Urban Neighbourhood

The New New York City Taxi

In 2007 the Taxi and Limousine Commission of New York City brought together a group of stakeholders involved in the taxi industry in New York City. Including; taxi drivers, owner and passengers and the goal was simple, create a set of goals for the future of the taxi in New York City. A project that was aptly named “The Taxi of Tomorrow.” In 2009 the Taxi and Limousine commission issued a request for proposals to the automobile industry to design the next official taxi for the city. At present the primary vehicle in the city’s fleet is the Ford Crown Victoria. The Crown Victoria was officially discontinued by the Ford Motor Company this past spring (S) and this presents an opportunity for the city to change to a vehicle designed specifically for use as a Taxi, and through this change come up with a Taxi that is both iconic and more environmentally friendly.

The City of New York has already attempted to legislate that the city’s taxi fleet must be entirely electric or hybrid by 2012, but an federal judge overturned the legislation attempt after a suit by the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, which represented the owners of 29 fleets that control 3,500 yellow cabs, about a quarter of the fleet — said that the hybrid vehicles, which are more fuel-efficient, were not designed to withstand the heavy wear and tear that cabs must endure. S An interesting factoid about Taxis in New York City and in fact most of the rest of the world is that none of the 16 different vehicle models in the city’s 13,200 strong fleet were originally designed to be used as a taxi. All of the vehicles have been specially outfitted to be used as a taxi which will usually drive about 70,000 miles per year and see its back doors slammed around 21,000 times in the course of a year. S

“Although the city has long set standards for our taxis, we have never before worked with the auto industry to design a taxicab especially for  New York City — that is, until now,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission has culled three semi finalists from the competition; Karsan, Nissan, and Ford. Its a lucrative contract for whoever wins since “the TLC intends to select the best proposal and award an exclusive contract to sell and service taxicabs in New York for the next decade.” Take a look at the concept images and tell both us and the Taxi and Limousine Commission which one you prefer! What is in it for you? Well the prize is worth free cab rides for a year so you could be a winner!

Welcome to the Banana Republic of America

I don’t often write about income equality and politics in this blog, even though my inital degree was in Political Science I prefer to stick to Urban issues that are a little more lite and friendly then things like economic inequality and the division of wealth, these topics tend to be divisive and are often better left to the many political blogs out there. Today however, a news article came across my desk today that made me rethink my decision to ignore these topics given that the economic vitality of our cities is directly tied in with income distribution and the ability of  a cities citizens to spend money. If the stratification between income classes is too far apart then, and the majority of a city’s residents don’t have access to capital, then the social order tends to break down.

Anyway the information I am talking about comes by way of an opinion piece in the New York Times Titled A Hedge Fund Republic,

It turns out that in the United States in United States the income equality between different classes of citizens is worse then in most so called banana republics. It turns out that the US is on par with, if not worse than Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana. While this is a pretty strong statement  its the statistics behind the statement hat make a more compelling argument.

Let’s compare the United States in Argentina and consult the statistics, in the 1940s the top 1% of Argentina controlled 20% of the country’s net income versus the United States where the top 1% controlled only about 10% of the national income.  Most of the wealth was concentrated in a small percentage of the population and this would later assist Juan Peron in his populist rise to power in 1946.

Now fast forward those statistics to today or rather 2007 ( the most recent years to which the data is available).  In Argentina the top 1% has reduced its share of the pie down to 15% of net income whereas in the United States the top 1% has now gained control of approximately 34% of America’s private net worth. To further illustrate the disparity of wealth one only needs to expand the statistics from the top 1 percent to the top 10% and you end up with a situation where 10% of America owns 71% of Americans’ total net worth. Leaving with 90% of the country with only 29% of net worth.

The times article goes on to further discuss why the supporters of the republican party who fall in that 90% are absolutely insane for letting the party convince them that it is necessary for health of the American economy to keep the bush cuts going, but I will let the New York Times finish that story as they do a much better job.  Read the rest at the New York Times

The Yuppie Door Mat

Adding to our collection of things you can buy to support the urban economy or just generally satisfy your socioeconomic irony, we bring you this delightful doormat available over at The Onion from their home decor series. Its available over at the onion for the low low price of 35$ USD

gen·tri·fi·ca·tion

[jen-truh-fi-key-shuhn] dictionary.com

–noun

1.

the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.

2.

an instance of gentrifying; the condition of being gentrified.

Art, Activism, and the Brazillian Favela

In Rio a pair of Dutch artists and a paint company have triggered a change in the urban landscape of Rio. The artists had an idea to change the living environment of the Favela as a means to try and change how residents and the city at large related with the slum. After the success of the first couple of projects the Coral paint company got on board and now the slum is becoming known for something other then its drug trade.

