January 2012
3 posts
2 tags
“Let the age and wars of other nations be chanted and their eras and characters...”
– Leaves of Grass; Preface - Walt Whitman
3 tags
2 tags
December 2011
10 posts
2 tags
“The artist traveled with a blue neon billboard that read ENJOY POVERTY and...”
– Review of Art and Activism in the Age of Globalization
(via We Make Money Not Art)
“I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s...”
– Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (via wandery)
3 tags
“In exchange for struggling in the crowded city, the poorest artist can be...”
– from “Art and Urban Density” by James Panero
2 tags
“Birds living in cities sing at a higher pitch to reduce the impact of echoes...”
– Urban birds sing at higher pitch - Telegraph
1 tag
3 tags
“It’s a musical Venn diagram placed over the landscape, and at any time you might...”
– Central Park, The Soundtrack
2 tags
3 tags
“ArtPlace believes that art, culture and creativity expressed powerfully through...”
– “About” - ArtPlace
November 2011
7 posts
2 tags
Theoretical cities
If post-modern cities are defined by their decentralization, privatization, and generalized atomization of community, then where are we now? Is the paradigm on the cusp of shifting?
The now-hip focus on “the local,” a focus on community-building and engagement, a reassertion of centralization (downtown revival and investment,) and a push toward public-private partnerships to...
4 tags
WatchNew York in the 1970’s. Inspired by the new book “Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever”
3 tags
“These are public spaces. Spaces for gathering, leisure, meeting and interacting...”
– To the Occupy movement – the occupiers of Tahrir Square are with you | Comrades from Cairo via The Guardian
3 tags
“There is no difference between me and these streets, save they being streets and...”
– Fernando Pessoa
2 tags
“All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but...”
– Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins
2 tags
Tactical Urbanism
1. A deliberate, phased approach to instigating change;
2. The offering of local solutions for local planning challenges;
3. Short-term commitment and realistic expectations;
4. Low-risks, with a possibly a high reward; and
5. The development of social capital between citizens and the building of organizational capacity between public-private institutions, non-profits, and their...
2 tags
October 2011
8 posts
1 tag
“Cities are about getting stuff done and, more importantly, generating the ideas...”
– Be happy, be more interesting, be dense
3 tags
“Psychasthenia: a physical and mental state wherein the body is incapable of...”
– Excerpt from: “Walking Los Angeles: From Documentation to Performance”
by Sara Wookey
2 tags
DoTank: Brooklyn →
Direct action and creative-oriented urbanism
3 tags
1 tag
2 tags
2 tags
September 2011
8 posts
2 tags
1 tag
For the first day of autumn
October by James Schuyler
Books litter the bed,
leaves the lawn. It
lightly rains. Fall has
come: unpatterned, in
the shedding leaves.
The maples ripen. Apples
come home crisp in bags.
This pear tastes good.
It rains lightly on the
random leaf patterns.
The nimbus is spread
above our island. Rain
lightly patters on un-
shed leaves. The books
of fall litter the bed.
1 tag
3 tags
2 tags
2 tags
“Indigenous Planning advocates community development based on land-tenure...”
– After driving through the Cherokee reservation in the Nantahala National Forest on the North Carolina/Georgia/Tennessee border, I was depressed about the way that the United States treats Native Americans (not a surprise to me but it’s still jarring to witness it firsthand again and again)....
3 tags
4 tags
August 2011
3 posts
3 tags
City Fabric →
T-shirts with maps of where you live. So simple and I like it.
2 tags
1 tag
What Do You Really Want to Do? →
wwnorton:
I want to make big important gestures. I want adventure. I want to get wild and walk away from a burning car. I want to get political. I want to publish a novel. I want to write a novel. I want to come home one day and surprise my lady friend with tickets to Monte Carlo. I want the president of…
from The Road to Somewhere by James Reeves
July 2011
6 posts
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
“There is an even more fundamental concern about our nostalgia [for farm life]:...”
– Brent Cunningham on the inherent problems with pastoral romance and rural nostalgia via Lapham’s Quarterly.
3 tags
2 tags
“America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies…”
– “America”- Allen Ginsberg
June 2011
8 posts
WatchDay at the beach. Glory glory.
leringitis:
Louisiana -> Mississippi -> Dauphin Island, Alabama ——-> SAND CITY IN MY PANTS (glorious)
2 tags
Detroit Ascending
It seems that everyone is talking about Detroit.
Artists are decamping there to do site-specific installations in abandoned properties, city planners from around the world are testing out ideas about shrinking cities and generally working to reimagine the city, and photographers are documenting the decay and destruction that a 25% drop in population over 10 years reaps on a city.
Meanwhile,...
1 tag
1 tag
“The tragic truth of modern life is that it hardly leaves room for the necessary...”
– From The Incredible Shrinking American Vacation