We all know university cities or college towns. These are defined as communities or small till medium sized town which are dominated by its university population. The university may be large, or there may be several smaller institutions, or the residential population may be small, but college towns in all cases are so dubbed because the educational institution(s) presence pervades economic and social life. Many local residents may be employed by the university - which may be the largest employer in the community, many businesses cater primarily to the university, and indeed the students population may outnumber the local population outright.
With a university dominating a city, there are several advantages a cities benefits from.
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Regarding our PerfectCity Charter we have just started a new poll. This time we want to know what is most important about the economic environment in the City of The Future. To get a little deeper into that issue we want to focus on an interesting index, the so called economic environment index.
The Atlas of Canada site, a website where you can discover Canada through national maps and facts, has a wide range of different maps. There you can find map which displays the quality of life through an economic environment index in Canada.
This map shows the quality of the economic environment: the environment in which people engage in, and benefit from, economic activity that includes aspects of paid employment and household finances. The indicators of the economic environment measure the ability of households to access goods and services important to quality of life. To asses the quality of the economic environment seven indicators are used (you can find some of them as factors to vote for in our poll) regarding household finances and employment/paid work. These indicators are:
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General @ 08 Oct 2007 02:04 pm by Elena Turyanskaya
The IULA 2007 goes to Parc Central de Nou Barris i Placa Virrei Amat, Barcelona (Spain), planned by Arriola & Fiol arquitectes, Barcelona/ Spain.
The ceremony of the International Urban Landscape Award (IULA) took place in Frankfurt/Main (Germany) on Friday 5 October. The winner was chosen by the jury from around 60 entries from EU, Switzerland, USA, Canada and Mexico.
The official certificate of recognition for the Public Favourite from PerfectCity voting was handed over to a representative of the Department of Urban Planning Bydgoszcz for the project Bydgoszcz Water Junction (Poland).
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General @ 04 Sep 2007 07:44 am by Eurohypo
For the second time, the International Urban Landscape Award (IULA) will honor a ground-breaking, newly designed or redeveloped urban space. From over 60 entries from EU, Switzerland ,USA, Canada and Mexico 35 international projects were pre-selected for the jury session. PerfectCity.net presented those 35 entries in detail in the IULA Special and invited you to vote for your favourite project until 1 September 2007 - And now there is a winner:
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General @ 21 Jul 2007 12:47 pm by Eurohypo
For the next two months PerfectCity.net will support the International Urban Landscape Award 2007 in a special rubric IULA special. The IULA special aims to provide the platform for opening and supporting international dialogue, discussion and exchange of expert opinions about urban design and related interesting projects.
For the second time, the International Urban Landscape Award will honor a ground-breaking, newly designed or redeveloped urban space.
From more than 60 entries from EU, Switzerland ,USA, Canada and Mexico 35 international projects were pre-selected for the jury session. The jury identified a short list of 5 projects for the award 2007:
- Green Arch Paunsdorf, Leipzig, Germany (Häfner/Jiménez, Berlin)
- MFO-Park in Zürich, Switzerland (Planergemeinschaft MFO/Burckhardt+Partner, Raderschall Landschaftsarchitekten Meilen)
- Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, USA (Weiss/Manfredi, New York)
- Parc Central de Nou Baris in Barcelona, Spain (Andreu Arriola/Carmen Fiol, Barcelona)
- Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Gustafson Porter, London)
PerfectCity.net presents 35 pre-selected projects in detail in the IULA Special. You are invited to vote for your favourite project and to share your thoughts and professional opinions about the projects.
The results of the public vote will be announced at the award ceremony at the End of September and the winner chosen by the public will be invited for a special mentioning. The election of the public favourite is open until September 1st, 2007.
We look forward to your active participation in the discussion about urban design and the future of our cities!
