Scot links to a clever idea in The Guardian: critiques of cities by writers who live in them.
The first by Colin Marshall in Los Angeles: A city that outgrew its masterplan. Thank God
I look around my own neighborhood of Koreatown and wonder what set of ideas could ever accommodate it. In its officially just under three, but in practice over five, of the densest square miles it churns business and culture brought straight from not just South Korea but southern Mexico as well. It all happens in and amid the sometimes incongruously grand structures of what they used to call the Ambassador District, an area swanky enough by the standards of 1930s and 40s America that it hosted Academy Awards ceremonies back then. I have a hard time imagining Koreatown emerging quite so robustly in any city contained by a vision.
Hold it up as a paradise or denounce it as a wasteland; LA doesn’t care either way.
Full column here.
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Then, as provocatively, Mike Ticher on Sydney: why this city would be better off without its world famous harbour.
Andrew Merry’s extraordinary aerial photographs of new suburban developments on the western fringes reveal the huge size of some new houses (as well as the terrifying environmental potential of treeless streets, relatively tiny back gardens and car-only access). But there is no doubt the west as a whole feels ignored and patronised by the more scenic parts of the city. …
The lack of an overarching authority for the city may be one reason for its atrocious decisions on transport, which has left large parts of the suburbs (predominantly in the west) with very poor access to public options. …
The new federal government under Tony Abbott has slashed funding for new public transport projects, while encouraging more road building, meaning Sydney is likely to go further down the path of toll roads with charges that pay for their construction, rather than to manage the traffic flow – inner Sydney has no congestion charge, but you have to pay to use tunnels that keep cars out of the city streets.
The acclaimed Danish urban designer Jan Gehl has said Sydney is full of “good examples of what not to do” to make a city centre that is less abrasive and unforgiving to the people who live and work there. But even he has offered fewer ideas on how to turn attention away from the transfixing pull of the harbour.
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Full column here, including this link: “fury has been directed particularly at (Lord Mayor Clover) Moore’s efforts to construct bike paths throughout the city.”
