Amsterdam, like most cities, has a significant amount of pressure upon its housing market to provide affordable and adequate accommodations to those who need it. This strain is due in part to the mass migration to cities that is happening around the world. The International Organization for Migration estimates that about 3 million people move to cities each week, and approximately 54% of people worldwide now live in cities, up 20% from 1950. However, this problem is not new. Following WWII, the Netherlands suffered a severe housing shortage characterized by an abundance of vacant and abandoned ..read more

May, National Bike Month, is over. To extend the momentum, we are releasing the second edition of our top 20 of the most visited active and alternative transportation websites according to Alexa Analytics scores. This ranking includes online resources for news and information about walking, biking and public transportation, professional associations and membership organizations websites. It also features a few local websites of leading organizations advocating for biking and bike infrastructure in the United States. Federal Transit Administration / https://www.transit.dot.gov / @FTA_DOT The ..read more

“100 Years, 100 Landscape Designs” by John Hill calls attention to one hundred landscape designs, one per year, from 1917 to 2017. Hill and his publisher, Prestel, team up to construct a book that is enthralling – in visual and text form. The book itself is a beautiful compilation of photography from one hundred selected landscapes, while Hill’s text gives the reader an introduction into the historical importance and beauty of each site. Hill defines landscape design as more than plant-focused “landscape” design, but rather the design of functional, outdoor space. The landscapes he selected ar ..read more

Everyone, at one point or another has stumbled into a neighborhood that for reasons beyond their control, immediately intrigued, energized, and compelled them to stay awhile; the best neighborhoods in the world have distinct identity, opportunities to look at or interact with other people, and afford freedom to the people who occupy the space. Often these places that draw us in are easy to understand and difficult to describe because they go beyond successful urban design and convenient location to provoke feeling. One of those neighborhoods that always calls to me is the Latin Quarter of Amst ..read more

In her 2016 book, “This is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are,” author Melody Warnick explores if a place can become the right place by our choosing to love it. She presents a list of ten “Love Where You Live” experiments that are supposed to lead to what is known as place attachment. Melody Warnick is a freelance journalist and self-described “chronic mover.” Over the past 15 years, she has written articles for The Guardian, Atlantic CityLab, Quartz, Reader’s Digest, O:The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Better Homes and Gardens, and many other publications. This is her first book, and ..read more

#TheGlobalGrid Twitter chat topic for National Bike Month addressed biking infrastructure in cities and how to best engage communities in implementing complete streets. The creation of new bike lanes in many cities is often faced with local opposition. Community members fear that the changes may hinder their mobility freedom and eventually disturb lifestyle patterns in their neighborhoods. Two experts joined us in an engaging conversation around this topic: Christopher Kidd, a Complete Streets Planner at San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. He is also a board member at Transport Oak ..read more

Boston grew from the sea by way of man-made land. Now, the city is facing a return to the sea by way of man-made emissions. Climate resilience and adaptation are emerging in fields spanning urban planning, architecture, real estate, finance, policy, and law, increasingly gaining prominence in coastal areas in particular. Originally an 800-acre peninsula when founded in 1630, Boston used fill, largely from the removal of hillsides, to expand the city to today’s nearly 57,600 acres over time (see a map from National Geographic below). The growth has allowed the greater metropolitan region to sup ..read more

Today, I did what I do every day: I rode my bike to work. I started along an iconic Amsterdam-red bike lane from my house in Amsterdam-Noord to the Ijplein ferry, disembarked on the other side of the river and made my way through a chaotic and humbling course of separated cycle tracks, canal-side streets, shared lanes, and the inevitable challenge of finding parking. I did this not because I am remarkable or healthy or in good physical shape, I did it mostly because it’s the simplest and easiest way to get to work in Amsterdam. This, of course, is no accident. The City has been planning for my ..read more

Germany has been in the vanguard of going green. It has implemented a myriad of environmental policies, such as the Climate Action Plan 2050 to ensure a greener tomorrow. The plan’s objective is to eliminate nuclear energy from the nation by 2022 and to generate eighty percent of its energy from renewables by 2050. When Angela Merkel became chancellor of Germany in 2005, her political party, the center-right Christian Democrats, still favored nuclear energy; however, when the Fukushima disaster occurred in 2011, Merkel promised to phase out nuclear power by 2022. In light of that, prior t ..read more

In “Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency” by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and Timothy Hursley, the authors join words and images into a captivating narrative that creates a window into rural Hale County, Alabama. You can almost hear the rain beating down on the recycled tin roof and feel the cool breeze blowing through the dogtrot. Did you know it rains 60 inches a year there? That’s an important design consideration. The authors have captured the story of Rural Studio through interviews with students, teachers, and clients, along with a selection of photographs of studio pro ..read more