Last week, in the Congress for the New Urbanism’s “Public Square” blog, sociologist David Brain outlined strategies for a Lean charrette, which is a work-in-progress concept designed to match up with Lean Urbanism strategies. Opportunist that I am, I welcome that as an excuse to try Part 2 of the charrette discussion I offered here.
April 19, 2016 | 4:37 pm
From Ideas to Action: Cheaply, quickly, fairly
February 23, 2016 | 1:32 pm
Smart Design = Smart Policy:
Eezy-Peezy? Not so fast
See if this sounds familiar:
The city planning staff, maybe working with an expert team of design consultants, comes up with what they think is a no-brainer solution to a high-profile problem. Say, a proposal for much-needed multifamily development to address workforce housing demand. Or a plan to fix a blighted block with a mixed-use project that checks all the Smart Growth boxes. Or perhaps a senior-friendly cottage court adjacent to an existing single-family neighborhood of larger lots and homes.
Let’s say the proposal earns staff support and gets planning and zoning commission okays for whatever changes are required in local codes. It heads to city council for final approval, where everything hits the fan.
March 11, 2011 | 11:51 am
Everything is Multiplied: Social media as tool, threat and total waste of time
So I’m checking out the debut of the Onion News Network and two things occurred to me:
First, sadly for the Onion writers, cable news is inoculated against parody. What passes for news and analysis on most cable shows satirizes itself. Hence Jon Stewart’s brilliant strategy of curating and juxtaposing actual news clips for The Daily Show. Stewart is almost single-handedly reintroducing irony in the post-ironic era.
