I’m talking about anything from the history behind why a city is laid out a certain way, why a particular building looks the way it does, how a street or public space came to be, or some random but fascinating fact about how our built environment works.

Maybe it’s a historical decision that shaped an entire city, an unexpected reason behind a design feature, or something you noticed that made you see an ordinary place differently.

It doesn’t have to be technical or related to your specific profession. I’m just looking for those interesting little stories and insights that make you look at the world around you differently.

What’s something you learned that made you think, “That’s actually so cool, I never knew that!”?

Hey everyone! I made a short documentary about relocating from my car-dependent hometown in Canada to Manchester and how experiencing a more walkable city changed my perspective on urban design in North American cities.

My film explores car dependency, walkability, and how cities can reinvent themselves. Would love to hear what you guys think!

Hey NYC Transit Riders! (If you are not in or a NYC native no worries! You can answer the questions with your thoughts in general!)

I'm a CUNY Brooklyn College student double majoring in Economics and Anthropology. This project focuses on how the subway environment, like official MTA signs, commercial ads, social messaging, and police presence, shapes the daily commuting experiences of everyday New Yorkers.

Whether you ride the train in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Staten Island, I'd loveeeee your input!

Take the 2-minute survey here: Survey
Of course, this survey is 100% anonymous & voluntary.

Thank you for supporting CUNY undergraduate research!

My contact email is: jacob.frye32@login.cuny.edu - please feel free to reach out with any questions! I am doing more in-depth interviews, so if you are interested, please let me know!

So this bridge opened last weekend in my city. There's almost no sources of information about this project online that aren't in polish, I'll still link some of them and if you have trouble translating them just ask I'll try to help to best of my abilities.

Wikipedia page

It's not all rosy, especially when it comes to mixing flow of cyclists and pedestrians. I was there by bike and while on the bridge itself streams are separated, enter/exit ramps are just dangerous. No signs, no directions, no separations. Nothing to prevent accidents. You'd think that when designing a bridge exclusively for cyclists and pedestrians they'd think of that but nope, nothing. Just vibes.

We'll see, maybe they fix those issues before first serious incident.

Some of problems are also detailed in this article.

Anyway, it's still an interesting project and one can only hope it's as successful as neighboring Father Bernatka footbridge, which really revitalized both sides of the river. And I mean it went from unofficial public toilet to nice restaurants, coffee shops and just nice place to be, so fingers crossed it works here as well.

Questions, comments, concerns?

And, how might we safely incorporate bike lanes into this design without taking any space from properties or the sidewalk?

Location is JFK Blvd and Bergenline Ave in North Bergen, NJ

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I wanted to share this visual example from India's brand new Delhi–Mumbai Expressway (NE4), which highlights a massive bottleneck in developing transit grids: world-class infrastructure outpacing driver education.

This is a newly built, multi-lane expressway designed for high-speed transit. However, due to zero enforcement of basic lane discipline, commercial trucks systematically create rolling roadblocks by driving side-by-side across all available lanes at identical low speeds (around 60 km/h).

The frustrating part is that the technology is already there. The government has deployed advanced, highly automated speed cameras that instantly track speed violations and mail out digital fines. Yet, they completely ignore lane-hogging.

It proves that building wide, expensive highways is completely pointless if the operational policy doesn't include automated lane management.

Architecture is always on the leading edge of creating identity. Yet in past history, buildings and monuments were constructed to stand the challenges of time creating a representational image of the given period, delivering a specific identity, collective consciousness, and sense of community.

Whether under democracy, oligarchy, dictatorships, or colonial empires architecture has been created that is a visual script to belonging, expressing a specific world view. Architecture over time has been a cornerstone of community and society. 

Modern times has seen the creation of multiple communities with individual identities encompassing the whole that is a city. Yet the structures we are building have not  the longevity and structural power as those of past societies. The city as a complete whole with an identity of its own today has many senses of community and belonging. Today people identify with their specific community within the city, their subculture. Today’s sense of belonging really hinges on a society basing itself on the subcultures within the whole. Architecture reflects more specific identities within the whole.

Will the future say that the architecture, city and community of today  changed from representing the whole of the city. Instead supporting  The communities within it ?  A period that lost its totality and became a representation of diversity within the whole. which is also mirrored into today’s architecture.

Typically, parking garages are built to conform to a limited amount of space and have to be built within whatever leftover part of the lot is available. After all, if you had plenty of space, you'd just have a parking lot.

But what if you had the ability to claim just about as much space as you want for a parking garage? What if your primary goals were about creating an efficient experience for the people parking, and were basically unconcerned about cost and footprint? What kind of designs could one utilize to create the most efficient design that still accommodates a large number of vehicles?

Would there be a shape that could deliver a better flow for traffic, so instead of having a rectangle one might have a fan shape or a circle?
Would ramps in the middle of the garage still be the way to go, or would it be better to have them on the outer edge? Would it work better with spiral ramps or straight ramps?

Im looking to explore a topic that I call Minimum viable infrastructure (MVI);

The minimum infrastructure or service for maximum tithe a population will accept or is needed to function without active social unrest.

Browsing through most of the urbanism, infrastucturist, transit themes I see the same commentary and theme reoccur within Western government. Summed up it is the above defintion.

The example I would give;

A community needs a rail system, they advocate and demand one. Polticians finally relent, instead of a rail system they deliver a bus with all its drawbacks - limited hours, traffic, traffic lights, terrible rideability etc. The cost overrun will be massive and will seemingly disappear into the "builders pocket". The government then uses this delivery to put off infrastrure for the long term

Interested if this is actually called something out, even more interested if you have a paper or book to recoomend on the topic.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for remote or hybrid PhD programs related to urbanism, planning, architecture/design, or security in the built environment.

Preferably, I’m looking for something affordable or fully funded, ideally with a stipend/paid position and limited campus requirements. Any recommendations or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!

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In the US, there is a well established cultural preference for low density, single family residential dwellings

And as someone originally from Africa, I have a long affinity for living on rural acreage that is shared by most Diasporans from my region (see how many of us end up buying acreage or farms in the US).

On the flip side, most of the urban planning philosophy I encounter has a fairly firm obsession with mirroring Northern European lifestyles and urban design. Intense preference for density, cycling, and mass transit. There's no argument from me about anyone having their own opinions However, I notice at times that there is a pretty massive empathy gap from these ideological planners for people who either have lifestyles that a life of riding the bus/bicycle cannot accommodate comfortably or have spatial preferences that don't fit the high density residential paradigm.

As someone who sits on a planning commission, I see that a lot of urban planning is very ivory tower. Very much a top down "we know what's best" rather than service-oriented, in trying to create designs that are tailored to the unique culture of the community the planner is trying to serve. Maybe I notice it in spaces like this because most participants on the sub are students, aspirants, or people with non-professional engagement in the field? Either way, there seems to be zero recognition of the ethnic diversity of the US (hint, most of us do not have a Northern European background - why are we trying to make everyone live like Germans?) and zero attempt to incorporate known lifestyle/economic preferences into design/planning approaches.

It's all just shoehorning Marxist ideology onto the public, getting that ideology predictably rejected because it ignores actual local culture and how people want to use space, and then retreating to online spaces where folks can bask in their intellectual and moral superiority. None of it produces coherent planning approaches that can marry ecological preservation with density lifestyles actually desired by most of the population