Patrick Barkham ~ Introducing ‘Treeconomics’: How Street Trees Can Save Our Cities

Photo: wiki.urbandead.com

Rustlings Road is aptly named. The street in Sheffield is lined with mature lime trees. Their whispering leaves are brilliant green in spring, then cast cool, dappled shade in summer and turn bright yellow in the autumn. But Sheffield city council wants to prune the street, and a dispute about 11 lime trees has turned into a citywide campaign, with more than 10,000 people urging the council to halt its roadside felling. I has also sparked a broader debate about what 36,000 street trees bring to a place that claims to be the most wooded industrial city in western Europe.

This tussle shows how urban trees are both treasured and in jeopardy like never before – beset by disease and spurious insurance claims, and too readily felled by cash-strapped local authorities which only see their potential cost rather than their contribution to climate, public health and even the wealth of a city. Ever since Roger Ulrich discovered in 1984 that hospital patients appear to recover more quickly from surgery in rooms with green views, a growing body of scientific evidence has demonstrated the health – and wealth – benefits of trees in cities.

Paul A. Jargowsky ~ Architecture Of Segregation

Over the past year, scenes of civil unrest have played out in the deteriorating inner-ring suburb of Ferguson and the traditional urban ghetto of inner-city Baltimore. The proximate cause of these conflicts has been brutal interactions between police and unarmed black men, leading to protests that include violent confrontations with police, but no single incident can explain the full extent of the protesters’ rage and frustration. The riots and protests—which have occurred in racially-segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods, bringing back images of the “long, hot summers” of the 1960s—have sparked a national conversation about race, violence, and policing that is long overdue.

Something important, however, is being left out of this conversation: namely, that we are witnessing a nationwide return of concentrated poverty that is racial in nature, and that this expansion and continued existence of high-poverty ghettos and barrios is no accident. These neighborhoods are not the value-free outcome of the impartial workings of the housing market. Rather, in large measure, they are the inevitable and predictable consequences of deliberate policy choices.

Alana Semuels ~ The Resurrection Of America’s Slums

Population Living in High-Poverty Neighborhoods (in millions)

Half a century after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty, the number of Americans living in slums is rising at an extraordinary pace.
The number of people living in high-poverty areas—defined as census tracts where 40 percent or more of families have income levels below the federal poverty threshold—nearly doubled between 2000 and 2013, to 13.8 million from 7.2 million, according to a new analysis of census data by Paul Jargowsky, a public-policy professor at Rutgers University-Camden and a fellow at The Century Foundation. That’s the highest number of Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods ever recorded.

The development is worrying, especially since the number of people living in high-poverty areas fell 25 percent, to 7.2 million from 9.6 million, between 1990 and 2000. Back then, concentrated poverty was declining in part because the economy was booming.

African Slum Journal ~ Changing Faces Of Dandora

‘Changing faces in Dandora’. We speak with Sylvan Ayiecha, chairman of Tunawiri Self Help Group. Dandora has the name of the biggest dumpsite in the world, but it is time to make a change. Instead of idling around, the youth are volunteering to clean their spaces in the neighborhoods. They clean trenches, paint the houses, gates and schoolyards in fresh colors again. They make good and safe playgrounds for the school children. “When we can change the environment, we can change people’s minds”, says Paul Mureithi of Mustard Seed Court.

Read & see: http://www.africanslumjournal.com/changing-faces-of-dandora/

Claire Mookerjee ~ Five Urban Design Mistakes That Create Unhealthy And Inactive Communities

We all want to be fit, healthy and happy but the best intentions – whether it’s to jog to the shops, eat a balanced diet or strike a better work-life balance – can often elude us.
At least some of the blame can be laid at the feet of those who design the city spaces some of us call home. Many aspects of city living discourage the kinds of lifestyles that can contribute to our health and wellbeing. We know that car-dependent, city suburbs struggle to create neighbourhoods that encourage walking, but they’re not the only ones.

Here are five mistakes that are often made when designing new developments in urban areas — and suggestions for how to create healthier communities.

Marielle Mondon ~ Designing A Future Of Plastic Roads

Ills.: VolkerWessels

No more potholes? No more worrying about woefully underfunded crumbling highways? That’s the future European construction company VolkerWessels sees in its plans for recycled plastic roads.

VolkerWessels’ concept, aptly named PlasticRoad, is a lightweight streets material made entirely of recycled material. The firm stresses the design would take a fraction of the time to construct and last about three times longer than typical road asphalt. Maintenance, too, would come cheap (or even free) because of the plastic’s increased durability.