Livable Streets

The latest production of the Yes Men hit the streets and the Web today: an Onion-esque "Special Edition" of the New York Post devoted completely to climate change, released ahead of this week's global summit at UN headquarters. Coming in at 32 pages in print, there's a lot here to digest -- including a fun take down of livable streets skeptic Steve Cuozzo, whose alter ego sees the error of his auto-centric ways.

There is probably no more beloved figure in urbanism than Jane Jacobs, who fought to preserve some of New York City's most treasured neighborhoods and who gave urbanists some of the field's fundamental texts. As Ed Glaeser notes in the New Republic this week, Jacobs died in 2006 "a cherished, almost saintly figure," while her principal antagonist, Robert Moses, remains popularly reviled as a villain.

With summer winding down, we can expect to see a big push ahead of the September 15 primaries. Hope the long weekend leaves you refreshed and ready.

This was the scene at Herald Square yesterday afternoon. It's full of people doing what the Times' Susan Dominus finds so un-New York: sitting down. Some of these loafers are actually putting their feet up, right in the heart of our fast-paced, cutthroat city. It's like they've never even seen The Sweet Smell of Success.

This image of Fifth Avenue unearthed by the Times' Jennifer 8. Lee (nice headline!) is a fascinating relic from the dawn of the motoring age. The new geometry pictured here nicked 15 feet of sidewalk from pedestrians to make room for two traffic lanes. In one fell swoop, the balance of space shifted dramatically: Two 30-foot sidewalks and a 40-foot roadway became 22½-foot sidewalks and a 55-foot roadway. The insets show the sort of "imperfections" slated for elimination on the auto-friendly Fifth Avenue: terraces, stoops, gardens -- the type of amenities that make streets more than simply thoroughfares to pass through.

Following up on Sarah's post this morning, here's a Bike to Work Week special from Mikael Colville Andersen, the mastermind behind Copenhagenize and Copenhagen Cycle Chic. Colville Andersen's blogs are like extended odes to urban cycling and bike culture, and in this vid he shows what bicycling looks like when it's seen as a "normal" way to get from here to there.

Check out this livable streets story from Ocean City, New Jersey, where a local arts group, high school art students, and the police department teamed up for a street mural installation. The kicker: the project was inspired by Streetfilms (look for the shout-out at the 4:30 mark).

Here's a nice visual of what cities will look like when the livable streets movement has completely emerged from the wilderness (sorry for the extended metaphor, couldn't help it today). GOOD Magazine ran this photosim done by our very own Carly Clark in their transportation issue, with text by Streetsblog Editor-in-Chief Aaron Naparstek. They've got a whole interactive graphic that walks you through the elements of a livable street, and -- hats off to my coworkers -- it looks great.