GreaterPlaces Launch Party Featuring the Transect-ual Fashion Show
Join the groups that brought you Cards Against Urbanity – GreaterPlaces and DoTankDC – for a night of learning and fun. You already know that streets in T-3 look different than streets in T-6…but have you ever thought about the appropriate shoes for each? At the Transect-ual Fashion Show, you’ll learn about the transect in a whole new way and discover a great new online resource for your planning needs called Greater Places (the Houzz for Urban Design).
Thursday Night – TBD – Deep Ellum Bar – 7pm. Fashion Show at 8:30pm.
In an effort to contribute to the public awareness campaign being carried out by proponents of lean urbanism, this article is meant to help expand the argument for lean development through the adoption of an ethical approach to how we advocate for the codification of lean urbanism.
In general, the current talking points behind the arguments for lean urbanism can be characterized by highlighting the often negative economic realities behind our current development paradigm and then bringing attention to the economic benefits of less red tape holding back potential small-scale development. The Project for Lean Urbanism, the organization at the forefront of promoting lean urbanism, has adopted seven principles, or “platforms”, that outline the movement’s main focus areas. These platforms include Lean Building, Lean Development, Lean Business, Lean Green, Lean Regulation, Lean Infrastructure, and Lean Education. These platforms have in common the goal of highlighting best practices in lean development regulations and finance.
First Friday Gallery Hop in Tallahassee, FL. Informal rental units provide affordable work space for artists. Photo credit: visittallahassee.com
The recognition of the role of bureaucracy and finance in preventing small-scale growth has been shared by many in planning, design, and development related professions for a long time. The genius of The Project for Lean Urbanism is not in holding this position, but in its ability to articulate and showcase the failures of our current development and finance models and provide attainable and attractive alternatives during a critical moment within the larger “metropolitan revolution”. The Project for Lean Urbanism has the platform and to a certain extent a responsibility to further the lean discussion through an emotive approach that incorporates moral and social values.
In the 1960’s, French philosopher Henri Lefebvre coined the term la droit à la ville (the right to the city). The right to the city has been discussed as a strategy to counter contemporary neoliberal global financial restructuring efforts and as a means to prevent the continuing disenfranchisement of urban inhabitants across the world.
It is important to understand the way Lefebvre and his modern contemporaries view the city in a market economy. The role of the city is to absorb surplus capital, to produce a surplus product in order to produce a surplus value and then facilitate the reinvestment of the surplus in order to create more surplus value. The continuous cycle of capital reinvestment has shaped cities throughout human history. As David Harvey outlines, there come certain episodes in time where opportunities to reinvest surplus capital are limited within existing urban forms and thus create the drive to reshape and rescale markets. He points out that this was one of Haussmann’s lasting legacies. Haussmann succeeded in rescaling Paris and facilitating the absorption of surplus capital through new debt-finance instruments and large infrastructure improvements. This effort to rescale urban forms and markets has occurred multiple times since, most visibly after World War II in the form of low density sprawl, and most recently through the globalization of debt and credit finance institutions which led to the Great Recession.
Further discussion of what a right to the city would entail has provided us with two main concepts as pointed out by Mark Purcell. These two main rights, the right to participation and the right to appropriation, outline the implications of a right to the city. The right to participation is simple in that many decisions that influence public space should be rescaled from often national or international institutions or organizations (such as NAFTA, the WTO, and in particular, the IBC) to the urban inhabitant. In addition, the right to appropriation, or an increased ability to use urban space as one sees fit, is the other half of the right to the city.
Right to the City Alliance organized march. Photo Credit: Miami Workers Center
Lefebvre’s concept has been discussed by many in recent years. Even so, the common conclusion is that, based on Lefebvre’s work, the right to the city is a vague concept and unable to produce results as, according to Purcell, “the idea remains both theoretically and politically underdeveloped.” It is difficult to understand how the idea of a right to the city could improve the situation for the disenfranchised around the world without a political and physical framework.
