Tuesday, August 14, 2007

a smarter city


Today I spoke with Katrina and Sam, editors of Dwell magazine and learned about new initiatives they're undertaking that have the potential to change our urban landscape. The challenge is to bring architects, city designers and engineers together to brainstorm about the ways we can make our city better. How do we design multi-unit housing so it truly promotes community? We spoke about learning from our mistakes with housing projects, how we can build a more sustainable city and what it will mean to look beyond San Francisco's new Federal building.

Washington DC is a recent example of what happens when urban planners start to run out of space an poor neighborhoods become valuable real estate. Naturally it's difficult not to wonder what is in store for the Tenderloin and more importantly how will we deal with it's inhabitants. It's also interesting to try and understand how we can clean up our cities without destroying their history or culture. The Meatpacking district of New York is a new place when it's filled with fancy restaurants, so can we clean up sections of the city without destroying their culture; or is that premise too centered around trying to hold on to the past. Come to the Dwell conference and learn more.

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