Tag: paris

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

University of Cincinnati Hosting Film Series on Urban Social Issues at Esquire Theatre

Do The Right ThingThe University of Cincinnati’s School of Planning is co-hosting a film series this month with the Center for Film & Media Studies at the Esquire Theatre in Clifton.

According to Dr. Conrad Kickert; an Assistant Professor of Urban Design at the College of Design, Architect, Art & Planning; the series is intended to foster discussion about complex urban issues highlighted by each of the three films.

The first, to take place this Wednesday at 7:30pm, is Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, which explores the topics of race and gentrification. While focused on Brooklyn, the film provides a good foundation for discussion for many American cities currently struggling with both issues; and how they are often closely related with one another.

“The three films will focus on current social issues that our cities are facing, such as gentrification, social justice and racial exclusion,” Dr. Kickert explained. “The film series is a great way to for Cincinnatians to experience and discuss the social issues that cities are facing, and the role that cinema and urban planning has in these debates.”

The second film, Metropolis by German filmmaker Fritz Lang, will be shown on March 9, also at 7:30pm. Filmed in 1927, Metropolis depicts a dystopian future from the 1920s that reflects on social equity in the industrial city.

The final showing will take place on March 16, and will feature La Haine by French filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz. In this film, Kassovitz looks at the life of young people in a notorious French suburb.

Each one of the screenings will be introduced by a professor from UC’s nationally acclaimed School of Planning, and will include a discussion afterward that will be led by a faculty member from the Center for Film & Media Studies.

Tickets for each of the film showings can be purchased on the Esquire Theatre’s website. They start at $7 for children and senior citizens, and $9.75 for adults. The Esquire Theatre is accessible by several Metro bus routes, and is within a block of a Red Bike station. Bike parking is free and located in the immediate blocks.

Categories
Up To Speed

What if we calculated level of service for pedestrians?

What if we calculated level of service for pedestrians?.

Level of Service. Chances are, unless you’re in a field related to transportation planning or engineering, or are a total geek, you probably have not heard of this term before. LOS, however, has come to define how we design and build or roadways. Almost by its structure, LOS favors cars over the function or safety of any other mode of transportation. So what would happen if we took the same approach for other modes, like walking? More from Urban Kchoze:

The point of a traffic engineer in most studies is to keep level of service as low as possible to avoid delays for drivers, helping them drive faster and have to wait less for other traffic. Now then, some of you may ask “well, what about pedestrians and cyclists? How is level of service measured for them?” Well, the answer to that is that the default method says: F#!% ’em.

So let’s suppose that we calculate a level of service for pedestrians based on the same basis as for vehicles. Pedestrians can stop and accelerate to regular walking speed almost instantaneously and so we don’t have to calculate delay caused by lower than desired speeds during acceleration and deceleration. So delay is limited essentially only to the wait time before they can go ahead and cross (supposing car drivers respect pedestrian priority).

…crosswalks with medians and stop signs should be preferred to traffic lights for areas with a focus on pedestrians. It also means that the habit of channeling all the traffic on a few wide arterials, forcing each intersection to have multiple turn lanes and many through lanes, is absolutely terrible for pedestrians. A street grid with densely packed streets would do a better job of responding to all users, as it would dilute traffic on many streets, all these streets could be narrow, with 3 or 4 lanes only (1 per direction plus a shared left-turn lane or 2 per direction). Ideally, I believe there should not be any width of pavement greater than 12 meters (40 feet) in a city, any pavement wider than that should be broken in two with a median wide enough to use as a pedestrian refuge.

Categories
Up To Speed

The world’s best cities have lots of traffic congestion, and that’s a good thing

The world’s best cities have lots of traffic congestion, and that’s a good thing.

When discussing transportation, the difference between traffic and congestion is often lost. There is, however, a difference between the two and that often plays a significant role in the livability of a city. What we have learned over the years is that congestion is often a good thing, particularly in cities. More from Streetsblog USA:

The pattern that emerges is that the places with the most traffic and driving also have the least congestion…Swan notes that the most congested places are also the places where people have good travel options that don’t involve driving. His chart suggests that car congestion itself is not the problem that needs to be solved — as long as there are other ways to get around, in a congested city few people will actually have to sit in traffic.

Categories
Up To Speed

No, Historic Preservation Does Not Inhibit Urban Growth

No, Historic Preservation Does Not Inhibit Urban Growth.

While the development boom being experienced in New York City, Paris and London isn’t quite the same in Cincinnati, the Queen City does share in some of these issues surrounding historic preservation. Some believe that protecting and preserving historic structures is a barrier for development.

This has been seen most recently in the easy approval of the updated Lytle Park Historic District boundary, which is now much smaller than it once was. The reason such changes received easy approval at City Hall is because of the promise of new development, but is that the correct way to think about it? More from Next City:

American preservationists, too, have become so accustomed to pushing for the enforcement of preservation laws that they often are stereotyped as gatekeepers of nostalgia. Those who fought New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan for upzoning part of Midtown Manhattan were demonized as anti-development. In truth, they were trying to protect the existing development. Polyphonic streetscapes of buildings of varying heights, styles and forms blended with smart new design attract people.

[…]

Preservationists are mediators between cultural heritage and economic demands, and they often don’t win what they want. The rambling mass of buildings joined under La Samaritaine’s walls and the stately mass of Cleveland’s Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist are far from evident in the remaining fragments. Yet what has actually been saved in both cases is invisible: the integrity of preservation laws, the enhanced value of developments that incorporate elements of the past and the continuity of urban character that makes cities continue to be desirable places. Years later, no one will see the battle scars from these fights, but they will see interesting works of contemporary architecture based on historic elements, thanks to preservation activists fighting overbearing design.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News Opinion

VIDEO: Mayeul Akpovi Takes His Photographic Magic to Lyon

We are pretty regularly contacted by readers who would like to submit a guest editorial or share their thoughts on something we have recently published, but it is not all that often that we are contacted by someone like Mayeul Akpovi.

Mayeul sent us a message on Facebook pointing us to his latest video, which is a blend of time lapse and hyperlapse photography techniques, of Lyon. The nearly three-minute video of France’s third largest city is, quite simply, stunning.

The Paris-based web developer describes photography as merely a passion of his, and says that he produced the video from some 8,000 pictures he took over the course of a five-day trip to Lyon earlier this month.

This is not Mayeul’s first jaw-dropping time lapse, cityscape video. In 2013 he put together a four-part series on Paris that was featured on The Urbanophile and profiled by the staff at Vimeo.

Who wants to chip in and buy Mayeul Akpovi a plane ticket to Cincinnati so he can work his magic in the Queen City? Or are there any local photographers out there willing to step up and see if they can hold a candle to his work? Feel free to ping us at editors@urbancincy.com if you do.