Talking Headways Podcast: Can All Cities Be Great?

The guest this episode is Alexander Garvin, author of the recently released book What Makes a Great City. We chat about why people are an important factor in building cities and taking pictures; Houston’s Post Oak Boulevard is going to show up Chicago, San Francisco, and New York’s best streets; and Alexander’s heroes, from Edmund Bacon to Haussmann to Robert Moses.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

America’s Least Wanted Highways

|
The Congress for New Urbanism released a highly entertaining top ten list today: the North American highways most in need of demolition. At the top is Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct, a structurally damaged elevated highway that, if removed, would free up 335 acres of public land by Elliott Bay. New York’s Sheridan Expressway, which traverses […]

What Should We Learn From Moses and Jacobs?

|
There is probably no more beloved figure in urbanism than Jane Jacobs, who fought to preserve some of New York City’s most treasured neighborhoods and who gave urbanists some of the field’s fundamental texts. As Ed Glaeser notes in the New Republic this week, Jacobs died in 2006 "a cherished, almost saintly figure," while her […]

Talking Headways Podcast: Knight Rider Rides Again

|
It was a dark and stormy day in San Francisco and Jeff Wood stayed dry in Woonerf studios, recording the Talking Headways podcast with co-host Tanya Snyder, who was bitter that days after the spring equinox, Washington, DC, was getting hit with another snowstorm. But more importantly — what does the future hold after a […]