• David Byrne’s Perfect City – WSJ.com
  There’s an old joke that you know you're in heaven if the cooks are Italian and the engineering is German. If it's the other way around you're in hell. In an attempt to conjure up a perfect city, I imagine a place that is a mash-up of the best qualities of a host of cities. The permutations are endless. Maybe I'd take the nightlife of New York in a setting like Sydney's with bars like those in Barcelona and cuisine from Singapore served in outdoor restaurants like those in Mexico City. Or I could layer the sense of humor in Spain over the civic accommodation and elegance of Kyoto. Of course, it's not really possible to cherry pick like this—mainly because a city's qualities cannot thrive out of context. A place's cuisine and architecture and language are all somehow interwoven. But one can dream.
  (tags: urbanism cities article jane.jacobs)

New York City’s Department of Transportation recently unveiled its Street Design Manual. Its very existence is a bit of a miracle.

By Jeff Speck

NYC Street Design Manual’s illustration of major street features. Design: Pure+Applied

About a month ago I received a package in the mail from my co-author Andres Duany. It was the New York City Street Design Manual, with a cover letter imploring me to look at the paper. “It feels just right — so green! We need to use the same paper for our manual.”

Indeed, the slightly rough, porous paper is one of many details, tactile and otherwise, that add up to the just-right feeling of this timely and valuable book (if one can call a tabbed loose-leaf binder a book.) Every aspect of this product feels positively 21st century, except perhaps its unerringly even-handed treatment of the broad range of solutions it offers — solutions that span the spectrum from the mundane to the revolutionary.

Andres need not have sent me the manual, as I already had a copy, received from the City of New York’s on-line shop after a long wait. It came just in time to help me with comprehensive pro-walkability street redesign efforts that I am working on for Oklahoma City and Davenport, Iowa. Just how much it was able to help me, and where it fell short, will be one subject of this essay.

But first, let’s dispense with the obligatory assessment: Do you need to buy this $35 book? Yes, if you are involved in any way in the design of city streets. Yes, also, if you can plop it on the lap of someone who is. Since this collection of best practices is put forward as the recommended policy of our nation’s biggest city, its potential clout makes up for any flaws or limitations in its contents. Of course, its only weakness as a political tool stems necessarily from the same source: I can already hear my Midwestern clients complaining that they don’t want to become New York. But we know that deep down, just a little bit, most of them would like to share some of the magic of America’s most sustainable city….

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

• City Council Approves Art Requirement
  The Oklahoma City Council Tuesday passed a new ordinance requiring that one percent of construction expenses spent on City-owned property be set aside for art in public spaces. The mandatory art funding was a recommendation of the Oklahoma City Arts Commission, which suggests and reviews art purchases and makes recommendations for City Council approval. The ordinance applies to the construction of new buildings, major renovations of existing buildings and significant park development.
  (tags: art civic oklahoma.city okc design)
• MAPS 3 proposals almost ready for Oklahoma voters | NewsOK.com
  "Whether those transit improvements will include better bus service, light rail, a modern streetcar or some combination of the three will be among the details city officials release at a news conference within two weeks, Cornett said. The cost of the proposal and length of the sales tax also will be announced.

  Cornett said the city council must call for a vote by Oct. 6 to get MAPS 3 on the December ballot."

  NOTE: So it appears that the public will have as much as two weeks or as little as one week to digest the information released before a vote of the council must take place.

  (tags: maps3 public.process)

• Mayor Mick Cornett joins advertising agency as executive vice president | NewsOK.com
  Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, who has operated his own video production firm since he was first elected, has joined Ackerman McQueen Advertising Agency as its executive vice president of special projects, said Edmund O. Martin, the agency’s board chairman.

  Cornett said talks began about a year ago with Martin. The new position coincides with Cornett’s decision not to make a second bid for the upcoming opening in the 5th District congressional seat being vacated by Mary Fallin.

  "I’ve always known Ed and Angus (McQueen, chief executive officer),” Cornett said. "One time I mentioned to Ed, over a year ago, how interested I was in what they were doing and if they wanted to talk to me about doing something with them, I’d be interested in that.

  (tags: mayor.cornett oklahoma.city okc)
• Designs meant to open neighborhood ‘dialogue’ | NewsOK.com
  For more than a decade, architect Hans Butzer has been sculpting the city’s skyline — from the heart-stopping Oklahoma City National Memorial to the linchpin of downtown’s "Core 2 Shore” redesign, the upcoming Skydance Bridge.

  But look closer and you’ll find expressions of Butzer’s dedication to sustainable growth in much less-grand settings. Maybe even right in your own neighborhood.

  (tags: hans.butzer architecture sustainability oklahoma.city okc)
• On The Block – Real Estate : Making cities more appealing to suburbans, one garden at a time
  As Baker explains in this video, "greenness" is determined more by population density than by climate. Thus, Manhattan, with its 70,000 people per square mile has the lowest carbon footprint in the United States. In contrast, Oklahoma City has about 872 people per square mile and they each produce about double the carbon of a New Yorker.
  (tags: density okc oklahoma.city population greenness sustainability)

• Terry Gardner: The Santa Monica Pier: Still Hip at 100
  The 122,000-pound wheel was auctioned off on eBay for $132,400. Half the proceeds were donated to the Special Olympics of Southern California. Grant Humphreys, the 32 year-old real estate developer who bought it plans to incorporate the old Ferris wheel into a mixed use commercial/residential development called "The Waterfront" that Humphreys is developing along the Oklahoma River in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

  At nine stories high, the new Pacific Wheel lifts riders more than 130 feet above the Pacific Ocean and lights up the sky with 160,000 energy-efficient LED lights that generate more than 71,000-kilowatt hours of renewable photovoltaic power from sunlight. The wheel's 6,000 plus multi-colored bulbs and 16 special effects combine at night to create a truly spectacular show against the backdrop of the California coastline.

  (tags: okc Okalhoma.City river waterfront airpark)