Page 44 - Jane Jacobs News Today

The idea of 15-minute cities is pretty simple: Everything you need should be within a roughly 15 minute walk or cycle. Yet it has become the subject of a conspiracy theory, fast gaining pace globally, which has rebranded them as “climate lockdowns.”

The modern city is in most ways a failure.

A bill working its way through the state House would give cities and counties the power to impose a cap on rent hikes on residential buildings that are at least 15 years old.

So it’s possible to imagine that the city that Glaeser described in his book was not the city of the future, but a city that was already sliding into the past. If this is true, it has significant implications for the future of work.

"In our attention to making organization work we have come close to deifying it. We are describing its defects as virtues and denying that there is - or should be - a conflict between the individual and the organization. This denial is bad for the organization. It is worse for the individual."William H. Whyte, from The Organization Man 

Students and community members filed into Kresge Auditorium Tuesday night to learn about a campaign for better and more people-centered public spaces:

Structural engineers are responsible for ensuring that buildings do not fall over. Mechanical engineers must ensure that people inside can breathe. But what responsibility do building designers have to the street outside?

Strategies to restore civility to our streets and parks

This silliness around ‘15-minute cities’ will die down in due course, writes columnist Max Fawcett. Still, it speaks to a larger problem that won’t go away any time soon.

To what extent will proposed replacement policies address current issues? Are there other policies and practices that should be looked at and can older policies be tailored to meet today’s challenges? The whole array of planning and development practices are being questioned, particularly as seen through the outcomes they’ve produced or, in the case of housing, not produced.