• A Modest Proposal – Bikers, Take the High Road – NYTimes.com
  Once, cars were the natural enemy of bikers, and vice versa. But as the Brooklyn Bridge biking shows, now that the city has made some progress in holding back the cars, bikers have begun to treat people the same way the cars they used to battle do — in other words, like the enemy.

  Likewise, for pedestrians seeking to complain, bikes are easier to attack than cars, a fact that plays on the strength of the bike. It is driven by a human being you can see and communi- cate with more readily than you can with a guy in a car whose windows are shut and whose stereo is blasting.

  (tags: bikability bikeability bike.lanes nyc)

• All Boarded Up – How Cleveland is Dealing With Mass Foreclosure – NYTimes.com
  (tags: the.economy foreclosure housing)
• Pew Research Center: Suburbs Not Most Popular, But Suburbanites Most Content
  (tags: suburbia suburbs liveability planning)

B-cycle is an innovative new bike-sharing startup that has kicked off with a clever little promotion.  At their website, they have a short video explaining all of the benefits of bike-sharing and explaining how their system makes it work.  Then they ask the question, “Who wants it more?”  They allow you to fill in a form to add your community to the list of prospects that presumably will be on the short-list when they are ready to begin rolling out across the country.

Denver is already on the actual short-list, as their mayor announced last month that they would be installing the B-cycle system.  And the rest of current top ten of the “who wants it more” vote contains some nice places known for their progressive planning (rank/city/current votes):

1. Fort Collins    321
2. Boulder    62
3. Denver    49
4. Austin     47
5. Louisville    46
6. Glencoe    44
7. Miami    33
8. Lexington    25
9. Warrensburg    18
10. Chicago    17

Here is the thing, I want OKC to be on this top ten list.  It makes a statement about the city and what the people care about.  Plus, it is good publicity, on the B-cycle website it cycles (intended) through the top ten, naming each and the current number of votes.  Right now, Oklahoma City has only one vote…that is where you come in.

So go watch the video if you want, but no matter what, go vote to bring B-cycle to Oklahoma City!

Feel free to leave a comment here to let the world know you voted and spread the word on twitter, facebook, etc.  Who knows, maybe it will lead to something.  By the end of the weekend I want to be climbing up the top ten list on our way to #1!

UPDATE 3/6 at 11:27 a.m. est:

We are in the Top Ten!

Thanks to the social networking brilliance of @urbanizedokie on twitter, Oklahoma City has broken into the top ten.  I for one, think we should keep it going and cruise on up into the top 5.  To vote, just go to Bcycle.com and then click the button on the lower left that says, “I Want It More.”

As a token of my thanks, I want to encourage you to check out what @urbanizedokie has going on at Oklahoma’s Red Dirt Emporium – Bricktown’s premiere gift store!  And you might also want to take advantage of the great weather with a ride on one of Bricktown’s Water Taxis.


UPDATE 3/6 at 3:04 p.m. est:

We’re up to #2

That’s right, we’re up to #2. That puts Oklahoma City ahead of places like Boulder, Denver, Austin – a nice statement for our wonderful city. We still have some work to do if we are going to take over the top spot from Fort Collins, CO; but they are holding steady and we are still surging forward. And remember to type in “Oklahoma City”, not “OKC” or a metro suburb – it waters down the vote total! Vote early and often! Thanks!

“Design is people.”

- Jane Jacobs

What happens when you get 24 pieces of colored cardboard, model glue, a resin molder, laser cutter and someone who has a passion for miniature models together for the entire weekend?…hmm, I have no idea.  In fact, that sounds like a complete waste of time.  But you can pull off a pretty good “miniature model look” by tilt-shifting the image, and now you don’t have to buy an expensive lens to make it happen.  Tiltshiftmaker.com allows you to upload photos to which you can then apply a digital tilt-shift effect.  I snagged some birds-eyes from maps.live.com and am pretty impressed with the results.  Take a look and then try it out for yourself.

