Posts tagged with 'public space'
From developing bus rapid transit to improving public spaces, Belo Horizonte, Brazil is working to become a sustainable city. Photo by Eduardo Beltrame.
Seven ways Belo Horizonte, Brazil inspires sustainable cities
Belo Horizonte, Brazil is a city of remarkable cuisine, green spaces, and architecture. The city is increasingly designed using people-oriented urban development strategies that prioritize the people who make the city come alive. Even for outsiders, this state capital feels like ...
Five new publications from EMBARQ Brasil will help foster people-oriented cities with high quality public transport systems. Photo by Dylan Passmore/Flickr.
Five new resources for more sustainable Brazilian cities
In some Brazilian cities, poorly managed urban development has led to “3D” urban form – distant, dispersed, and disconnected. Over the past ten years, demand for urban public transport has decreased by 33% in Brazilian cities while car sales are ...
Urban gardens, like the one pictured above in Kibera, Nairobi, allow residents to come together for healthier, happier communities. Photo by Colin Crowley/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Urban gardening builds strong, cohesive communities
CNN recently described Cape Town, South Africa as being in the midst of a “vegoultion,” with hundreds of new community gardens and urban farms popping up throughout the city in recent years. The city’s “Green Clusters” are helping to improve ...
Public art can help shape vibrant, cohesive communities. What role does art play in your city? Photo by João Perdigão/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Public art for brighter cities
Cities in the United States can now participate in the Public Art Challenge, a new program to support innovative temporary public art projects by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The program invites U.S. cities with 30,000 or more residents to submit proposals for ...
Governments can improve the livelihoods of female street vendors by creating safe public spaces and supporting member-based groups of informal workers. Photo by Jeff DeMaria/Flickr.
Recognizing the role of gender in the informal urban economy
The informal economy is often referred to as the “shadow economy,” a glaring indicator of its absence from the eyes of policymakers. As discussed on TheCityFix, street vendors are frequently ignored in surveys of jobs and economic productivity, despite their ...
Caption: Cities can dramatically improve street vendors’ livelihoods by providing sufficient space and infrastructure for vending. Photo by Prasanth Chandran/Flickr.
Making space for street vendors: Towards equitable urban development
As previously discussed on TheCityFix, informal street vendors in cities around the world experience daily challenges to their economic livelihoods. For example, street vendors are perceived to be detrimental to city life, unhygienic, noisy, and to obstruct smooth flow of ...
São Paulo’s new master plan prioritizes people, not cars. Photo by mlsirac/Flickr.
São Paulo’s new master plan prioritizes sustainable urban development
The largest city in Latin America has prioritized curbing car culture and making streets more pedestrian friendly. São Paulo’s new strategic master plan, unveiled on July 31, 2014, focuses on people-oriented development and improved public and non-motorized transport. The new ...
In order to make cities safer and public spaces more inviting for all, EMBARQ India studied how women perceive – and how they are perceived in – India's urban public spaces. Photo by EMBARQ.
What does a sociological approach to safe cities reveal?: Findings from a national workshop in India
While concerns of violence against women are not new, women’s safety in public spaces has received significant attention in India in the past two years. Cities are seeing increased demands around making public spaces safer for women, ranging from better ...
The people in Bogota's informal sector and the city government have clashing visions of how informal commerce should play out on public transport and in public spaces. Photo by Nathan Gibbs/Flickr.
Public transport and the informal sector: Competing visions of Bogotá’s future
There is an entire ecosystem of informal commerce along Bogotá, Colombia’s streets. Some vendors sit at traffic signals or bus stops, waiting for a bus that’s not too full and not too empty. When they spot a good candidate, they ...
Copenhagen, Denmark, is welcoming for both pedestrians and bikers because of the people-centered urban design principles that Jan Gehl spearheaded. Photo by Justin Swan/Flickr.
Urbanism Hall of Fame: Jan Gehl integrates humanity into urban design
This is the fourth entry in the Urbanism Hall of Fame series, exclusive to TheCityFix. This series is intended to inform people about the leading paradigms surrounding sustainable transport and urban planning and the thinkers behind them. By presenting their many ...
Japan's shotengais - partly enclosed markets - succeed both because of their proximity to transport and the unique, tightly knit communities they foster. Photo by Michael Vito/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Japan’s shotengais show connectivity and community are key to commercial success
Even as malls are declining as social spaces in the United States, shotengais (商店街) – pedestrianized business districts covered with translucent roofs – remain a part of everyday life in Japanese cities. Shotengais are generally located near transport hubs and ...
Jaime Lerner's vision for Curitiba, Brazil, included creating a connected, sustainable city that would be accessible to all. Photo by EMBARQ/Flickr.
Urbanism Hall of Fame: Jaime Lerner – The architect of Curitiba
This is the third entry in the Urbanism Hall of Fame series, exclusive to TheCityFix. This series is intended to inform people about the leading paradigms surrounding sustainable transport and urban planning and the thinkers behind them. By presenting their ...
Taxi bus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Photo by Overseas Development Institute/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Community building through skateboarding in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, is one of the fastest growing cities in Africa. In fact, it’s population has almost tripled since 1970. In its rapid race towards development, little space was left for parks, little consideration was ...
Surrounding transport systems subtly shape the patterns of interaction within public spaces. Photo by Dan Nguyen/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Three cities demonstrate the role of transport in shaping public space
Public spaces function as city halls, entertainment epicenters, informal meeting places, and cultural classrooms for cities. When thinking about what makes a successful public gathering point, things like architecture, historic monuments, and the people within the space come quickly to ...
Pedestrianization projects like that of Istanbul's historic peninsula can reduce traffic crashes and protect pedestrians. Photo by Andres Arjona/Flickr.
Cities that inspire us for United Nations Global Road Safety Week 2015
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the third Global Road Safety Week occurred in April 2014. The third Global Road Safety week is planned for 2015.  Already there are 1.2 million traffic-related deaths per year worldwide. ...
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