People eating at Kennedy Plaza during last month’s FirstWorks Festival
→ The Atlantic Cities: The Power of the Movable Chair
In his classic 1980 study of the use of public spaces in New York City, William H. Whyte and his team of researchers used cameras to watch people and understand how they used the public places in the city. One of the takeaways from the film footage was that people like to sit in public places, and, far more fascinatingly, that if given the option they will almost always move chairs before they sit in them.
→ The New York Times: How the G.O.P. Became the Anti-Urban Party
A leading Republican columnist, trying to re-stoke her candidate’s faltering campaign before the first presidential debate, felt so desperate that she advised him to turn to cities.
“Wade into the crowd, wade into the fray, hold a hell of a rally in an American city – don’t they count anymore?” Peggy Noonan lamented in The Wall Street Journal. “A big, dense city with skyscrapers like canyons, crowds and placards, and yelling. All of our campaigning now is in bland suburbs and tired hustings.”
But the fact is that cities don’t count anymore – at least not in national Republican politics.
See also: → Greater Greater Washington: Presidential debate again ignores urban issues
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Providence’s Big Green Can is about to get greener and recycling is getting a lot easier in the capital city.
→ Sharing time: Tracking the ‘sharrow’ on city streets [
