Professional Documents
Culture Documents
myurbanist
reader
essays on provocative
urbanism
Chuck Wolfe
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First Edition
To cities everywhere.
❧
Contents
Chapter 1 Defining Provocative Urbanism ................. 1
Chapter 2 Practicing Cautionary Placemaking:
Urbanism and the Venetian Ghetto ............. 9
Chapter 3 Jerusalem Stories: Sustainability as
Detente? ........................................... 17
Chapter 4 Jerusalem Stories: Light Rail and
“Innocents Abroad” .............................. 23
Chapter 5 Six Postcards Not to Send to an Urbanist .... 37
Chapter 6 The Mission Ahead: Recalibrating
“Urbandwidth” .................................... 43
Chapter 7 Hill Towns as Icons of Placemaking .......... 47
Chapter 8 A Tale of Two Nighthawks—Recalling the
Indelible Urban Image Anew ................... 53
Chapter 9 What about “Shapes of Avoidance” on the
Landscape? ........................................ 59
Chapter 10 Re-Visioning Neighborhood and the City,
Then and Now .................................... 65
1
Defining
Provocative
Urbanism
1
2 the myurbanist reader
The Provocation
But just what are we provoking, and why
and how?
Some of us are simply geeks about urban
areas. Some see them as salvation—whether as
city over suburb, or in the realm of economics,
architecture, politics, law, transportation, and
health—or all together, in one of those silo-free
nirvanas of sustainability, resplendent of both
creative and contemporary buzz.
But a Google search for provocative
urbanism produces surprisingly few results, and
those which readily appear suggest an interesting
theme: it is provocative to harken back to
Defining Provocative Urbanism 3
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10 the myurbanist reader
After 1516, Christian curfew guards (paid for by Jewish residents) assured that island
inhabitants were secured at night by locked gates at the bridge.
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Bicycle Integration
One byproduct of light rail is bicycle
enhancement to enhance station accessibility.
According to a planning consultant to the city,
Selmah Nilson-Arad, walking distance to stations
Jerusalem Stories: Light Rail and “Innocents… 31
37
38 the myurbanist reader
Six Postcards Not to Send to an Urbanist 39
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Six Postcards Not to Send to an Urbanist 41
6
The Mission Ahead:
Recalibrating
“Urbandwidth”
43
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W. Drummond’s Chicago competition entry shows a bird’s-eye view and a typical city block.
(Source: Yeomans 1916: 37,41)