The New York Sun has a special feature devoted to Robert Moses and his impact on New York City. The piece that jumped out the most for me was Gary Shapiro’s Small Models for a Towering Builder, frankly because it is about models of New York, and I am a sucker for models and maps. [...]
Monthly Archives: February 2007
Heat Island Effect
The Heat Island Effect is the elevation of the temperature around cities by up to 10°F, as compared to neighboring rural areas. These cities are then referred to as urban heat islands. From 1998 until 2003, the EPA created the Urban Heat Island Pilot Project to help work on heat reduction techniques for cities. The [...]
Gibrat’s Law
Gibrat’s Law states that the proportionate growth of a city (or corporation or other social entity) is independent of its size. Here’s an example from Economy Professor: If a company with sales of $10m doubles in size over a period of time, it is likely the same will happen for a company beginning with sales [...]
Rethinking the Legacy of Robert Moses
In a recent New Yorker Paul Goldberger writes an article entitled Eminent Dominion: Rethinking the Legacy of Robert Moses. In it, Goldberger argues that Robert Moses, while he often couldn’t care less about the effects of his projects (such as destruction of organically grown neighborhoods), did bring a number of positive things to New York [...]
1942 Time Magazine’s ‘Biology of Cities’
In 1942, Time Magazine had a brief piece entitled Biology of Cities, about the organic nature of cities. Cities, like organisms, can grow and die, and the architect Jose Luis Sert felt that the continuing life of a city is by no means a given. But he does not give up all hope: But Mr. [...]
Cities and Sports Teams
In honor of the upcoming Super Bowl, here is a collection of links about cities and sports teams: Wondering which cities have teams from the four major American sports? Wonder no longer. And while we’re at it, here are the states (yes, entire states) that lack a major sports team. Here is Paul Lukas’s take [...]
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Chicago’s Multilevel Streets
I just learned from a friend that in parts of the downtown, Chicago has multilevel streets. These streets generally have an upper level for local traffic, while the lower level is used for through traffic and deliveries. The most well-known of these is Wacker Drive, which actually has three levels. Here is a map of [...]
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