“If you were to rebuild your city from scratch, how would you build it differently and what would you keep the same?”
At Likemind this Friday, we’re going to throw a question into the discussions taking place in over 40 global cities – and then posting the results on a community wiki as soon as each Likemind ends.
It’s network research for the network by the network. If it all goes well, we’ll post the results on Monday – and if you feel compelled to answer the question, why not join us: www.likemind.us.
(And, yep – maybe one of you lovely brands out there would like to sponsor next month’s question. Sponsorship funds raised go to each of the Likemind cities – but with 40+ cities that’s not cheap – email info@likemind.us).
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Great question!
These days we have to think about everything globally. Everything we do today impacts everyone around us, as well as the future.
I talk about that in today’s blog on Retail Design Diva – global warming is affecting the fashion industry. And NOW they are starting to listen…http://retaildesigndiva.blogs.com/
-Heather
October 17th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Cant come along friday (shame)
I wouldnt start from scratch. Not only is futurism wasteful but it rips up our few remaining emotional connections with place. Imagine London with straight streets! I’d make energy efficiency improvements and then re-use all the buildings to create different kinds of denser, greener, nicer neighbourhoods. Communal sharing would be the core principle. Launderettes part powered by the treadmills from an adjoining gym. Affordable, funky, boarding house hotels solving the young people cant afford to leave home crisis, Anything with concrete on which wasnt enabling green home deliveries and a stroll to amenities and shared workspaces would be dug up and planted. Tall glass buildings would be full of tomato plants. You could own a car, but with more than progressive taxation frankly it would be cheaper to own a helicopter.
Of course this was the idea behind communist city planning and the reality left some to be desired. It’s hard to imagine these changes without some changes (£10m Russian owned penthouse apartments and the general property ratrace would get in the way). But maybe a global economic meltdown is coming and if so after the second great depression then we will really have to rebuild our cities from scratch.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:33 am
My biggest headache about living and working in a city like London is the transport infrastructure. Whether rebuilding the city would have made a massive change to the infrastructure is something we’re not likely to find out, but i think moving forward as a city we need to really think about how we do that. Encouraging more people to cycle is a start and in some cases has worked, but i don’t think enough is being done. Maybe we should adopt some of the schemes and transport initiatives being developed in other cities around the world.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:31 am