LEGO Cities

So here I thought that LEGO was for kids! Apparently not the case, or at least it's for big kids. Like these:

Urban App of the Day: Compare Global Cities on the iPad

The free Urban World was developed by the McKinsey Global Institute, a research organization aimed at informing business and policy makers about the global economy. It stems from the institute's myriad research and data.

FourSquare check-ins show the pulse of cities

For years, the location-tracking app FourSquare has been amassing an enviable well of data on how people spend their time, where they go, and what these patterns reveal about their commuting and entertaining behaviors. If you're on one end of the app, checking in on your smart phone at a neighborhood dive bar, the tool is a handy way to broadcast your whereabouts to your friends. From the other end – from FourSquare's point of view – each logged location contributes to a much larger picture of the life of whole business districts and cities.

Foursquare check-ins show the pulse of New York City and Tokyo

The Urban Planning With LEGO

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What Will Happen to Budapest's 'Ruin Pubs' Once All the Ruin Is Removed?

Szimpla in the Budapest Jewish Quarter

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- The two-story building at 14 Kazinczy Utca isn’t much to look at. Some of its windows have been boarded up and a thick layer of dirt and grime has settled into the crumbling facade. A collection of potted plants sits on a balcony overlooking the street while a bright yellow sign hangs in a doorway below.

You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but this is one of the most popular places to be in Budapest, at least on a Friday or Saturday night.

Push past the front door and a dimly-lit hallway leads to a large, open-air courtyard. Colorful lights strung together with furniture and a bicycle or two hang suspended in the air above and scenes from a black-and-white movie are projected onto the back wall. Off to the side sits an old Trabant, a type of car made in East Germany during the Cold War. The courtyard opens onto a maze of rooms, each decorated differently. In one, ancient-looking computer monitors and television sets are mounted to the walls. In another, a bathtub has been split in half and converted into a makeshift seating area.

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How to Design a City for Women

Don’t worry this is not about separating the genders, or some post feminist ranty power grab.

In 1999, officials in Vienna, Austria, asked residents of the city's ninth district how often and why they used public transportation. "Most of the men filled out the questionnaire in less than five minutes," says Ursula Bauer, one of the city administrators tasked with carrying out the survey. "But the women couldn't stop writing."

The majority of men reported using either a car or public transit twice a day -- to go to work in the morning and come home at night. Women, on the other hand, used the city’s network of sidewalks, bus routes, subway lines and streetcars more frequently and for a myriad reasons.

"The women had a much more varied pattern of movement," Bauer recalls. "They were writing things like, 'I take my kids to the doctor some mornings, then bring them to school before I go to work. Later, I help my mother buy groceries and bring my kids home on the metro.'"

Women used public transit more often and made more trips on foot than men. They were also more likely to split their time between work and family commitments like taking care of children and elderly parents. Recognizing this, city planners drafted a plan to improve pedestrian mobility and access to public transit.

Read more at Atlantic Cities - Link

WA Young Planners Series

Metropolitan Local Government Reform: The Future of our Councils

PIA’s Young Planners would like to present the first networking event of the Young Planners Series… Metropolitan Local Government Reform: The Future of our Councils. Perth’s metropolitan area is experiencing an unprecedented rate of growth, with the population set to reach 2.3 million by 2026, and may be as high as 3.5 million by 2050. Due to population growth and economic development, and its strategic location relative to the Asian economies, Perth is on the cusp of a period of transformational change.

Placemaking and the City

Cities are back in fashion; on television (Sex in the City), in music (with ‘urban’ now the codeword for black, popular and rhythmic), in architecture (where density generates the most rewarding opportunities), among international agencies (seeking ways of managing post-Fordist and post-industrial societies), and within the planning establishment (with the reversal of ideas on the uses of the city). One of the most important issues facing planning at the beginning of the twenty-first century is how to revitalise cities. Today, cities are seen as assets rather than liabilities. Their role as engines of economic growth is widely accepted and their spheres of influence the city is becoming recognised as fundamental building blocks in the national fabric.

Bench Bombing in Philly

One simple way to transform public space

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Digital Placemaking - City Fireflies

"What is City Fireflies?

City Fireflies is a simple game that looks like tons of fun: Players cluster in a plaza in front of a large videoscreen showing a grid of 8-bit-looking "enemy" characters, which is superimposed on a live video image of the physical plaza itself. The goal of the game is for the players to physically move around the plaza to sweep the "enemies" off screen. (Or catch them like fireflies, if you prefer.) The game was meant to be casual: easily intuited rules, instant visual feedback, and a porous structure so that players could enter and leave the gamespace at will without disrupting the gameplay. Which meant that the interaction design had to be ultra-casual as well--so transparent that the energy barrier of joining the game was reduced to nearly zero.

The game designers programmed City Fireflies to track a much simpler indicator for each player: the glowing rectangle of light emitted by the smartphone screen itself. It’s the perfect solution: No apps to install or procedures to explain. City Fireflies simply directs players to point their phones at the giant game screen, and start moving around. The instant visual feedback is clear: The phone becomes your "net" for catching and removing the digital avatars onscreen.

[Read more about City Fireflies]