Urban Jungle: The History and Future of Nature in the City
In this exhilarating look at cities, past and future, Ben Wilson proposes that, in our world of rising seas and threatening weather, the natural world may prove the city's savior.
For those unfamiliar with it, Lemmy is basically a federated version of Reddit, distributed across multiple servers like Mastodon. (For anyone who wants to delve further, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, and aussie.zone are three popular Lemmy instances.)
From Mastodon, you can follow any Lemmy group by following its handle, exactly the same way that you would follow a Mastodon account. Any new posts to that group will then begin appearing in your Mastodon feed.
Even better, if you start a thread on Mastodon, you can also post it to a relevant Lemmy group just by including its handle in your post. (Please note this only seems to work with the first post of a thread.)
Yes, above shopfronts is generally a good place for housing, and densification is generally a good thing.
But.
Why are we putting more suburban subdivisions and density in towns like Gisborne, instead of having more density in the inner suburbs of Melbourne?
Wouldn't it be better to have more apartments in inner-suburbs like Camberwell, where there are multiple train and tram lines, than have more sprawl on the fringes?
How does a city sound? It's an issue we often take for granted. My students, Juliane Hirz, Carl-Philipp Bodenstein, and Marvin Alfa, from @univienna, have developed an interesting #soundscape project on Vienna's #Donauinsel.
Via the link below, you can explore the sound map and discover the diverse #soundscapes of this relatively quiet corner of #Vienna.
Venice to start charging visitors entry fee next year (Reuters).
"Venice plans to experiment with an admission fee of 5 euros($5.35) for day trippers next year to try to manage the flow of tourists drawn to its historic canals, the city council said on Tuesday.
The fee will be applied on a trial basis on 30 days next year, focusing mainly on spring bank holidays and summer weekends when tourism numbers are at their peak. All visitors over the age of 14 will have to pay it.
The aim was to find "a new balance between the rights of those who live, study or work in Venice and those who visit the city," Venice tourism councillor Simone Venturini said."
I am now going to #Leipzig to visit our exhibition, which will be officially opened on 1 September: Fairs, cities and merchants (1350-1600)
Come and join us in the Leipzig city #museum Old town hall, 1 September - 15 October 2023
THE RESIDENTS OF THE SAGRADA FAMÍLIA SAY 'ENOUGH' TO TOURISM: "IT'S A THEME PARK WITH US AS EXTRAS" by Sandra Vicente (ElDiario.es, in Spanish).
""Tourism changes the daily life of the people who live in the city", says David Bondia, who assures that the Sindicatura is receiving more and more complaints related to tourism. "It's not just about one-off problems, but about issues that can impoverish your quality of life," says the Catalan Ombudsman, referring to housing and the increase in prices resulting from the overcrowding of visitors. According to the Ombudsman's report, all the effects of tourism are "interdependent" and must be dealt with as a whole. Particularly in the face of rising figures that augur a record season".
"Meanwhile, local residents like Encarna continue to dodge the tourists to go and buy bread".
Melbourne Airport Rail workers redeployed as project officially paused.
A really disappointing, backwards step here from the Victorian government.
And yes, stopping and then restarting a major infrastructure project (if that's what ends up happening) is almost certain to lead to delays and cost blowouts, when compared to just completing construction.
From The Age:
"Hundreds of tradespeople will be seconded to other projects after the Andrews government confirmed Melbourne Airport Rail Link construction would be paused, awaiting the results of a major Commonwealth review of the country’s infrastructure pipeline.
"Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan on Wednesday ended weeks of speculation about the future of the long-awaited rail line, saying works would be temporarily halted on the $13 billion Airport Rail Link, as well as upgrades of Clyde, McGregor and Racecourse roads."
I am also happy to share some information and pictures from last week. We held our annual conference on "#urbanity. History, Concept, Uses" at Ettersburg Castle near Weimar. https://urbrel.hypotheses.org/3319
Back in the Mediterranean region, Nora Lafi will today discuss the nature of urbanity in North African #cities and possible forms of participation in civic space: