/r/urbandesign
For everything that is about design mixed with urbanism!
The design of urban furniture, the design of roads, of pedestrian areas, the design of traffic calming measures,...
Great insights:
William H. Whyte - Social Life of Small Urban Places
Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA - Designing Healthy Communities
Suggested Reading:
The Life and Death of American Cities - Jacobs
Suburbanation - Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck
The nature of urban design - Washburn
Related subreddits:
Useful online tools
/r/urbandesign
While it’s still less parking in the end, this is for one drive thru vs 5 different shops.
I read this book while attending U of Miami SOA back in 2000. I ended up attending UC Berkeley for my MUD degree and kicking myself for not meeting him while I was there. I highly recommend this book for all things Urban Design and especially Architecture.
There is no cross walk within at least a 15 minute walk of my bus stop. I have to RUN across the highway to cross the street in order to get home! I’m young and healthy so it’s doable for me, but what would somebody who’s elderly or disabled do? they just have to hope and pray that everyone driving is actually paying attention to notice a person crossing in the middle of the highway? same thing goes for so many streets up and down the highway. also i’m scared ill trip while running and get run over 😭
anyway, this realllyyyyy irks me. ik it’s a bit dramatic as it’s only a 2 lane highway but still. seems very unsafe. i’m more so concerned about people who physically can’t run across the road like myself. my town has a high elderly population
I’m hoping this is the right place to ask this. I’m currently hitting a point in my life where I’m feeling ready for a major career pivot and I’ve been trying to narrow down things that I’m interested and passionate about and Urban Design/planning is on the top of my list.
I’m from the U.S. but for the last two years I’ve spent a significant amount of time abroad in Europe, Asia and South America for my current job (global marketing at a big brand) and during those travels I’ve really been inspired by cities that have good design that encourages more walking, biking etc. I see so many places in my city where these small changes could have a big impact on community. I’ve also become an avid cyclist and after a week in Copenhagen I almost cried at how well done their bike infrastructure is.
So as the title says, I am considering getting in to a career in city planning and I don’t have anyone in my network who is in that line of work so I’d love to hear from anyone willing to share their experience of how they got in to their current urban design (or closely related!) role!
How did you start? Did you go to school to get a related degree? What does a day in your life look like? What’s the hardest part of the job? Are you working for the government or private company/consulting?
For some further background, I recently turned 30 and I’ve spent my career so far in communications/marketing for international brands. I’m not great at math, but I’m good at communicating so would certainly be looking for less of an architectural role.
What's the reason that these new looking buildings have an external glass facade over an internal metal and glass one?. It looks functionality redundant. This one is in Copenhagen.
Hello, I am interested in a fairly specific topic: Parking Delineation vs. Unmarked Parking.
In other words, should a city paint lines on the street for street parking.
More so, in heavy trafficked areas- I don’t mean in places where parking is not competitive. I am wondering if it helps with places that have competitive parking
I and am hoping people here can share with me some good sources of data on this topic.
I tried posting this in the urbanplanning sub but mods removed it so trying here :)
Thanks
I want a variety of opinions and obviously I’m not gonna be planning every roads in my city. But I’ve been given the opportunity to provide insight into how to develop the future of my city. This is a real privilege for me and I don’t want to fuck it up.
I would like to ask this subreddit advices because I trust general knowledge more than my limited viewpoint.
We have some priorities established:
If you’re interested, you can leave a comment with advices, or related books to explore the subject. If you’re really interested you can hit me up with a dm to know more about my location.
Hello, I am considering applying to the Virginia Tech Masters in Architecture with an Urban Design Concentration, but I do not have a background in Architecture or Design. I have long been obsessed with the form and function of built environments as well as city planning, but the program chair expressed that it would be best for me to get a little bit of formal design training prior to applying.
My question is: can anyone on this sub recommend quality and affordable design classes either online or in the D.C. metro area? Preferably this would be a spring semester class which I could take in the spring semester of 2025.
My city in suburban Kansas City has several residential streets in older neighborhoods with no sidewalks or storm drains. These streets are approx. 22' wide and have swales on either side that lead to in-ground storm drains. Here is an example of one such street.
Many residents living along these streets would like to see them improved, and I asked my city councilor about what options the city had. She told me that the city would like to improve them, but it would be very expensive, because the city would have to purchase about 14' of right-of-way from the homeowners along both sides of the street to meet the 50' minimum required by local residential street design standards.
That left me wondering, is there a narrower option that cities could use? For example, here's a street built in the late 1930s that has sidewalks on both sides and on-street parking but is only 37' wide from the outer edge of one sidewalk to another, at least as measured on Google Maps. Now I know that isn't compliant with modern road design standards, and I can personally attest to it being a pain in the ass to park on, but are there more modern examples of older streets being upgraded to modern standards that don't require a full 50' of ROW?