Urban Related Articles & Notes
Some good stuff I've come across in my Sunday readings:
How Costco Become the Anti-Walmart
Unfortunately Bi-Lo is purchasing the Win-Dixie in St. Elmo, 'cause I'd love to have a Costco there instead, imagine how great those wages would be for the surrounding neighborhoods. Imagine the out-of-neighborhood traffic, increasing exposure to St. Elmo.
The APA has put out its latest City Parks paper, focusing on parks, with a great article on how to use parks for revitalization. Got me thinking about the current stalled plan to turn the old rec center into a cool park. Note to self: bug Councilman Rico etc.
Fascinating article/study from the Center for Local Economic Strategies showing that an increase in public spaces can lead to higher "AC" (Active Citizenship), in other words, all the great public-space development in the Riverfront increases the involvement of Chattanoogans in city affairs.
An aside: I wonder if said development may have played some role in the outcome of this past years mayoral election by drawing in those (via their partaking in all the new public spaces) who otherwise might not have been interested. You can imagine where I'm going with this.
Anyone want to sponsor me going to this? I dig how UK planners talk about "village" planning/development. Us we talk about towns, neighborhoods, cities but not villages. Thinking about the few times I've been to UK, I can't really think of anything in the US akin to the UK village. While I'm talking about the UK, former head of Chattanooga's Planning & Design Studio (he was canned recently by Mayor Littlefield for supporting his opponent in the last election), genius Stroud Watson, turns out was involved in the planning of UK city Milton-Keynes.
I'm not sure what kind of role Mr. Watson had in the planning on Milton-Keynes, but I stayed there a couple years ago with my parents for a couple of weeks. It was a "modern" planned city with a grid-like layout, incorporating mini-commercial centers and parks. Quite frankly, it's horrible. You have to drive to get anywhere, and the "centers" were more or less slums. The best part was finding our way into the old villages that Milton-Keynes had "absorbed" when it was founded post WW2 (our fav was Woughton-on-the-Green aka "Woughton-in-my-pants!, they had a good pub)". They were the pockets of old-English coolness inside this monument to post WW2 urban planning.
Urban Planning | By Josiah Roe | 10:35 PM
Comments
great links. why do you insist that our new park is on stall?
Posted by: mary at July 25, 2005 09:03 AM
yeah, have you not noticed that the rec center is now completely gone?
and I say hooray for bi-lo. sure costco would be nice, but it doesnt seem like a good fit for that space or for the needs of the people.
Posted by: bobw at July 25, 2005 09:42 AM
I don't see why I would want to pay a membership fee to have the 'privilage' to go into either Costco or Sam's Club. Anyway, I hate to see Winn-Dixie go out of business.
Posted by: Nathan at July 25, 2005 09:45 AM
Thank you Josiah for that article. It was really a great read. Costco's business model is a very good one. Heck I may go see if I can get part time work there to check it out.
[-p]
Posted by: Pablo at July 26, 2005 03:29 PM
i was wondering if i like costco. ha! and speaking of st. elmo, i visited covenant college once and met a kid with a great speach impediment. thanks for checking in on my site. very nice of you and i felt rude for not thanking you for the compliment.
Posted by: crymytinyflood at July 30, 2005 01:32 AM
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