Earlier today Caterpillar announced that it was moving its corporate headquarters from Peoria to Chicago. The move affects about 300 top-level executives. The company will retain a large presence in Peoria. This is in line with what I've written about before: the rise of the executive headquarters, where a company moves its executive suite (anywhere from 50-500 people) to a major city like Chicago while leaving the back office elsewhere. Chicago has benefitted from this more than any other city I know. In addition to many corporate HQ … [Read more...]
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s City of Spectacle
Building the City of Spectacle: Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Remaking of Chicago by Costas Spirou and Dennis R. Judd Richard M. Daley took office as mayor of Chicago in 1989. The city was at a low ebb following the bitter racial conflicts of the so-called Council Wars period, when a largely white city council fought to stymie Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor. During Daley’s 22 years in office, many of the Windy City’s neighborhoods gentrified, in part because of a blizzard of municipal-improvement projects originating with … [Read more...]
The Brooklynization of Brooklyn
The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back by Kay Hymowitz My City Journal colleague Kay Hymowitz has written a number of great articles on Brooklyn, the borough that is her home. This inspired her to write a great book on the topic of the transformation of Brooklyn called The New Brooklyn. It starts with a two-chapter history of the borough from its earliest settlement to the present day, followed by a series of chapters looking at Brooklyn today. This includes the transformation of Park Slope (where she and her husband moved … [Read more...]
Detroit’s New Streetlights Show Service Rebuilding in Action
I've been arguing that one thing struggling post-industrial cities need to do is take care of their own business, doing things like addressing legacy liabilities and rebuilding of core public services. Last week I write about Buffalo doing just this by completely re-writing its zoning code and creating a new land use map of the city to bring its planning ordinances up to date for the 21st century. Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic at the New York Times, recently wrote a feature on another good example: the replacement of Detroit's … [Read more...]
Buffalo Rezones Entire City, Eliminates Parking Minimums Citywide
In my major City Journal feature on Buffalo last year, I mentioned the city's work on its so-called "Buffalo Green Code" as one of the positive developments to watch. Last week the city gave final approval to this complete rewrite of the city's planning and zoning code, and a new land use map for the city. I review the highlights over at City Journal: As an older city, Buffalo is already built [in an urban form] in many areas. But past zoning choices have had lingering negative consequences. “Sixty years ago planners sought to replace the … [Read more...]
Where Does Columbus Go From Here?
Columbus, Ohio has been doing very well as a city in recent years. It's the fastest growing major Midwest city in population and second fastest in job growth. They recently won the US DOT's Smart City Challenge grant, which has been generating some buzz. I was in Columbus this week to speak again at the Columbus Metropolitan Club. I talked a bit about Columbus' performance, where it goes from here, some of the challenges it faces, how to build a better national brand, etc. The video of the event, which I'm told will also air on public … [Read more...]
Art Responding to Architecture in Columbus, Indiana
I've written about the incredible small city of Columbus, Indiana before. It's arguably the most successful small industrial city in America that is neither a college town nor a state capital. It's also home to one of the world's great collections of modern architecture. One of the reasons that Columbus has done so well is that it hasn't rested on its laurels, and has looked for new ways to keep making the community better. One of their new efforts is an arts initiative called Exhibit Columbus. I talked by phone with Richard McCoy and Anne … [Read more...]
San Francisco Observations
I made quite a few trips to San Francisco during the late 90s into the early 2000s, but hadn't been back in a very long time - probably close to 15 years. Last week I was there for a conference and a long weekend and got to spend some time exploring the city. I won't claim a comprehensive review, but I did have a few takeaways to share. 1. Fewer homeless than expected. Based on the rhetoric you read in the papers, I expected SF to be overrun with aggressive homeless people. This wasn't the case. There were visible homeless to be sure, but … [Read more...]
William H. Whyte’s Original Plan to Save Bryant Park
William H. "Holly" Whyte, the former Fortune magazine editor best known in urban circles for his classic book The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, famously did a report on Bryant Park in the 1970s that was ultimately used as a basis for transforming what was then known as "Needle Park." Andrew Manshel used to work for Bryant Park Corporation, the entity that actually did transform and still runs the park. (If you get a chance to see Bryant Park Corp. CEO Dan Biederman give a talk, be sure to take it). He now runs an excellent web site on … [Read more...]
The Places Where We Work
Gary Hustwit is a New York based filmmaker known for his various documentaries on design, including Helvetica, Objectified, Urbanized, and a forthcoming documentary on legendary Braun designer Dieter Rams (a project I backed on Kickstarter). I really liked Helvetica, which told the story of typography through the lens of that ubiquitous font. Objectified I have not seen, but I did see Urbanized and gave it a pretty tough review. Hustwit's current project is a film called Workplace about the design of the office. This is a bit of an … [Read more...]
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