Character Towns | MEDIA & WEBINARS

MEDIA & WEBINARS

Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs

 Jun 25, 2011 – This video documents the two Jane’s Walks that U of T professor Andrew Clement led in May 2011. The walks called attention to issues relating to widespread video surveillance. 

Meet Your New Security Guard: A 300-Pound Robot 

William Santana Li, chairman and CEO of Knightscope, and Stacy Stephens, vice president of marketing and sales, explain how the company’s K5 autonomous robot security guards work. They speak with Bloomberg’s Pimm Fox on “Taking Stock.” (Source: Bloomberg)

City Parks: America’s New Infrastructure – Multi-Use 

With growing urban populations and aging infrastructure, local governments and their city planners are taking a fresh look at parks as a wise investment of municipal resources to address our greatest urban challenges—from stormwater management and flood prevention to reducing public health costs to economic revitalization and job growth.

How to revitalize a neighborhood without gentrification. 

Picture this. You have the opportunity to own a beautiful home in a historic neighborhood with deep cultural roots designed by some of the best urban planners in the world. all in a charming waterfront city. You’d want to live here, right?

City Parks: America’s New Infrastructure – Traffic & Transportation 

CT.org…Here is another excellent video in City Parks’ series “City Parks: America’s New Infrastructure”. The collaboration of the parks and mobility systems of a city, small and large, offers synergies that benefit residents, businesses and visitors. The examples in the video are easily adaptable to many smaller municipal venues. 

Biophilic Cities: Design for Planetary Health and Human Flourishing 

CED Guest Lecture Series, February 26, 2020 
Dr. Timothy Beatley, Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia “Biophilic Cities: Design for Planetary Health and Human Flourishing” This lecture was supported by the Seymour Fund. 
Beatley believes that sustainable and resilient cities represent our best hope for addressing today’s environmental challenges.

City Parks: America’s New Infrastructure – Overview 

“City Parks: America’s New Infrastructure” is the first video in a five-part series from City Parks Alliance documenting the multi-functional benefits of urban parks. With growing urban populations and aging infrastructure, local governments and their city planners are taking a fresh look at parks as a wise investment of municipal resources to address our greatest urban challenges—from stormwater management and flood prevention to reducing public health costs to economic revitalization and job growth. 

Amanda Burden: How public spaces make cities work 

Amanda Burden helped plan some of the New York City’s newest public spaces, drawing on her experience as, surprisingly, an animal behaviorist. She shares the unexpected challenges of planning parks people love and why it’s important.

 A breakthrough agenda on climate finance 

 In this sixth interview of the “17 Rooms” podcast, Amar Bhattacharya and John Podesta discuss a “breakthrough” agenda on climate finance, which is necessary to deliver on greater climate ambition and ensure synergy with the sustainable development agenda. Bhattacharya, senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution and Podesta, chair and founder of the Center for American Progress, moderated Room 13 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 13—on climate action—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process. 

https://www.brookings.edu/podcast-episode/a-breakthrough-agenda-on-climate-finance/

Read more on YCC PodcastDownload

“The Upcycle” by William McDonough

Mr. McDonough as one of our great contemporary thinkers. His work on sustainability benefits from his training as an architect curious about science and the future of the planet. This lecture is from Stanford University’s acceptance of his papers…a listening is a great way to spend an hour.
Read more on McDonoughDownload

The Olmsted Conference 

Beginning on American History TV, C-SPAN, aired a conference on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, founder of American landscape architecture. The video presents Laurie Olin discussing FLO’s influence on the landscapes of college campuses across the country including Stanford. Landscape architect Mark Hough discussed Olmsted’s work on the Duke University Campus. The conference was held at the National Building Museum on October 27, 2021. 

See Frederick Law Olmsted videosDownload

“Shaping Our Nation: How Surges of Migration Transformed America and Its Politics” by Michael Barone 

Summary. 

Shaping Our Nation provides a great perspective on American society and the culture of urban America and its cities. The impact of different waves of immigrants is nicely illustrated in City of the Century, The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America by Donald L. Miller.  This book is intense and dense; every sentence has information or insights about our history, where we came from and how the cultural traits from Europe, Asia and Latin America created the emotional landscape upon which to build the twenty-first American century. 

Read more on Shaping Our NationDownload

Why millennials should move to smaller cities and towns. 

While social media and social norms tell us that big cities are the place to be, there’s a case to be made for post-industrial mid-sized cities across the United States. These are known as Prospect Cities and they’re giving millennials a great place to launch almost any career. They’re cheaper, close enough to the big city, and facing serious social challenges that millennials especially can help s

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