Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
“Beyond a certain speed, motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink. They create distances for all and shrink them for only a few.”45
Jeff Speck • Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
Things were different in the city. The crucial factor in the building of public works on Long Island was space, vast, endless tracts of uncluttered openness; in the city the crucial factor was lack of space and the fact that space was not merely filled but filled with people, people with their endlessly intertwined, hopelessly snarled tangles of as
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Power Broker
Perhaps consideration should be given to trying to ease Long Island’s traffic problem by other means, specifically the improved mass transit that the Regional Plan Association and other reformer-backed groups had been proposing for a decade.
Robert A. Caro • The Power Broker
the demand for downtown housing is significant and it is about to skyrocket. But supply will have a hard time meeting demand unless cities become politically committed to its provision and lend a hand. Building new housing downtown is an expensive and punishing process: unlike the suburban greenfield sites that most developers are accustomed to, ci
... See moreJeff Speck • Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
Victor Gruen’s The Heart of Our Cities
Ray Oldenburg • The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community
Clay Shirky • Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Elevator apartments do not produce standardization by virtue of being elevator apartments, any more than three-story houses produce standardization by virtue of being three-story houses. But elevator apartments do produce standardization when they are almost the only way a neighborhood is housed—just as three-story houses produce monotonous standar
... See moreJane Jacobs • The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The reason Greenwich Village can reconcile such high densities with such great variety is that a high proportion of the land which is devoted to residences (called net residential acres) is covered with buildings. Relatively little is left open and unbuilt upon. In most parts, the buildings cover the residential land at averages estimated as rangin
... See moreJane Jacobs • The Death and Life of Great American Cities
When Robert Moses came to power in New York in 1934, the city’s mass transportation system was probably the best in the world. When he left power in 1968, it was quite possibly the worst.