Emergent Urbanism

Rediscovering Urban Complexity

Victor Gruen

Fake Complexity - Mixed Used Development

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Fri, 12/12/2008 - 01:03, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 01:05

The economic crash has cities scrambling to keep their real estate markets alive. Disappearing credit has caused many of the most capital-intensive projects, meaning big buildings, to halt. Some have been surprised that projects modeled on traditional patterns of urbanism, such as mixed-used developments, have been caught up in the storm. It's one thing when a lone skyscraper or a subdivision at the edge the city stops dead in development. It's simple to ignore and get around.

The Marketplace City

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Wed, 01/23/2008 - 00:56, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 01:12

Christmas break brought me back to Montreal visiting family, and family took me out to the post-holiday sales in the constellation of big-box stores along Montreal's southern beltway, highway 30. Having all but grown up in the area, I've been witness to the transformations that the commercial space along the highway has experienced. There are some hard lessons to learn from the silly congestion of Christmas shopping and the impact of random growth in the context of the severely zoned outer suburbs.

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