In this sense, lean urbanism is in the best position to provide the framework for achieving a new paradigm called for by proponents of the right to the city. The ability to effect and participate in development outside of the global debt-finance institutions of contemporary society is called for by advocates of the right to the city and enabled by lean urbanism.
There is an opportunity to tap into the right to the city movement and incorporate certain concepts first developed by Henri Lefebvre to further the goals of a lean urbanism; a revamped municipal regulatory structure that allows small-scale development and infill opportunities for urban inhabitants that otherwise would not have access to the resources needed to shape the built environment within the current framework of development standards. By enlarging the argument for lean urbanism from primarily one of development finance and economic benefits, to a more inclusive argument that incorporates similar goals of a wide variety of social justice movements, lean urbanism can become an even more attractive concept to the general public.
Agrarian Urbanism thrives within the Vietnamese community of New Orleans East.
In David Harvey’s article The Right to the City, he highlights that sociologist Robert Park pointed out that the city is “man’s most successful attempt to remake the world he lives in more after his heart’s desire. But, if the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself.” Harvey then goes on to state that “the freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is … one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.”
More information on Larkin Square: Click Here. Shuttle buses will make the rounds for CNU attendees from the Hyatt to Larkin Square, starting at 5:30pm.
Join CNU in the jewel of Larkinville for CNU 22’s closing party, featuring food trucks, live music from The Albrights, drinks at The Grill, local goods from the marketplace, and Larkin Square’s famously fun amenities such as hula hoops and pickleball.
Sponsored by First Niagara, the closing party is free and open to the public.
Join us for a gathering of developers and aspiring developers interested in building smaller scale/incremental urban projects. Rookies, come and find a mentor, expand your network, and reduce your learning curve! Seasoned developers, come and help rookies avoid your mistakes.
Five Points + / 11am – 3pm @ Five Points (Rhode Island St and West Utica St.) [Google Maps]
“Five Points +” neighborhood stakeholders, business owners, and concerned citizens will leverage tactical urbanism to traffic calm a dangerous, problematic intersection. Expect a street party, art, chalk, and greenery, to boot! Peatónito, Mexico City’s masked pedestrian revolutionary, will be a participant!
Lunch at the Roycroft / 12:15pm – 3:15pm / Departs from Convention Center
Elbert Hubbard, the marketing genius of the Larkin Co., took early retirement and founded Roycroft, an Arts and Crafts-inspired colony of artists and artisans in East Aurora, south of Buffalo, in 1895. Eventually numbering over 500, his followers built a number of Roycroft buildings, including an inn, powerhouse, and several workshops. This tour takes us directly to the Roycroft Inn, magnificently restored and filled with Arts and Crafts furniture, decorative fixtures, and murals. A reasonably-priced lunch will be available (tour and transportation cost does not include meal). Cost is $40.
Tour de Neglect / 12:30-2:30 PM / Departs from Lafayette Hotel @ 391 Washington St
Activist, blogger, and photographer David Torke will give the Tour de Neglect, which will guide cyclists across the oceanic devastation of Buffalo’s East Side. Starting and ending at bookends of hope, with chapters on change in between, the Tour de Neglect will include all the scandal of the Tour de France without its spandex and champagne. This tour should come with a warning label: “May inspire feelings of civic duty and moral outrage.” The Tour de Neglect will include stops at St. Ann’s Church, Wilson Street Farm, Buffalo Central Terminal, William Simon brewery, Sacred Heart Church, and Larkin Power House. Two dozen bicycles will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. An optional lunch will follow at a to-be-disclosed location. The tour is free.
“Five Points +” neighborhood stakeholders, business owners, and concerned citizens will leverage tactical urbanism to traffic calm a dangerous, problematic intersection. Expect a street party, art, chalk, and greenery, to boot! Peatónito, Mexico City’s masked pedestrian revolutionary, will be a participant!
IMPORTANT NOTE: All of today’s NextGen Events will be at the Lafayette Hotel (391 Washington St.)
First “Street Design Book” Run / 7:45am – 8:45am @ Lafayette Hotel Lobby at 391 Washington St.
