Inside a Pedestrian-First ‘Superblock’
(Citylab.com, August 7th, 2018)
It might be super to live in a city block where cars and other motorized vehicles are limited?! ‘Superblocks’ are designated areas where vehicle traffic is limited to 6 Miles per Hour (10km/h) making it very incomprehensible for cars to pass through. The idea is to re-explore urban space from a citizens perspective – focusing on community building and sharing spaces. See how the magic unfolds in Barcelona here.
How will Autonomous Vehicles Transform our Cities?
(TEDx College Park, October 10th, 2018)
This provoking Talk by Nico Larco (Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Oregon) discusses the effects of autonomous cars (AV’s) on your living environment. AV’s will not shape the future of transportation as much as they might transform the way we build and experience cities, he argues – e.g. the unwanted effect of urban sprawl could increase due to the different possibilities autonomous cars offer in terms of leisure activity. Fifteen minutes worth a watch here.
Waymo, take the wheel: Self-driving cars go fully driverless on California roads
(TechCrunch, October 31st, 2018)
The wheel keeps on turning even without human interaction. In California the startup Waymo is permitted to test self-driving cars at stage 4, meaning no driver is required to be present at all. The mountain view area has been a testing field for companies working on autonomous driving for years. So other companies are in the waiting line for their permission to test stage 4 as well. After all, technology might win the race ones more – social implications will have to catch up again. Find out what the Google spin-off Waymo is already allowed to test here.
Why & How To Hack Cities For Sustainability
(re:publica 18, May 4th, 2018)
Held during the re:publica event 2018 in Berlin Lars Zimmermann shares his vision of how to create sustainable cities that are more livable. Contributing to the Smart City discourse he explains how ‘hacking’ can be used to open our thinking about sustainability, e.g. repurposing existing infrastructure, while at the time preventing corporation or institutions to turn smart technology into surveillance tools. For a deeper analysis of the status quo and for hack-xamples, follow the link.
Uber Writes an Equation to Help Cities Measure—and Manage—the Curb
(Wired, July 10th, 2018)
In pursuit of making their Ride-Hailing business more effective companies like Uber occasionally create something that can be used the inform better decisions in city planning. This is true for the equation Uber uses to measure how effective curb space is used for different purposes. The key seems to be variety. While it is more efficient to dedicate curb space to bus stops or package delivery it might be ok to use the same space at night for residential parking. Think about it and read more here.