The dreamy-looking city at left? San Francisco's Canadian cousin, Vancouver, where we recently spent a long weekend. Since we don't blog any more, we won't go into detail about how they compare. But here's the short version: if San Francisco remains the West Coast's capital of traditional urbanism, Vancouver really is a shining example of the new urbanism. It may be debatable to what extent Vancouver wrote the playbook for modern urbanism in North America (much of the "new" urbanism is merely a reinvention of the old, and Portland, although less urban than Vancouver, can lay its own claim to role model status). But there's no denying that Vancouver has successfully run the playbook. Its neighborhoods are both lively and livable; pedestrians outnumber cars; its transit system actually works; and perhaps most importantly, its citizens seem to have bought into the idea of managed growth. Anyway, we took loads of photos: click
here for panoramic wallpaper, and
here for a Flickr set.
Those of you who remember our old website or who've seen our
Japan travelogue know that we're big, big fans of high-speed rail. It's good planning,
and a great way to travel. Which may make us a bit irrational about the
California High-Speed Rail project; we're such fans that we've now produced three maps of the proposal, the latest of which can be viewed by clicking on the above image. Euro/Japanese dreaming on such a California day? Honestly, we don't think so: Having seen what high-speed rail can do, and having thought seriously about whether it could work in California, we're convinced that
CAHSR — while less than ideal in its latest iteration — will be worth the cost, and we urge you to support it this fall, flaws and all.
In 2006, Cityscape toured the shining example of Pacific Rim urbanism, Japan. Click
here to view a photoessay featuring Tokyo and Kyoto wallpaper as well as video of Tokyo's Shibuya Crossing and the Shinkansen bullet train.
A San Francisco transit map by Cityscape is featured in the new book
Transit Maps of the World, by Mark Ovenden. Ironically, we recently replaced that map, of the city's rail and rapid transit system once all currently planned projects are built, with
this one — but you can still find the old version
here. Our thanks to Mr. Ovenden for including not just official maps, but work by enthusiasts.
So here's the deal: If you know what "WWJJD" means, you might want a
shirt, mug or button displaying the image at left. We don't need the money; we just wanted a t-shirt for ourselves. But then we figured, why not share? And as long as we're sharing, why not make of our geeky schwag a fundraiser of sorts for a cause
Saint Jane would have approved of? We're not going to send receipts or anything; you'll just have to trust that we're going to pass on the proceeds. Nor have we even talked to our intended recipient, the San Francisco-based nonprofit
Livable City, about our little scheme. But we can't think of a local org whose ideals (functional streets, lively neighborhoods, etc.) are closer to those of Ms. Jacobs.
