Entrapped Spaces
Designing a New Town Square for Our Crowded Urban Future With most of the world living in cities, urban space is going to be at a premium, so we need to design ingenious and important ways to create public gathering spaces. But we can’t just copy the High Line everywhere.

Designing a New Town Square for Our Crowded Urban Future

With most of the world living in cities, urban space is going to be at a premium, so we need to design ingenious and important ways to create public gathering spaces. But we can’t just copy the High Line everywhere.

Taking its name from an era-appropriate Sonic Youth album, the New Museum exhibit NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star celebrates the chaotic energy and culture of New York in 1993. In order to promote the exhibit as a conduit to the recent past, agency Droga5 arranged for 5,000 of the city’s pay phones to be equipped with bits of location-specific history from some of the people who lived it. 1993 was 20 years ago?? Fast Company

Taking its name from an era-appropriate Sonic Youth album, the New Museum exhibit NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star celebrates the chaotic energy and culture of New York in 1993. In order to promote the exhibit as a conduit to the recent past, agency Droga5 arranged for 5,000 of the city’s pay phones to be equipped with bits of location-specific history from some of the people who lived it.

1993 was 20 years ago??

Fast Company

Seeing as megacities such as New York, London, Beijing, Mumbai, and Mexico City can only grow so much, most of the urban growth will take place in smaller cities. The WWF predicts that the highest growth rate of 4.19 percent will occur in cities with fewer than one million residents.

Seeing as megacities such as New York, London, Beijing, Mumbai, and Mexico City can only grow so much, most of the urban growth will take place in smaller cities. The WWF predicts that the highest growth rate of 4.19 percent will occur in cities with fewer than one million residents.

“Today [2012], Mumbai has the same number of people as the whole of London living in slum conditions.” -Urbanized

“Today [2012], Mumbai has the same number of people as the whole of London living in slum conditions.”

-Urbanized

Defining sprawl is a little bit like defining pornography; you know it when you see it.
-Ellen Dunham-Jones, Urbanized
The city [Mumbai] says that if there is one toilet for 50 people, that is 10 families have 1 toilet seat, it means they have adequate sanitation. But in 1989 the ratio of people to a toilet seat was 900 people to a toilet seat. Today [2012] , it’s come down to 600. Our local politicians say, ‘Oh, we don’t want to build toilets in slums, because it will encourage people to come.’ As if people come to shit.
-Sheela Patel, Urbanized
In Copenhagen, lime green footprints march up to matching lime green trash cans — it’s hard to miss!

In Copenhagen, lime green footprints march up to matching lime green trash cans — it’s hard to miss!

Clever Street Art by Oakoak

(Source: oakoak.canalblog.com)

A sculpture-esque waste basket in Helsinki, Finland

A sculpture-esque waste basket in Helsinki, Finland

Malmö, Sweden

Malmö, Sweden

What is the city but the people?
-William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
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