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Topic: The Department of Urban Affairs (Read 56617 times)

The Department of Urban Affairs

This thread is about cities and civilised life; the centralised conglomeration of constructions and the people who live in or under them, as well as the people passing by; their planners, shapers, and runners; their light, their shade and activities; their impact on the world around them and on each other; citizen getting along or across with citizen; their tools, trade, and technology; their growth and decay; and whatever else it takes to finish this sentence.

Be urbane.

Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #1
Let's start with a map over where the cities are, and where they are going.



Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #3

Let's start with a map over where the cities are, and where they are going.

The growth rate in Africa isn't surprising, but I didn't know Japan had a negative growth rate.


Here is a stab at Comparing Urban Footprints Around the World (physical shape and size, and their population)

I was confused by Amsterdam, but then I realized it was including different cities like Haarlem and IJmuiden. And even though it's a distinguishing feature, the IJ does not seem to have been excluded, which was responsible for my difficulty finding my bearings.

Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #4
I'm sorry but I don't understand the second map. Cities as São Paulo, Beijing, Shangai or Mexico City have more population than the American cities at the top of the picture but are represented smaller. What's the criteria for the scale of the cities? just the real physical dimension?
A matter of attitude.


Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #6
That's incredible, I was not aware of this.

Needless to say that the cost per inhabitant at a city as Atlanta is an absurd in terms of streets, illumination, etc.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #7
The growth rate in Africa isn't surprising, but I didn't know Japan had a negative growth rate.

There are two forces joining in most places in Africa, rapid population growth and very rapid urbanisation. Most Africans lived in the countryside, they won't in the future. Almost the opposite is happening in Japan. There the population is actually shrinking and the urbanisation rate is 91%, and the remaining 9% is likely to be remaining.

I was confused by Amsterdam, but then I realized it was including different cities like Haarlem and IJmuiden. And even though it's a distinguishing feature, the IJ does not seem to have been excluded, which was responsible for my difficulty finding my bearings.
While it would be interesting to compare the spread of cities this way, it is ultimately arbitrary. Except island states there is no place where the city ends and non-city starts. The best you can hope for is like for like, that the criteria are the same all over.

Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #8
I meant that Amsterdam didn't look like Amsterdam because there wasn't a big lake in the middle of it. Including Haarlem and IJmuiden is fair enough, although if you do that you probably ought to include a whole lot more.

Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #9
Cities are wrong.
There's no more justification for cities and even less the gigantic, insect colony like, kind of metropolis that exists today.
The problems such cities creates are insoluble.
A matter of attitude.


Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #11
You are off topic Josh. You are always off topic Josh.

If I was a moderator I would ban you but at a creatively way. I would open a thread, the only thread where you would be allowed to post, just for having you repeating the alphabet one hundred times.

I've not decided yet if you would have to do it while wearing donkey ears or not...
A matter of attitude.


Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #13

You are off topic Josh. You are always off topic Josh.

If I was a moderator I would ban you....

If everybody here banned somebody they disagreed with, there would be no posters left.

:o WILL THE LAST POSTER PLEASE TURN OFF THE LIGHT AND CLOSE THE DOOR. :cry:

Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #14
Urbanization - in the sense I use it, as "urbanism" meaning the architecture's specialty about creating and developing cities - has been producing systematically, under the pressure of wrong economic and populational models, as well as suicidal policies of territory occupation, nightmares instead of places where human beings can live according what is natural to human beings to live.

Such cities are like social, economical and energetic cancers that kills nations.

Since the world moves on several different velocities, it happens that while some are already seeing the obvious of what I mentioned above, others still desperately wants to create more of such nightmares.
A matter of attitude.



Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #17
25 numbered lists to read before you die?


Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #19
I have a near disabling fear of heights...that one gave me an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.

Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #20
Denmark's urban planning.
Wanting to live as paramecium...


From www.overv.eu
A matter of attitude.



Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #23
I looked them up, they are not quite the suburban hell wheels you would think, but communal gardens. In other words they would be more like pseudo-agrarian hell wheels or simply cottages.

Brøndby haveby started in 1964,  turning 50 this year.

Some allotments are fairly modest, others a little more fancy.




The Paramecium comparison is fair enough, but I got associations closer to Volvox.


Which is as good an excuse as any to turn to sports.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl98-HwR15s[/video]

Re: The Department of Urban Affairs

Reply #24
I looked them up, they are not quite the suburban hell wheels you would think, but communal gardens. In other words they would be more like pseudo-agrarian hell wheels or simply cottages.

In other words, a place to take girl friends there. :)
Smart vikings.
A matter of attitude.