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Diana Lind | Thu, Jul 10th, 2008 | Category: Commentary | City: New York | Tags: transportation, downtown, transit, diana lind, brooklyn, paris, manhattan, bikes, bike share 2008, congestion, city room blog | 1
New York is experimenting with a bike share program and a peak-rate parking scheme — will either of these ideas get implemented for real?
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Brendan Crain | Tue, Apr 8th, 2008 | Category: Commentary | Tags: environment, downtown, crime, growth, seattle, gentrification, boston, internet, denver, manhattan, advertising, brendan crain | 1
The average American sees several thousands of advertisements each day—the most commonly accepted estimate is 3,000. It is no secret in our society that a large chunk of advertising and marketing efforts are directed at children ... Whether or not you think that advertising’s influence on young minds is positive or negative, no one can deny the fact that this massive onslaught of commercialism has some sort of effect, developmentally, on children. And, since these children will, in a generation or so, be reshaping our cities, how might these developmental changes effect the urban environment? Perhaps some clues are already rising to the surface.
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Brendan Crain | Thu, Mar 20th, 2008 | Category: Commentary | Tags: gentrification, internet, manhattan, advertising, dubai, brendan crain, lyons, glocalization | 1
The French city of Lyons is being reproduced on the outskirts of Dubai, presumably for the value of Lyons’ “cultural cachet.” Can something as ephemeral and elusive as the “sense of place” of Lyons be copied and pasted onto a desert thousands of miles from the original? Might it be possible that, in a world run by adults raised in virtual copies of real-world places refashioned, essentially, as brands, the wholesale reproduction of city neighborhoods could become commonplace around the world?
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Hayley Richardson | Wed, Feb 20th, 2008 | Category: Commentary | Tags: hayley richardson, new york city, gentrification, manhattan, sense of place, jane jacobs, the old new york, nostalgia, authenticity, mary cantwell | 2
Maybe it was Nathaniel Rich’s recent lament in the New York Times, or the idle chatter in the NAC office, but it seems that lately, the word on everyone’s lips is that they miss the old New York. I’ve been hearing complaints such as “it’s not real anymore,” “everyone’s been pushed out,” and “it’s like a museum.” Apparently, New York (specifically Manhattan) has become a simulacra of itself.
Sure, I’ve read Mary Cantwell and Jane Jacobs and lament the fact that New York no longer…
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