Bulldozing the Future ~ Unwise Preservationism...

Reason's Jim Epstein shares how The Destruction of Penn Station Led to the Landmarks Preservation Movement and re-evaluates it...

"The underground Penn Station that replaced the old structure is a planning nightmare that's outright disliked by the general public, but that’s an argument for replacing it with something new, not saving the flawed structure that preceded it. New York became the world’s preeminent city by letting its developers sometimes violently tear down old buildings. Progress isn't free, and neither is preservation."

Dudley Square ~ Time for Neighborhood Revival...

In her Globe piece Developer reflects Dudley Square’s renaissance, Meghan Irons writes of long-time developer Kenneth Guscott who...

"Came of age when Dudley Square was still at its peak [...] At its prime, Dudley Square was the second-busiest commercial district in Boston, after downtown. And it was the epicenter of the black community. But as Guscott turned 15, the 1940s swept in a period of uncertainty, leaving Dudley’s residents clinging to a prosperity that would dissipate. Now, as Guscott enters his 90s, his deep connection to Dudley Square offers a glimpse of the triumphs, demise, and promised resurgence that consumed Roxbury’s main commercial district and the people living nearby."

Fascinating arc of transformation over time.

Resilience Dividend ~ Boston's Prep, Readiness...

The Guardian excerpts Judith Rodin's The Resilience Dividend: Managing Disruption, Avoiding Disaster and Growing Stronger in an Unpredictable World...

"The city of Boston proved it had developed an exceptional state of readiness for a citywide disruption when, on the afternoon of 15 April, 2013 -- Marathon Monday, as it’s known there -- two improvised explosive devices detonated on Boylston Street. Although the attack was unanticipated and unpredictable, Boston had been getting ready for just such an event for more than a decade -- through network building and streamlining communications to improve awareness, undertaking situational drills and exercises to fine-­tune integration, and finding and adapting best practices from colleagues worldwide to bring in a broad range of ideas and solutions. [...] Being prepared is not a matter of luck [...] It was a matter of carefully and methodically building the char­acteristics of resilience that enable an effective response to crisis. Resilience is not only about responding to shock and stress. It is also about learning and continuing to adapt and grow because of the ex­perience. This process of “revitalisation” can further increase your readiness for sub­sequent disruptions, find opportunities that emerge from what you have learned, affect positive changes, and build even greater resilience (“the resilience dividend”)."

Urban Change ~ Half-Century Foto-Comparisons

Thanks to Robin Chase for spotting Shane Hampton's post at the Institute for Quality Communities, 60 Years of Urban Change: Midwest...

"60 years has made a big difference in the urban form of American cities. The most rapid change occurred during the mid-century urban renewal period that cleared large tracts of urban land for new highways, parking, and public facilities or housing projects. Fine-grained networks of streets and buildings on small lots were replaced with superblocks and megastructures. While the period did make way for impressive new projects in many cities, many of the scars are still unhealed. We put together these sliders to show how cities have changed over half a century. In this post, we look at Midwestern cities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio."

Survivor Tree ~ Resilience, Survival, Rebirth...

The Survivor Tree thrives beyond near-death and destruction...

"A callery pear tree became known as the "Survivor Tree" after enduring the September 11, 2001 terror attacks at the World Trade Center. In October 2001, the tree was discovered at Ground Zero severely damaged, with snapped roots and burned and broken branches. The tree was removed from the rubble and placed in the care of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. After its recovery and rehabilitation, the tree was returned to the Memorial in 2010. New, smooth limbs extended from the gnarled stumps, creating a visible demarcation between the tree’s past and present. Today, the tree stands as a living reminder of resilience, survival and rebirth."

Kuriositas spots The 9/11 Survivor Tree’s Story Voiced by Whoopi Goldberg: A True Metaphor for the Human Spirit...

"This beautiful animation, with the tree given voice by Whoopi Goldberg, forms the centerpiece of a campaign to encourage people to visit the 9/11 Memorial & Museum outside of which the tree stands proud and tall, welcoming visitors. Survivor Tree was animated by Elastic, through the BBDO Agency. As a metaphor for the human spirit and testament to the healing power of caring, it takes some beating."

Innovation Village ~ Kirsner Spots Ames Biz Park

The Globe's Scott Kirsner spotlights the revitalized Somerville, MA Ames Business Park and its many creative tenants in his Innovation Economy column this Sunday...