If you come up with something cool, email it to me and I will post it for the world to see.

• Mapping Pedestrian Friendliness in OKC
  I came across this article by Jan Gehl – an urban design rock star – in which he discusses the importance of the design of the first-floor of urban buildings in attracting pedestrians and creating active streets. Downtown Oklahoma City has made tremendous gains since MAPS, but we still have very few streets with the restaurants, shopping, and (above all) people most often found in a pedestrian-friendly urban environment. In the article Close Encounters with Building (note: downloads as a .pdf), Gehl explains the importance of the first ten feet of a building and how it can either help to create a street or public space that pedestrians want to visit or conversely, create a place that pedestrians will avoid.
  (tags: jan.gehl flashback)
• Ten Trends Shaping the Future of Our Communities | Project for Public Spaces (PPS)
  1. Placemaking gains ground around the globe
  2. Collaboration is the key to making change
  3. Greenplace: How community revitalization fights climate change
  4. Placemaking is essential to vibrant travel destinations
  5. Libraries emerge as new town squares
  6. How cities stay lively 12 months a year
  7. The Power of 10 leverages community assets
  8. Public markets provide a leg up in a down economy
  9. The rise of community-based transportation planning
  10. New developments create innovative models for destinations
  (tags: pps public.space community.building planning)
• Urban Neighbors, is a good urban neighbor | & Lackmeyer Web Show
  Urban Neighbors isn’t quite two years old, but the downtown residents association is impacting everything from city planning to developers’ efforts to lure in new retail.
  (tags: urban.neighbors okc oklahoma.city)

• An Open Letter from Grant Humphreys
  UPDATE: A co-worker got an interesting call from a “homebuilder” who complained about this post. The homebuilder didn’t bother contacting me directly, but apparently feels this is a ”lovefest” for Grant Humphreys and wanted to know how much Grant paid for it.

  Grant paid nothing. I post what I find interesting. I found the new animation interesting. I thought Grant’s comments were interesting. There you have it, anonymous homebuilder. The same logic went into yesterday’s posting on the Prohibition Room.
  I also think this might be interesting to my readers. If I’m guily of a ”lovefest” here, I guess you can also say I’ve had “lovefests” with Marva Ellard and the Sieber, Ron Bradshaw and the Maywood Lofts, Larry Nichols and Devon Tower, pretty much all of Bricktown and all of MidTown and all of Automobile Alley.
  Here’s the thing people keep on missing: I cover downtown and the inner-core. That’s what I do.

  Geez…

  (tags: okccentral)
• The Century Club: Anton Classen | Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City) | Find Articles at BNET
  "…Originally, he claimed land in Guthrie. But Classen soon realized there was an overabundance of attorneys in the area. He moved south along the Santa Fe Railroad tracks and invested his money and energy in the community of Edmond…"
  (tags: thesis history oklahoma.city okc)

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.


ABOUT THE VIDEO

This video attempts to break down the credit crisis into an easy to understand presentation. The information presented is seemingly on target. There are perhaps a few cheap shots, but on the whole I think it stays away from politics and gives an even handed overview of how everything fell apart. I only take exception to the “irresponsible homeowners” having more kids than the “responsible” ones. Either way, I really recommend you taking the time to watch it. I have background in finance and have tried to keep up with all of the information coming out about the credit crisis, but this presentation really helped to weave it all together.


FROM THE AUTHOR

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. For more on my broader thesis work exploring the use of new media to make sense of a increasingly complex world, visit my website here.

Find out more on his website: Crisis of Credit

• Pedestrian Malls: Back to the Future – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com
  This week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that cars would be barred from several blocks of Broadway, including Herald Square and Times Square. He said the changes would relieve traffic congestion and crowded sidewalks — far different problems from what spawned the pedestrian malls of the 70s. And it’s not just New York that’s rethinking this old idea. San Francisco is considering restrictions on private cars on Market Street, the city’s main artery.
  (tags: walkability pedestrianization nyc transportation place.making)