Autonomous Vehicles & the Good City
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to be either a boon or a burden to our cities. Walkable City author Jeff Speck lays out rules intended to ease the pain and increase the pleasure of the eventual AV proliferation.
Watch this talk on YouTube.
4 ways to make a city more walkable
Freedom from cars, freedom from sprawl, freedom to walk your city! City planner Jeff Speck shares his “general theory of walkability” — four planning principles to transform sprawling cities of six-lane highways and 600-foot blocks into safe, walkable oases full of bike lanes and tree-lined streets.
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What Amsterdam can teach other cities about connecting people
Cornelia Dinca shares the idea of leveraging the power of digital connectivity to make urban functions more effective. By providing examples within the city of Amsterdam, Cornelia invigorates her plea for smart, human-connected cities.
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Open Source Urbanism & How to Recode Your City
According to Thomas Ermacora, for the past century we have designed cities mainly for cars and hinged our economies and communities on an unsustainable model of urbanization. By rebuilding the commons and using public facing architecture principles the speaker believes we can transform our neighborhoods collaboratively to become the thriving places they should be.
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Urban Design for Successful Cities
As Chief Urban Designer for the City of New York, Alexandros Washburn understands one key thing about designing successful cities: it doesn’t work until it works for the pedestrian.
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The happy city experiment
Charles Montgomery explores what happens when you take an abandoned city space in NYC and populate it with urban social experiments. The outcomes are unexpected as city dwellers explore this public space, interact with each other, and change their attitudes towards social connections, values, and each other.
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We let kids design our city – here’s what happened
As adults, we think of kids as “future citizens.” Their ideas and opinions will matter someday, but not today — there must be a reason the voting age is 18, right? But kids make up 25% of the population — shouldn’t we include them in some important conversations? In this inspiring talk, urban planner Mara Mintzer wonders what would happen if we let children design our cities.
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Social Infrastructure
World-renown architect Bjarke Ingels shares his process and projects in this light and thoughtful TEDx talk.
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Designing playgrounds for happier, healthier kids
Sarah Konradi is a landscape architect working at the intersection of design, conservation, and health. As Program Director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Early Childhood Health Outdoors program, Sarah works with underserved communities to re-envision outdoor spaces used by children and families, creating playgrounds that support child development and connection to the natural world.
Watch this TEDx talk on YouTube.
Why millennials should move to smaller cities
While social media and social norms tell us that big cities are the place to be, Andy Vargas argues for post-industrial mid-sized cities across the United States. These are known as Prospect Cities and they’re giving millennials a great place to launch almost any career. They’re cheaper, close enough to the big city, and facing serious social challenges that millennials especially can help solve.
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Bicycle Culture by Design
Mikael Colville-Andersen is an urban mobility expert and CEO for Copenhagenize Consulting. He is often called Denmark’s Bicycle Ambassador but he has learned the hard way that this title is a dismal pick-up line in bars. Colville-Andersen and his team advise cities and towns around the world regarding bicycle planning, infrastructure and communication strategies. He applies his marketing expertise to campaigns that focus on selling bicycle culture and bicycle transport to a mainstream audience as opposed to the existing cycling sub-cultures in particular with his famous Cycle Chic brand. Colville-Andersen gives talks around the world about bicycle culture, design and social media.
Watch this TEDx talk on YouTube.
The Life-Sized City
“Somewhere in there, in the dark shadow of the Cult of Big, behind the mountain of obsessive growth, there is a lovely little place called the Life-Sized City. In the Life-Sized City, things are different.” – Urban designer Mikael Colville-Andersen takes us on a journey back to the future. A future that can be rational, with cities that can be better than they have been for 70 years. It all starts with The Life-Sized City and rejecting the Cult of Big.
Watch this TEDx talk on YouTube.
Why we shouldn’t bike with a helmet
Mikael Colville-Andersen talks about how important the bicycle is for liveable cities and how bicycle helmets are threatening bicycle culture.
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Add some magic to a public space near you
Every human has a deep longing for home and a sense of place. But home is not where many people think it is, because home is a feeling – not a location. David Engwicht is a place maker and founder of Creative Communities International, a social innovation incubator. The son of an itinerant gospel preacher, David grew up on the fringes with no sense of place. He shares his secrets for helping ordinary citizens add magic and soul to the public spaces in their neighborhood or town center.
Watch this TEDx talk on YouTube.
The architectural mastermind behind modern Singapore
Cities designed like families can last for generations. Skeptical? Look to master architect Liu Thai Ker, who transformed Singapore into a modern marvel with his unique approach to sustainable urban design. Liu shares creative wisdom and perspective on how marrying a humanist heart, a scientific mind and an artistic eye creates a resilient marriage of form and function. A talk that both humbles and inspires.
A stealthy reimagining of urban public space
Cities are becoming increasingly privatized: commercial real estate dominates the streets, carving up open space that once belonged to the public and selling it as a commodity to the highest bidder. In this talk, architect Elizabeth Diller explores the causes and effects of this growing threat — and takes us on tour of her groundbreaking projects aimed at creating landscapes for the public to enjoy, from the High Line in New York City to Zaryadye Park in Moscow.
The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs
In James Howard Kunstler’s view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. Watch the talk on TED.
How architecture can create dignity for all
If architect and writer John Cary has his way, women will never need to stand in pointlessly long bathroom lines again. Lines like these are representative of a more serious issue, Cary says: the lack of diversity in design that leads to thoughtless, compassionless spaces. Design has a unique ability to dignify and make people feel valued, respected, honored and seen — but the flip side is also true. Cary calls for architects and designers to expand their ranks and commit to serving the public good, not just the privileged few. “Well-designed spaces are not just a matter of taste or a questions of aesthetics,” he says. “They literally shape our ideas about who we are in the world and what we deserve.” And we all deserve better. Watch the talk on TED.
New York’s Streets? Not so mean anymore
In this funny and thought-provoking talk, Janette Sadik-Khan, transportation commissioner of New York City, shares projects that have reshaped street life in the 5 boroughs, including pedestrian zones in Times Square, high-performance buses and a 6,000-cycle-strong bike share. Her mantra: Do bold experiments that are cheap to try out. Watch the talk on TED.