Experience Buffalo at street level. Join Victor Dover (on a Brompton due to an injury) and John Simmerman on a morning run around Buffalo! This will be an excellent networking event with two of the best urban / active living experts in the United States.
Tactical Urbanism – Park-In/ 5pm – 11am
CNU NextGen is partnering with the American Society of Landscape Architects, Upstate Chapter, to turn several on-street parking spaces at the Lafayette Hotel into pop-up parks. Construction will start at noon, with unveiling at 5 pm.
Buffalo New Urbanism Film Screening / 5pm – 11pm
The inaugural New Urbanism Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2013 was a huge success. Audiences were provoked, inspired, and challenged to build better places for themselves and their communities. Now the festival producers are taking the show on the road with a special screening of the award winning videos of NUFF2013. The world premier of “Olmsted’s Enduring Legacy,” a WNED documentary on Buffalo’s park and parkway system, will be featured at 5 pm.
When: Saturday, 8am to 9am Where: Brawler’s Back-Alley Deli @ 76 Pearl St [Google Maps] Who: R. John Anderson of Anderson Kim & Others
Description:
Join us for a gathering of developers and aspiring developers interested in building smaller scale/incremental urban projects. Rookies, come and find a mentor, expand your network, and reduce your learning curve! Seasoned developers, come and help rookies avoid your mistakes.
Starts at 5pm: Buffalo Park-In: CNU NextGen is partnering with the American Society of Landscape Architects, Upstate Chapter, to turn several on-street parking spaces at the Lafayette Hotel into pop-up parks. Construction will start at noon, with unveiling at 5 pm. Expect free tango lessons,.
Starts at 5pm: Buffalo New Urbanism Film Screening – The inaugural New Urbanism Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2013 was a huge success. Audiences were provoked, inspired, and challenged to build better places for themselves and their communities. Now the festival producers are taking the show on the road with a special screening of the award winning videos of NUFF2013. The world premier of “Olmsted’s Enduring Legacy,” a WNED documentary on Buffalo’s park and parkway system, will be featured at 5 pm.
Starts at 6pm (PK) & 8pm (Debate): Pecha Kucha & Debate Night – NextGen takes over the back room of the Pan-American Grill & Brewery for all- night Pecha Kucha (starts at 6 pm) and debate and discussion (starts at 8 pm).
Starts at 10pm: Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns will record his Late Show and talk up the big topics at CNU 22 at 10 pm.
Strong Towns Roundtable Podcast / Noon – 2pm @ Pan American Grill & Brewery @ Lafayette Hotel at 391 Washington St. [Google Maps]
Sit down with Chuck Marohn of StrongTowns at the Lafayette Hotel for a casual discussion of today’s hot topics.
Silos, Brews, & Bonfires / 6:30pm to 11pm @ Silo City, Ohio St and Childs St [Google Maps]
Buffalo’s Silo City is a landscape unlike any other on the planet. Grain elevators—the largest collection of such structures anywhere—tower over the Buffalo River, once the world’s largest grain port. Buffalo’s role as grain capital virtually ended when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, but these industrial giants remain, awaiting adaptive reuse. Explore these ruins with local activists. Food trucks, kegs of local beer, and a bonfire will be highlights.
Andrés Duany and Sjoerd Soeters / 8pm @ Silo City (above): Both will give a special presentation at 8 pm.
Need a ride? At 5:30 pm at the Convention Center, hop on the Open Air Autobus for a $35, 90-minute waterfront tour that will conclude at Silo City (and bring you back!). The event is sponsored by the Campaign for Greater Buffalo.
Sugar Body Surge / 6pm -9pm @ Body of Trade & Commerce Gallery/ Sugar City/Resurgence Brewing Co., 1250 Niagara St. [Google Maps]
Join in on this West Side art event that brings together two arts entities—Sugar City and BT&C Gallery—which are driving forces in the resurrection of one of Buffalo’s forgotten industrial landscapes. Installations and urban interventions by local artists will show creative placemaking at work. The event will include a sneak peek into the city’s latest craft brewery, Resurgence Brewing Co.
CNU NextGen 
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