"The obituary of the Ames Safety Envelope Company was written in February 2010. [...] Most of the equipment was sold at auction, and the factory went dark. [...] The descendants of Ames’ founder considered selling the property, but weren’t sure they could find a buyer. And they fretted over filling the 290,000-square-foot complex with tenants. “I thought it was an almost impossible task,” says Arthur Fitzgerald, grandson of the company’s founder, John W. Fitzgerald. Skip ahead four years: The final chunk of space in the Ames complex was leased this month. And what is now known as the Ames Business Park is not only fully occupied, it also has become the entrepreneurial epicenter of Somerville, home to a brewery, dozens of start-ups, [etc.] It’s a more diverse blend of people and ideas than you’d find in Kendall Square -- in part because rent is cheaper -- and it’s more densely-packed than Boston’s Innovation District. [...] Now, the question for Somerville is how to encourage similar “innovation villages” to spring up. What happened at the Ames complex was a rare confluence of empty industrial space, entities eager to fill it, and a light touch when it came to planning and marketing. [...] Ames, says [Somerville] Mayor Curtatone, “has really had an impact on our thinking as policy-makers about how to preserve such spaces, to allow for more startups and ideas to flourish in Somerville, and to grow that new economy in our city.” Magic can be hard to replicate -- but it’s worth trying."

Identities ~ Ana Oliveira's Generational Portraits!

Neatorama's Zeon Santos spotlights lovely portraits by Ana Oliveira exploring self-generational Identities!

LA River Plan ~ Less Concrete, Restored Nature...

Lamar Anderson writes in Atlantic/Architizer that LA Wants to Turn Its Concrete 'River' Into a Real River...

"Though the waterway hasn’t really been a natural habitat since the 1930s (when the city lined the riverbed with concrete to control flooding), new bike paths, public art, and kayak tours now draw Angelenos to the water’s edge. [...] The Los Angeles River Revitalization Plan, completed in 2007 by the landscape design firm Mia Lehrer + Associates, calls for the removal of most of the concrete and natural habitat restoration around the river."

Rebuilding Utrecht Centraal ~ NL ProRail Plans...

Rebuilding Utrecht Centraal train station in NL! It's in Dutch, but is visually pretty self-explanatory! And as extra bonus, here's more about Dutch rail infrastructure firm ProRail's contemporary upgrades and new developments...

Fertile Turf ~ South Boston's Innovation District...

Very nice Globe piece by Michael Farrell spotlighting how many key High-tech firms find fertile turf in South Boston...

"Two years after Mayor Thomas M. Menino branded a swath of the South Boston Waterfront as the Innovation District -- a bid to lure big Web companies and start-ups alike -- a healthy crop of technology companies is moving in. Office rents are low, at least for Boston, and the neighborhood is catching on; any company looking for space in the city is looking there, real estate brokers say. As Menino mentioned in his State of the City address last week, 100 companies and 3,000 jobs have come in, bringing a laptop-toting crowd to an area long known for its gritty working seaport and artist studios. [...] The Innovation District umbrella covers a disparate collection of smaller neighborhoods and development clusters, including Fort Point, which is a dense section of industrial buildings developed in the 1830s, parts of the Financial and Leather districts, Channel Center, Fan Pier, and Liberty Wharf. Within that urban landscape -- home to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Marine Industrial Park, and the Bank of America Pavilion, as well as numerous vast parking lots -- there are plans to add more than one million square feet of new construction."

Fantastic boomzone! Also check out my posts on Fraunhofer CSE moving in, my helping kickoff the Greentown Labs incubation space, and my visit to Ginkgo BioWorks, and our MIT classes on Living Labs and Urban Ventures.

Stationarea Utrecht ~ Interlinked Redevelopment

Much like the massive redevelopments of and around the Dutch Amsterdam Centraal railway station I wrote about earlier, the Utrecht Central stationarea has a major upgrade in motion as well... Here's overall masterplan and summary map... The UC upgrade is part of the NS Wereldstations initiative... Curiously enough, much of the work is to upgrade a shopping zone called Nieuw Hoog Catharijne which will undo the bad planning and ugly design of a previous generation something you can see here in the Dutch-language promo film for the original Hoog Catharijne and related developments... And if you're really curious how things used to look in the Utrecht stationarea, check out this older footage...

