Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Urban Design

What Can an Algorithm Tell Us About How People Perceive Streets?

By Angie Schmitt | Aug 8, 2014 | No Comments

What makes people feel that a street is safe, and what do those perceptions tell us about different streets? A group of researchers at MIT have developed a formula designed to approximate people’s subjective reactions to the way streets look. They hope it will help chart shifts in the quality of city environments over time and […]

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William H. Whyte in His Own Words: “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”

By Clarence Eckerson Jr. | Jul 25, 2014 | No Comments

When I first got started making NYC bike advocacy and car-free streets videos back in the late-1990s on cable TV, I didn’t know who William “Holly” Whyte was or just how much influence his work and research had on New York City. A few years later I met Fred and Ethan Kent at Project for Public Spaces. I got a copy of […]

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How Do Streets Affect Your City’s Happiness?

By Clarence Eckerson Jr. | Apr 28, 2014 | No Comments

In this Streetfilm, Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton interviews award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery about his fantastic new book, “Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design,” which delves into the hard-to-measure question of how the built environment affects our mental wellbeing. Mark and Charles discuss how research from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral economics, and psychology […]

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New Software Lets You Virtually Stroll Down Streets That You Design

By Angie Schmitt | Nov 27, 2013 | No Comments

Folks across the blogosphere are geeking out over this new software created by Spencer Boomhower at the Portland firm Cupola Media. “Unity3D Visualization” lets users manipulate the features of a street and then evaluate the changes in an immersive animated display. The software uses video game technology to help people understand how different designs will “feel.” […]

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Flint’s Ingenious Plan to “Right-Size” Its Streets With Road Diets

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 29, 2013 | No Comments

Flint, Michigan, is probably best known as the poster child for population loss and de-industrialization, as captured in the Michael Moore movie, “Roger and Me.” Though this town of about 100,000 has never fully recovered from the loss of 30,000 General Motors jobs that was the subject of that film, Flint is becoming known for […]

Meet Streetmix, the Website Where You Can Design Your Own Street

By Stephen Miller | Aug 12, 2013 | 21 Comments

Last fall, Lou Huang was at a community meeting for the initiative to redesign Second Street in San Francisco. Planners handed out paper cutouts, allowing participants to mix and match to create their ideal street. Huang, an urban designer himself, thought the exercise would make for a great website. Now, after months of work beginning at a January […]

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