.

Being just one individual transit user - and seasonal one at that - I'd like to gather some comments from Spacing contributors and readers. Please share any experiences that have marked you, recommendations, examples of best practices, or obstacles with regareds to electronic payment in our public transit system in the comments below. The comments section will be open for the next 3 weeks.

The AQTR's mandate is province-wide and extends beyond public transit, so think big!

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

If there's too much congestion, why not build more roads? The laws of congestion and transportation demand management aren't necessarily intuitive. Which is why Brent Toderian, chief planner for the City of Vancouver, was so pleased to see comic book hero The Flash discuss the law of congestion in a recent issue (see it on Planetizen). Toderian considers cities that have heeded Flash's call to scale back road construction and the role that pop culture can play in communicating complex messages to a broad audience.

For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you have an Urban Planet worthy article you'd like to share? Send the link to urbanplanet@spacing.ca

Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.

Following the recent release of new redevelopment plans, Andrew Witt tells the story of the controversial Little Mountain social housing redevelopment. The project has been criticized for decade late return dates, encouraging gentrification and falling short of new affordable housing units.

As part of his Price Points feature Gordon Price looks at the history of the Burnaby Metrotown as a harbinger of a growing regional awareness and planning initiative in the 1970's in light of thesis work by David Pereira.

While praising Ottawa's Transportation Master Plan, Alex Devries synthesizes a golden rule that cycling advocates in the city must work around: "No change to drivers at any cost." Devries uses a lists of successful project to show how cycling advocates have worked around this rule.

Alexandre Laquerre used his Maintenant & Avant feature this week to show off 110 years of change on the upper Rideau Canal showing a city that has both matured greatly and moved away from the railway.

Adria Young features a provocative public art installation on the site of Halifax's new downtown convention centre. The installation, Town Square by Scott Saunders draws on the site's public consultation controversy by populating the site with ghostly business figures.

Abad Khan provides an update on a story which appeared in the fall issue of Spacing Magazine about two different strategies to road widening proposals in Moncton and Halifax. Moncton's bold approach of reducing car lanes has received vindication while Halifax's road widening has become tangled in politics.

Spacing's Dylan Reid reports back from the fascinating proceedings of a recent University of Toronto conference "Is there Planning Law or just City Politics?" The conference provided a lot of insight and opinions on Ontario's convoluted planning process.

Niki Siabanis continues taking readers along her summer cycling journey from Toronto to Montreal, with the second day including a brief stint on the 401 and the beauty of the thousand islands.

Devin Alfaro correctly predicted that the island of Montreal would be a battle ground in last spring's federal election. Predicting a similar groundswell of change in Quebec's coming provincial vote, Alfaro paints a picture of how all parties will vie for votes in Montreal and what this will benefit the city.

As declining patronage and financing force the conversion of churches across Quebec into other uses, Alexandre Campeau-Vallée asks the question of what will happen to the sound of church bells, noting that such bells are some of the last sounds to enjoy immunity in our quest to reduce urban noise.