Urban Waterfronts ~ Krieger on Remaking Cities

Reading about the Bund in Shanghai got me to NBBJ architects where they spotlight Alex Krieger's Remaking the Urban Waterfront...

"Urban waterfronts are unrivaled in their potential for providing an exceptional or celebratory enterprise. [...] Along the waterfront, it seems possible to accommodate the changing needs of today’s urban dwellers, as modern society continues its shift from an industrial-based economy, with its attendant spatial demands, to a service- and lifestyle-based economy, with its own requirements."

Interesting reading, especially the case examples illustrating the top-ten principles. Also compare the "before" picture of the Bund above to the "after" redesign picture by Tim Griffith/NBBJ...

Nature of Cities ~ Beatley on Biophilic Movement

Check out The Nature of Cities documentary trailer...

"...about the projects and people in cities across the world who believe that, even as we become more urbanized, we must reclaim an essential piece of our humanness -- our connection to the nature around us. Amazing projects in cities around the globe have already begun this task. It is our goal to raise the consciousness and understanding of this movement as we explore the need of moving not only to sustainability, but also to a regenerative way of living."

Also related new book by Prof Timothy Beatley on Biophilic Cities. Thanks to Landscape+Urbanism for spotting these!

Kendall-Central ~ Cambridge's Zoning Venture...

Cambridge is running a planning study to envision the future of Central Square, Kendall Square, and the Transition Area connecting the two squares. Given the lack-leadership and short-sighted nature of MIT and other dominant landowners in the area, I most surely hope the City doesn't cave in to narrowminded interests and unwise planning. FYI...

"The next Kendall Square Advisory Committee meeting is Thursday, July 21 2011, 8-10am Cambridge Innovation Center (Havana Conference Room, 5th floor), One Broadway, Kendall Square. Bring ID."

University Park @ MIT ~ Tech Innovation Zones...

I was just recollecting for a visitor from Chile about the history of business park development, both here at MIT -- including Technology Square -- and at Stanford -- their Research Park. One of the most recent in Cambridge is the University Park @ MIT complex Master Planned and orchestrated by Forest City developers on longterm leasehold from the Institute. This and other such parks are key example innovation zones helping seed and accelerate progress.

Synthetic Organs ~ First Successful Transplant!

Tia Ghose writes in The Scientist of the first Synthetic Organ Transplant Success, a replacement trachea (windpipe)...

"The recipient of the first synthetic organ transplant -- a synthetic trachea seeded with the patient’s own stem cells -- is sent home from the hospital. [...] The patient had an aggressive, golf ball-sized tumor blocking his airways that had resisted chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Without surgery, the patient would have died, BBC reports. Researchers from University College London built the trachea out of a porous nanocomposite material, using detailed 3D scans of the patient’s trachea to create an exact replica. The researchers then soaked the synthetic trachea in bone marrow stem cells taken from the patient’s nose to reduce the risk of organ rejection and the need for immunosuppressive drugs. After growing for two days in a bioreactor developed by Harvard Bioscience, the millions of holes in the porous synthetic surface were seeded with cells, and the trachea was shipped to Sweden for surgery."

This is just the beginning of a huge wave of personalized medicines, 3D-bioprinting, and replacement body parts to-come! Also, check out the Newsy summary...

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Highway Removal ~ Towards City-Scale Solutions

Thanks to Pascal at Velo Mondial for spotting Highway Removal part of the Moving Beyond the Automobile series by Streetfilms...

Greentown Labs ~ Boston Boomzone Incubator!

Excellent to see the kickoff-opening tonight of Greentown Labs, the cleantech incubator and startup hostel in the Fort Point Channel / Boston Innovation District! Sorin Grama of Promethean Power and a key Greentown protagonist represents here in these pix...

Vibrant Monrovia ~ Clean & Green Future City...

After taking a historical view and posting about Vintage Monrovia, I followed Matt's Moved 2 Monrovia advice and links to try and learn a bit more about the Liberian capital today. The Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) is playing an essential role in building towards a vibrant future city, running clean-up campaigns, making sanitation investments, planting trees, and placing other key clean & green infrastructure commitments. All important prosperity policies and practices. See for yourself via their first two MCC TV episodes with host Archel Bernard...

Planet Greensburg ~ Post-Tornado Regeneration

I recently saw a documentary show on Planet Green about rebuilding a central Kansas town, Greensburg in a sustainable way after it was whacked by a huge tornado.