THINK.urban
Research
Carless Urban Design
Along with the recent discussions on developments without parking spaces, it was news this week that Los Angeles has approved a plan for a district without any mandatory parking requirements (you can read the full Streetsblog.org report here). Other auto-related news has surfaced recently regarding the heart of the matter – not only the space … Continue reading
New Project: PDX Street Art Advocacy
We’ve started up a new project here at THINK.urban we’re calling PDX Street Art Advocacy. Spurred on by Tiffany Conklin, a recent Portland State University graduate in Urban Studies, and her master’s thesis on street art in Portland neighborhoods, we’re hoping to help people with the process of murals, conduct more research on street art … Continue reading
It's All About Choice
Here’s a lovely write-up and video about Portland’s transportation options in USA Today. It’s always nice to see people like Professor Dill of Portland State University and Rob Sadowsky of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance featured in this editorial. While “cars vs. bikes” is brought up, it’s fairly accurate in representing the situation here without adding … Continue reading
The Visitor's Perspective
There’s a lot of talk lately about parking, whether it’s new no-parking developments on SE Division St. as we mentioned recently, occupying parking spaces with the newly debuted “street seats”, or claims that the car is the “most dangerous invention in the world”. Whatever your personal opinion it is a fact that we have to … Continue reading
To Park or Not to Park
One of those age-old dilemmas of urban infill development is coming to bear on a particular area of Portland, which has always seemed immune to the inane “development must have parking” issues. Guess not, as there has been a multitude of backlash related to a series of projects along SE Division Street. Some of these … Continue reading
Livability, but would you want to live there?
A poll from Gallup Wellbeing uses a range of metrics to delineate the ‘Best US State for Future Livability’, which is of course a very broad categorization, but interesting nonetheless. The top ten states in the rankings: Compare this to the bottom rankings: Perhaps not all of your top picks on where to live, or … Continue reading
City Growth, and "What's a City?"
The constantly shifting definition of ‘City’ or ‘Urban’ makes for some ambiguity in talking about our aggregations (or is that agglomerations?) of development. Grist mentions the perceived dilemma with contradictions that the 2010 census shows that cities are adding population faster than suburbs for the first time in the last century, while also finding documentation … Continue reading
Square Pegs & Round Holes
A conversation that permeates any discipline involved in the social sciences is how to evaluate the rigor of research as ‘science’. There’s a ton of baggage related to this, particularly when compared to ‘hard’ sciences and the traditional theory > hypothesis > testing mode of deductive reasoning. A recent short article, “Overcoming ‘Physics Envy’” … Continue reading
GOOD Video: Building a Bike Highway
Check it out! The video is now live at GOOD Ideas for Cities, with a nice intro from Alissa Walker: “Portland is famous for its vibrant biking culture, but the city’s infrastructure hasn’t caught up with the number of bikers on the streets. How do we create bikeways that will not only protect current cyclists, … Continue reading
GOOD Ideas for Portland: Cycling Infrastructure
THINK.urban, recently completed the presentation of our various concepts for GOOD Ideas for Cities Portland. The team was one of six, which included Wieden+Kennedy, Ziba, Sincerely Interested, OMFGco, and ADXPortland, all tackling tough ideas. The THINK.urban concepts were developed alongside working alongside our urban leader, BikePortland.org founder Jonathan Maus, who presented the challenge: “Now it’s … Continue reading
