This week’s best city stories take us from bold plans in Europe’s fastest-growing city to the urban impact of the US blizzard as we think about public parks, battling pollution, fostering a genius and snow resilience. Share your thoughts about these city stories – and any others you’ve seen – in the comments below.
Stockholm’s streets in sky
A proposal for the centre of Stockholm envisages the creation of a neighbourhood of high-rise buildings connected by pathways forming a public park where pedestrians can walk from roof to roof.
Anders Berensson, the architect behind the Klarastaden scheme – which has been commissioned by Sweden’s Centre party – believes the designs achieve high-density living in a capital suffering a housing shortage due to being the fastest-growing city in Europe. But the proposals aim to provide dense housing without sacrificing public amenities and enjoyment: “The sky walk on the roof terraces will be one of the longest parks in Stockholm with the best view in town,” Berensson said in an interview with Dezeen.
Located over the railway tracks leading to Stockholm’s Centralstation, the “skinny skyscrapers” vary in height to maximise natural light. As Adele Peters writes in Fast Co Exist, “the local response has been surprisingly positive so far; in a survey of 5,000 residents in a local paper, 85% liked the idea”.
Delhi’s improvements up in the air
This month, pollution-choked Delhi implemented a temporary experiment to improve air quality, by banning specific cars from the streets on alternate days based on their number plates. The metro system may have responded well to the situation, but did air quality actually improve?
Apparently not. “Delhi’s air quality in the first week of January was, on average, 20-25% worse than it had been the week before,” writes Tanvi Misra in CityLab. However, one noted improvement was that traffic congestion significantly reduced during the experiment. Still, it seems Delhi may need a more radical change to make the city air safer for residents.
Blizzard response
Last weekend the eastern US was hit by an intense blizzard, including the cities of New York and Washington DC. But while the capital struggled to recover, New York City was mostly up and running on Monday. Why?
Writing in Talking Points Memo, Ben Nuckols and Jonathan Lemire explain how differences in the cities’ staffing and resources committed to resolving the impact of snowfall resulted in notably different recovery rates. As Rebecca Burns previously explored, looking at the impact of blizzards on Atlanta and Buffalo, local politics can play a central role in how well cities cope.
Genius cities
Do you have to grow up in a city to be a genius? It may sound strange but that’s exactly what Eric Weiner suggests in his new book, The Geography of Genius. Next City reports that Weiner identifies cities as places which foster the kind of intellectual and innovative clusters which produce geniuses.
He cites seven urban hotbeds of genius throughout history, including Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Hangzhou, China during the Song Dynasty, and Kolkata in the late 19th century. Weiner stresses the importance of public spaces outside of work and home to create these “genius clusters”, where people can come together and generate ideas.
Gothic victory
Twelve years after approving a new font for use on highway signs – designed to be more legible – the US Federal Highway Administration is reversing its decision and stamping out the Clearview font. As CityLab reports: “Clearview was made to improve upon its predecessor, a 1940s font called Highway Gothic, at a time when an ageing Baby Boomer generation meant lots of older drivers on the road.” So, why return to Highway Gothic and get rid of a font that’s easier to read? Kriston Capps suggests an answer: “The FHWA has not yet provided any research on Clearview that disproves the early claims about the font’s benefits. But there is at least one factor that clearly distinguishes it from Highway Gothic: cost.”
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