Category Archives: New Urbanism

Urban Design: The Good Kind & the Other Kind

by John Massengale Posted on May 16, 2016

WE ALL UNDERSTAND why so many normal, rational New Yorkers can act like NIMBYs—because we’ve all seen alien, intrusive development in New York like Billionaire Row and Atlantic Yards. Recent developments at the American Museum of Natural History brought this … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Beauty, Classical, Culture, Current, Egotecture, Good Kind, New Urbanism, New York, The Other Kind, Urbanism | Comments Off on Urban Design: The Good Kind & the Other Kind

To Stop Pedestrian Deaths NYC Must Change How it Builds Streets

by John Massengale Posted on December 29, 2015

From CITYLIMITS.ORG: November 13th—Friday the 13th—marked the 13th day in a row that a pedestrian died on a New York City Street, all killed by cars or buses going too fast. They were among the 19 pedestrian deaths in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Beauty, Current, New Urbanism, New York, Pedestrian, Slow Streets, Street Design, Urbanism, Walkability | Comments Off on To Stop Pedestrian Deaths NYC Must Change How it Builds Streets

Happy Earth Day — The 21st Century Is The New Sixties?

by John Massengale Posted on April 22, 2015

EARTH DAY reminded me of my old friend Konrad Oberhuber, an art historian at Harvard when I met him, who later became the Curator of the Albertina in Vienna. In 1983 I went on a Fogg Museum trip to Prague with Konrad … Continue reading →

Posted in Bicycle, Classical, Culture, Current, Global, Historic Preservation, New Urbanism, Pedestrian, Street Design, Walkability | Comments Off on Happy Earth Day — The 21st Century Is The New Sixties?

The Problem Is Not The Starchitecture. The Problem Is What Gets Left Out Of The Discussion.

by John Massengale Posted on January 7, 2015

ALMOST AS SOON AS THE ACE HOTEL OPENED in New York City, the word spread among the cool tech kids and the young beautiful people that the Ace lobby was the place to meet and work. Blogs like This Is Going To Be BIG wrote … Continue reading →

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What do we want? Change! When do we want it? Now!

by John Massengale Posted on December 29, 2014

Funny that this is the first image that came up when I Googled “What do we want? Change! When do we want it? Now!” “Funny,” because I’m writing about the AIA’s response to the common-sense proposal by Steve Bingler and … Continue reading →

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Ferguson, Missouri and the Cost of Sprawl

by John Massengale Posted on August 26, 2014

ENGINEER CHARLES MAROHN makes his usual insightful and interesting points in a post about Ferguson, Missouri on the Strong Towns blog (below). I happened to read the post just before reading an article in the Guardian that had many long quotes from … Continue reading →

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The 21st Century Will Be Different Than The 20th

by John Massengale Posted on July 6, 2014

We’re starting to see that people in the 21st century are rejecting many of the trends of the late 20th century. Just as architecture and urbanism in the second half of the 20th century were very different than they had been … Continue reading →

Posted in Bicycle, Classical, Culture, Current, New Urbanism, Pedestrian, Street Design, Urbanism | Comments Off on The 21st Century Will Be Different Than The 20th