A favela is the generally used term for a shanty town in Brazil. The name ‘favela’ comes from a tree commonly found on the side of hills in sub-tropical regions named the favela tree. As favelas are also often found on the sides of hills, the slang term ‘favela’ was formed. In the late 18th century, the first settlements were called bairros africanos (African neighborhoods), and they were the place where former slaves with no land ownership and no options for work lived. Over the years, many freed black slaves moved in. However, before the first settlement called “favela” came into being, poor blacks were pushed away from downtown into the far suburbs. Most modern favelas appeared in the 1970s, due to rural exodus, when many people left rural areas of Brazil and moved to cities.

From Wiki.

Learn more at the organization’s website. FP Favela Painting.

Princess Hijab

Princess Hijab has become one of Paris’s most controversial and hard to identify street artists. She is Paris’s answer to British guerrilla graffiti artist Banksy, though in many ways she is more controversial. Princess Hijab chooses to focus on one major issue in the French capital and it’s a hot potato; immigration and the Niqab. In case you haven’ been paying attention to the news coming out of France lately the Hijab, Niqab, and Burqa have become hot button issues in the resolutely secular republic and have ignited a firestorm over immigration, women’s rights, islamophobia and civil liberties. Last month the government approved the so called “burqa ban” which means that starting in the new year women will be banned from wearing any full-face Muslim veils in public, not just in government offices but anywhere outside of their own homes. The government argues that the ban it its way of protecting women’s rights and making it impossible for Muslim women to be forced by men to cover their faces.

This makes Princess Hijab’s particular bent of graffiti art all the more subversive in the French capital as her signature is painting the veil onto fashion advertisements. It isn’t just the advertisements that feature women who are being niqabed. Princess Hijab also gives the veil to men as well. The first graffiti veil to appear was a niqab painted onto a poster for an album cover of one of France’s most famous female rappers, Diam. In an interesting turn of events said rapper has actually turned to Islam and is now wearing the veil herself.

The Identity of Princess Hijab remains a mystery and while she did recently grant an interview to the Guardian, the report was inconclusive about her identity.
At the moment Princess Hijab is only hitting about four or five advertisements per year that tend to last only about 45 minutes before being ripped down by Paris Metro officials but each of her interventions is carefully photographed and most of them circulate online. Whether you agree with the “burqa ban” or not Princes Hijab is certainly trying to make you think about it.

READ MORE:

The Sydney Morning Herald.

The Guardian

Neighbourhood News Roundup: Nov 3 2010

Editors Note:

Recently we made an executive decision here at Urban Neighborhood to revamp the way that we deliver news about what is going on in cities around the world, as you can see from previous Neighborhood News installments we used to provide  the first couple paragraphs of the article in full with a picture and then hyperlink you over to the actual article at its source.  This was all well and good but ultimately a rather labor intensive process for content that was essentially a redirect to other news sites that were not providing any incentive. In order to make it easier to do the round up and therefore be more consistent with our installments we are switching over to a method more commonly found on entertainment websites and some of our favorite architecture blogs. So without further adieu here is your news round up for the week.

Hong Kong has decided to shell out some major bucks in order to build the worlds largest cultural district, the West Kowloon Cultural District is a publicly funded project with a price tag of 2.8 billion to be… well approximate… the intention is pretty simple, its plans on using the development to become Asia’s World City.

Since Dubai isn’t paying the the architectural big bucks any more architects like Rem Koolhaas are looking East and Rem has decided to jump on the aforementioned West Kowloon Cultural District gravy train to pay the bills. Rem has a proposal that is ether cultural appropriation or paying tribute to China’s Village history, depending on how you look at it.

The city of Chicago is about to loose out to New York once more, until now it might not have been the biggest city in America but it has had the country’s biggest building for decades, in a couple years One World Trade center is going to take that title away. There was hope that the title transfer would be short lived with the plans for The Spire, then the firm behind it filed for bankruptcy. At least they still have Oprah.

In Green News India has come up with a novel idea to use children to power its parks and playgrounds, now that we have your attention its isn’t as nefarious as you think, the city of Chandigarh wants to use kinetic energy from playground equiptment and solar power to light up its green spaces.

Skyrise Greenery, a website dedicated to green roofs and green spaces integrated into the built form presents its winners for the Skyrise Greenery Awards 2010.

Most tourist bureau’s concentrated on happy and fun but the Cambodian government has decided to take another route and concentrate on its dark history to pull the tourists in. The Atlantic writes about how the Cambodian government plans to develop Anlong Veng a sun-baked, mine-riddled frontier town into a theme park devoted to the Khmer Rouge. A regime that was responsible for murdering almost every in Cambodia who would be between the ages of 25 to 50 if they were still alive today, just in case yo have no knowledge of world history.

Over in Russia Ivan Marchenko discusses the poor state of architecture and the multitudes of unforgettable places that make up the capital and wonders if the sketches presented by designers for the central city are just tomorrows slums being proposed today.

Mason White presents an essay on ‘The Productive Surface’ for all you academics that discusses the shape of our environment and asks questions like “What does architecture and landscape already produce — intentionally or otherwise? And how is that component managed by design?”

For the cartographers and map lovers among us Think Big has a collection of strange maps that range from proposals  fill in the east river to create a Greater New York, to a composite map of European stereotypes.