TOPIC: CITIES (31)

Urban Life International

http://www.ulicanada.org/

Urban Life International is an independent research training organization with the desire to foment a better understanding and response to the urban challenge.  The urban challenge has been described as the need to transform concrete and steel into communities of health and hope.  The people who live in cities are caught in-between segregation and integration, diversity and distinction, and density and privacy.  Their quality of life is determined in how they respond to these challenges.

Pavement to Parks

http://pavementtoparks.org

San Francisco's streets and public rights-of-way make up 25% of the city's land area, more space than all the park area combined. Many of our streets are excessively wide and contain large zones of underutilized space, especially at intersections. San Francisco's "Pavement to Parks" program seeks to temporarily reclaim these unused swathes of land and quickly and inexpensively turn them into new public spaces.

Block Avenue

http://www.blockavenue.com

BlockAvenue is a platform to help people better understand location by leveraging existing geo-data and social networks to create trust.

New Urbanism

http://www.newurbanism.org

NEW URBANISM promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities.

MESH Cities

http://www.meshcities.com

MESH Cities explores the wireless systems empowered, 21st Century city through the eyes of its super-users. These are the people who are embracing the new communications and infrastructure tools that will determine the ultimate livability of the modern city. The growing ubiquity of high-speed wireless connections allows people to experience the city in ways never before possible. More than that, they can contribute their ideas about how to make our cities more accommodating and responsive .

Truck Farm

http://www.truckfarm.org

Truck Farm is a mobile garden education project founded in Brooklyn, NY. Director Ian Cheney's other projects include King Corn, The Greening of Southie, and The City Dark. 

City Form Lab

http://cityform.mit.edu/en.html

The City Form Lab at the Singapore University of Technology & Design in collaboration with the School of Architecture & Planning at MIT focuses on empirical studies of urban form. We develop new software tools for researching city form; use cutting-edge spatial analysis and statistics to investigate how the physical pattern of urban infrastructure affects the social, environmental and economic quality of urban environments; and develop creative design and policy solutions for contemporary urban challenges. By bringing together multi-diciplinary urban research expertise  and excellence in design, we develop context sensitive and timely insight about the role of urban form in affecting the quality of life in 21st century cities.

Outer Urban Projects

http://outerurbanprojects.org

Outer Urban Projects (OUP) is a bold not for profit performing arts organisation that collaborates with young people and their communities in Melbourne’s culturally diverse, artistically starved, ‘hardcore’ outer northern suburbs. OUP specialises in producing and presenting high calibre arts projects that seamlessly combine street, cultural, contemporary and classical forms. OUP is driven by the vibrant cultural mix and stories of the outer northern suburbs and the racial, social and class inequities that challenge our young people.

This Big City

http://thisbigcity.net

This Big City is an award winning sustainable cities blog covering innovations in urban design, architecture, culture, technology, transport and the bicycle. Launched in September 2009 by Joe Peach, This Big City now features content from urbanism writers and organisations all over the world, and publishes in English and Chinese.

Popularise

https://www.popularise.com

Popularise is the online platform that shares the power to build new places in your neighborhood with local residents like you
By joining other people in your area on Popularise, you can create the kind of cool, authentic places you want in your neighborhood. Submit your own ideas, and vote for what to build on projects posted by real estate developers and local business operators.

Cities Alliance

http://www.citiesalliance.org/ca/about-cities-alliance

The Cities Alliance is a global partnership for urban poverty reduction and the promotion of the role of cities in sustainable development.

Walk Your City

http://www.walkyourcity.org

An open-sourced online resource for anyone to auto-magically create their own guerrilla wayfinding sign to export, print and install.

CNU

http://www.cnu.org/

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the leading organization promoting walkable, mixed-use neighborhood development, sustainable communities and healthier living conditions.

Chicago Trees Initiative

http://www.chicagotrees.net

The Chicago Trees Initiative is a city-wide, public-private effort to plant, care for and advocate for trees. This means many more trees will be planted in our great city, which is already known for its green urban spaces. And more important, existing trees will have better care – the best strategy for meeting our urban forest canopy goal. Every Chicago resident – and indeed, anyone who cares about trees has an important role to play. The goal invites all of us to be involved in planting and caring for trees on public and private land throughout the city.

Dear City

http://dearcity.org

Dear City is a simple concept allowing a citizen to leave (anonymous) messages to the city he or she lives in. This web-based framework creates a social cluster of opinions that express the thoughts of the man on the street. Dear City becomes a documentation of contemporary life and its ups and downs. We believe change is achieved through all levels of communication.