THINK.urban
Statistics
Bicycle Commuter Stats Maps
A simple graduated symbol map from Governing.com shows the range of commuter rates for cities – with a roll-over for specific cities to show more detail. The map for Bike Commuters shows a comparison of commuters to total workers – so each is proportional. The high margin of error in the data (which in the notes … 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
Annotated Bibliography – 07.30.12
There a lot of information out there related to aspects of urbanism in its many facets, so in the spirit of academia, a feature here at THINK.urban will be to regularly compile and summarize some recent articles, posts, and other resources. These are brief elements that don’t get their own post, but are interesting reading … 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
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 Cities event a blast!
We’ve been busy at work on the submittal for the GOOD Ideas for cities proposal for bike infrastructure. The event was a great success – and the conversation for new bike concepts in Portland and beyond, mixed with some luck and political will, has the potential to elevate the conversation and adopt some new infrastructure … Continue reading
Public Space and Protest: Occupying the City
The Occupy Wall Street movement is now a wide-spread and well-known phenomenon which, at its peak, created hundreds of camps in solidarity with each other in public parks across the globe. Portland, Oregon, was of course no exception to this and set up a mini tent-city in Chapman and Lownsdale Square Parks between October 6th … Continue reading
Infographic: Portland, King of Bike-opolis
A simple variation on the biking infographic from yesterday, this animated version from GOOD shows how Portland leads in the bike wars, just barely, between US cities for percentage of commuters by bike.
Infographic: Bicycling, the Present and Future
A nice one from Sustainablog, with some juicy facts about biking today (and tomorrow). Graphic produced by WellHome. We had previously posted a different infographic, How Bikes Can Save Us, but have since learned that we, like so many others, were duped. The previous infographic was actually a form of spam by healthcaremanagementdegree dot com … Continue reading
Introducing Megapolitanism
A recent article from John King at the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned the concept of using the Megalopolitan scale for planning purposes. The article references the new book by Arthur C. Nelson and Robert E. Lang entitled ‘Megapolitan America: A New Vision for Understanding America’s Metropolitan Geography‘ (APA, 2011). As an example, King mentions the … Continue reading
