Last Friday, Ace Hotel founder Alex Calderwood was found dead in London, where the chain had just opened its fifth location. He’s being remembered today as a design visionary, the leader of a cultural phenomenon. But his role was also that of a city-builder, reaching far outside hotel walls to build community and instill a sense of place in each neighborhood he touched.
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This week: Why we need real neighborhoods! Keeping L.A.’s transit momentum alive! Americans may have reached "peak car"! Daylighting rivers! And a ghost town you can call your very own!
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Pooping birds, overflowing trash cans, radioactive poisoning, too much driving, and those goddamn hipsters again. Welcome to another edition of What’s Ruining Our Cities.
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You’re late for a meeting in downtown Los Angeles and you’re still all the way over in Burbank—13 miles and 45 stop-and-go minutes away by freeway. Instead, you walk a few blocks to the Los Angeles River, where you board a stylish pod-like watercraft. Soon, you’re zipping down the river channel, faster than any vehicle on the 5 Freeway.
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Currently in its third and final phase of construction, New York City’s High Line unveiled today what looks like a giant green bowl, but has been officially dubbed the Spur. This salad bowl for the masses, shown in renderings by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, will offer stadium seating in addition to some (much-needed) public restrooms.
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Redrawing America’s political boundaries in two different ways, a tour of Hong Kong’s outdoor escalators, the race to build bigger bike share programs, and a devastating typhoon. Let’s start the week off right with some nice urban reads.
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Of the thousands of images that photographer Michael Galinsky took in malls during the summer of 1989, this one really seems to strike a nerve, but not necessarily because of the big bangs and acid-washed leggings, he says. "I get so many comments about Tape World." Memories of lost stores and dubious fashions abound in his new book, the gloriously nostalgia-soaked Malls Across America.
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New York City mostly rides transit, Los Angeles loves its cars, and San Francisco has a dedicated population of bike commuters. UC Berkeley planning Ph.D. student Fletcher Foti recently built a brilliant data visualization that brings these facts to life by animating commuting patterns for the Bay Area, L.A., and NYC.
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While there are thousands of "best places to live" lists, hardly any of them focus on the world’s most important population segment: Americans under 35. The Livability Index, compiled by Vocativ, a new Vice-esque site, measures cities in the only ways that really matter: from the percentage of young people, to the number of vintage shops, to the cost of an ounce of high-quality weed.
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You want urban reads? We got your urban reads right here. On this November day: Icelandic elves, Lou Reed, the lost & found art of walking, what "smart city" really means, and an adorable dancing traffic cop.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
