This evening I started out looking for instructions on how to make marble magnets (I'm going to Spotlight tomorrow to get what I need! I think this may be a craft project I can pull off successfully!), and ended up reading about urban design, specifically new urbanism.
I've always had a passing interest in urban design - who knows, maybe one day I'll wake up and decide I want to be an urban planner. A few months ago I somehow found myself at Julia Christensen's incredibly interesting website, which details her research on how communities are reusing empty 'big box' developments. Today it was all about new urbanism, and the towns that exemplify it. You know the town in the movie The Truman Show? Turns out, that wasn't a set. They used an actual town for filming, the town of Seaside, Florida was used, which apparently was the first truly new urbanist development. There are some pretty incredible photos of the place at the official website, and here, which is one guy's description of his visit to the town.
There seem to be other towns around the US based on new urbanist principles, most famously the Disney-developed community of Celebration (official website here, and the very interesting 'Front Porch' community website here).
I'm not sure what I think about these kind of towns. On one hand, I think I've made it rather clear in the past that suburbia freaks me out. But on the other hand, these towns are certainly not your average, hellish Canberra satellite suburb. And I'm all for communities that strive to be walkable, being the non-driving, bus-taking girl that I am. I'm not sure I could live there (the community website for Celebration, for example, seems rather too earnest for my liking), but it'd be really interesting to visit!
(This post really had to point or coherent development - really just wanted to gather together a few links on something I found interesting. Hope you don't mind!)
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2 comments:
hello there mads,
to be honest i didnt read the entire blog, and found it from the wondrous carpacopia (which really should have been carpucopia) that sandro suggested i read.
just so you actually know who this is, i thank you sososososoosossoooo much for the loan of the stereo! wanted to say so on the phone but they didn't tell me they were talking to you! oh the indignity!
i thought i would alert you all to my presence here this way anyway for now, because it's getting late but i'm hungry and can't be bothered going to bed; so why not create a blog etc?!
will catch up (with everyone) soon,
C
Hey C,
Reading the whole blog might take you a while, seeing as it's a few years old, and there's a lot of boring crap on here. Like this post for example on urban design, which is long and pointless and amuses and interests only me.
Glad you're enjoying the stereo!
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