SHARES Shoulder to shoulder during rush hour in Toronto in October 2020. Long commutes on crowded public transit that increase the spread of COVID-19 result from failed housing policies, writes UBC professor of urban design Patrick Condon.
Photo by Nathan Denette, the Canadian Press.
Sick City: Disease, Race, Inequality and Urban Land
Patrick Condon
Creative Commons (2021)
Patrick Condon looks at those hit hardest by the pandemic and concludes, as have many others, that COVID-19 has starkly exposed and exploited inequalities in our society. Essential workers, many of them immigrants, risking their health often for minimum wage, are bearing the brunt. And their exposure to the virus puts others at risk, most dramatically the elderly in long-term care.
A Complete Community Is All Mixed Up
A complete community includes an optimal mix of people, activities, and transport modes in each neighborhood. Like a chef, planners need the right ingredients. Here is the recipe.
Todd Litman | March 15, 2021, 9am PDT Share
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A city is a place where many people and activities occur close together, which facilitates the exchange of goods and ideas. The secret to success is to mix things together to create complete communities.
Urban planning often focuses on density, the number of people or activities in a given area, but equally important is land use mix, the diversity of people and activities in an area. To use a sports metaphor, density provides strength and power, a necessary foundation, while mix is akin to skill and finesse, which is what makes a community interesting and successful.
Trevor Hancock: Doughnut economy means not spending $100M on sprawl-promoting interchange timescolonist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timescolonist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Our most important task in the 21st century is to transform our society and economy so we live within the “safe and just space for humanity,” as Kate Raworth describes it in her Doughnut Economics . . .
Hug a Tree. Protect a Forest.
Communities have good reasons to protect trees and forests. Planners can help make this happen.
Todd Litman | January 31, 2021, 9am PST Share
Last week was Tu Bishvat, the Jewish new year of the trees, when we celebrate trees and all of the great things they provide. Hug a tree, visit a forest, and enjoy fruits! Everybody is welcome: Judeo-Christians, pagans, Shintoists, rational humanistic environmentalists, and other beings, all have good reasons to celebrate, appreciate, and protect trees.
Communities have many good reasons to protect trees and forests, or to use the more general terms, green space and open space, which includes parks, farms and natural habitat. Urban green space makes people healthier and happier, reduces stormwater management costs, and reduces heat island effects. Preserving wildlife habitat is critical to a healthy global ecosystem. Impervious surface area (land covered by buildings, pavement and other hard surfaces)