The future of the urban street in the united states: visions of alternative mobilities in the twenty-first century

This dissertation is concerned with the present and future of urban streets in the United States. The goal is to document and analyze current visions, policies, and strategies related to the form and use of American urban streets. The dissertation examines current mobility trends and offers a framework for organizing visions of the future of urban streets, evaluating them through three lenses: safety, comfort, and delight: assessing physical conditions in accordance with livability standards toward sustainable development. At the same time, it demonstrates the way 12 scenarios (NACTO Blueprint for Autonomous Urbanism, Sidewalk Labs: Quayside Project, Public Square by FXCollaborative, AIANY Future Street, The National Complete Street Coalition, Vision Zero, Smart Columbus, Waymo by Alphabet, The Hyperloop, Tesla “Autopilot,” Ford City of Tomorrow, SOM City of Tomorrow) have intentionally or unintentionally influenced contemporary use of American urban streets. Ultimately, the study shows that while sustainable alternative mobilities continue to emerge, the dominance of the automobility system has led to a stagnation of sustainable urban street development in the United States

Active Transportation for America

In this era of traffic congestion, high gas prices, climate change, an obesity epidemic, and fiscal constraints, federal transportation funding has reached a critical crossroads.Decades of car-centered transportation policies have dead-ended in chronic congestion, crippling gas bills, and a highly inefficient transportation system that offers only one answer to most of our mobility needs -- the car.Investment now in a more diverse transportation system -- one that provides viable choices to walk and bike, and use public transportation in addition to driving -- will lead to a far more efficient use of transportation resources.Active transportation is the missing piece in our transportation system

Future demand: How could or should our transport system evolve in order to support mobility in the future?

New Zealand’s land transport programme has a current expenditure target for the next ten years of $38.7bn including$10bn to change the shape of the road network and improve its quality and capacity. Yet such investment plans are in the face of a country, like several others, that has experienced a decade-long interruption to a long-run trend of growth in car travel.The NZ Ministry of Transport in 2014 undertook a major piece of strategic work to address the following focal question. How could or should our transport system evolve in order to support mobility in the future? The work involved a number of elements but centred upon a scenario planning exercise. This involved a wide cross-section of expertise and stakeholders in the identification of key drivers of change and critical uncertainties for the future for a time horizon of 2042. Two key unknowns were explored: (i) what will society want to do in future? (uncertainty about whether people will be more inclined to connect physically or virtually); and what will society be able to afford to do? (uncertainty about the affordability of energy relative to other costs of living). Four plausible and divergent scenarios were developed for future transport and society in New Zealand. Alongside the narratives for these different worlds, a simple structural model was developed to estimate quantification of levels of car travel in 2042 for the different scenarios. This revealed that from 2014 to 2042, total car travel could range from a growth of 35% to a decline of 53%.The subsequent examination of the focal question above led to a series of insights and recommended responses for policymakers and other decision makers to consider. Three important principles emerged from the work:(1)It is access not mobility per se that is key to a thriving New Zealand. There are uncertainties over what make-up of access will be desirable and affordable in future.(2)There is a need to ensure a resilient provision of access options that provides for adaptability of behaviour over time. This means a combined and coordinated effort to evolve and improve roading and proximity and digital communications.(3)The transport system’s nature and scale partly determine the demand placed upon it. Therefore when evolving the transport system one should have in mind providing for demand believed to be appropriate (and feasible) rather than providing for the demand that it may be tempting to predict

Cities, Violence and Order: the Challenges and Complex Taxonomy of Security Provision in Cities of Tomorrow

How will security in cities be understood in the future? For whom will it be provided? What are the ways by which urban security provision will be governed? And, what impact will violence and order in cities have on the processes of state-building in fragile contexts in the future? These questions are uppermost in the minds of policymakers and academics. A growing body of evidence underlines the heterogeneity of security processes and outcomes, both within and between cities. Notwithstanding these recent advances, contemporary paradigms of urban development do not substantively account for the ways in which the social, political, economic and physical aspects of urban form interact and shape the mechanics of security provision in cities. There is a perceptible gap in development policy, compromising the manner in which international donors, multilateral agencies, national and sub-national policymakers respond to urban challenges today. Part of this gap is due to the separation between development theory or urban planning, and issues of fragility due to conflict and violence. These have usually been different epistemic and operational domains, to the detriment of either a comprehensive approach to analysing fragility and violence or effective approaches to security provision.UK Department for International Developmen

Determination post industrial cities: creative play - fast forward Belgrade 2016

In the post industrial society of today we are witness to certain rather odd phenomenon: only a handful of industries have survived: high fashion, being one of them, which is interacted with mostly through technological gadgets; over-abundance of information freely offered through the net has disabled our ability to realistically evaluate facts, which often leads to spoiled tourists that have to be catered to through the repackaging of heritage sites found in cities with apps that are hand-held and are used as guides, as they move and search for new experiences that the cities of today have to offer, by competing with each other. In order to save the Cities in this cruel world full of competition, to regain their youthful, fresh and interesting appearances - architects and planners are seeking out the right answers and suggestions on several issues. What should we focus on while re-thinking the City? How can we bring in tourists and investors, can we improve the social frame? How can we regain the pride of the citizen? Perhaps by keeping or restoring their jobs? How can we maintain a creative and enthusiastic attitude under really bad social conditions? This necessary mix with new technologies – does it really improve a city or does it simply disables a city’s ability to move forward? The hypothesis that a mixture of creative industries and new technologies can upgrade weak social structures by providing small jobs and generally revitalising the city – is discussed in this paper. Using Belgrade as a case study, my Master class students attempted to build an integrative platform entitled Bel_app_grade, which will provide necessary big data, all in one place. This work is also about a presentation of their idea. Creative play –the new city of the 21st century is moving at a fast forward pace