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IULA @ 17 Jul 2007 05:57 pm by BKDI Architects
| Project title |
The Bridges |
| Place, country |
Calgary, Canada |
| Project type |
Conversion of a hospital site into urban development |
| Client |
The City of Calgary |
| Planners |
BKDI Architects, Carlyle+Associates Landscape Architects,
Urban System (Civil Engineers), Calgary/ Canada |
| Construction period or completion |
2001-2008 (Phase 1) |
| Area |
not specified |
| Costs (million Euros) |
not specified |
The development is situated on the site of a former hospital outside Calgary. In preparation of the
planning, public forums were held so that residents’ requests could be taken into account. Suggestions
were the revival of the main road, a public green space and pedestrian-friendly streetscape. The
council intended a sustainable planning for both built and open spaces to obtain the “LEEDTM- Gold
certification“ Status .
The development area was subdivided in three construction stages. At the first stage, Murdoch Park
was built on the grounds of the hospital. The park includes a new civic centre and numerous features
of passive and active recreation, for example a large sports ground, an amphitheatre, and a sledging
slope. A newly designed paths network provides barrier-free access and links the park to the surrounding
settlement. Promenades with canopied trees frame the park. They comprise resting places from
where to enjoy the sight of the skyline of Calgary and the far mountains.
The park is bordered on three sides by multi-storey residential and commercial developments. These
feature a high standard of sustainability measures, for example wastewater recycling Wasserwiederverwertung
and solar energy collection.
The 2nd and 3rd construction stages are still underway (Phase 2: 2006-2008, Phase 3: 2007-2013).
The settlement is a best practice project in West Canada of sustainable urban neighbourhood development
with extensive public open spaces and high-density building.
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IULA @ 17 Jul 2007 04:20 pm by Group Van der Zalm
| Project title |
The plaza of the Forks |
| Place, country |
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada |
| Project type |
Skatepark |
| Client |
The Forks Renewal Corp.,The Burns Family Found.,CentreVenture |
| Planners |
Van der Zalm & Ass., Newline Skateparks, Scatliff+Miller+Murray Inc., KGS Group, Winnipeg/Canada |
| Construction period or completion |
2006 |
| Area (square feet) |
45,000 |
| Costs (million Euros) |
1.8 |
This Skateboard Plaza was built with the help of a number of initiators and is a multifunctional public
urban space including a skate park which replicates the typical playground of skateboarders, the
urban streetscape. „ The idea is to essentially duplicate the experiences of the urban environment in
a safe and designated-for-use setting.“ It is situated on an attractive inner city site, where the City of
Winnipeg gathers for a multitude of events and has become the tourist destination in Winnipeg for
young and old.
Skateboarding, often described as illegal and dangerous, gathers new respect and a better public
image here. Instead of getting banned from the urban area, skateboarders interact with other users:
BMX bikers, inline skaters, spectators and tourists, since the skate park has turned into a veritable
sight. The municipality succeeded in creating a well-frequented space where people mix of all ages,
sexes, ethnic and socio-economic groups.
The design was worked out in collaboration with Graffiti Gallery, a local youth programme. In a sculpture
garden, topics are adapted from the future Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
The project is characterised by intensive co-operation and strong personal commitment of the parties
involved. The project was financed by donations from two of the initiators.
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General @ 25 Apr 2007 11:48 am by Sebastian Geib
Make yourself at home in these cities! Every year, Mercer Human Resource Consulting publishes a ranking of our cities concerned with quality of living. This year, Mercer researched 215 cities. Interestingly, some “famous” major cities did not make it to the top: Paris was ranked 33, London 39 and New York only 47. Overall, there are only marginal changes of this year’s list compared to 2006. Here are the best top ten cities in the world with (Country) and [rank 2007 / rank 2006]: (more…)
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General @ 19 Feb 2007 11:32 am by Irina Pleva
“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link
between Man and Nature shall not be broken”.
/Lev Tolstoy/
Our vision of Perfect City has greatly changed in the last decades… We tended to create, design, build and develop cities as possibly infrastructural and urbanized. The diversity of green natural landscapes was replaced with diversity of industrial achievements - technologies bursted into natural environment, transforming its tranquil biorhythms into acoustically noisy and ecologically polluted urban environment. (more…)
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