Tag Archives: City Planning

Committee’s Fane flip-flop

Posted on November 9, 2018 by David Brussat

Learning nothing in its latest public hearing that it did not already know, the Ordinance Committee of Providence City Council reversed itself on Thursday to recommend that the council neuter the city’s zoning laws. It voted three to one to … Continue reading →

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Providential hand on sea rise

Posted on February 13, 2018 by David Brussat

The Jewelry District Association invited Barnaby Evans to speak about the future of WaterFire. That sent a shiver up my spine. Was the end nigh? No, Evans did not say WaterFire was doomed. He did suggest that sea-level rise might … Continue reading →

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Prov’s City Beautiful parks

Posted on November 30, 2017 by David Brussat

Catherine Zipf’s piece in today’s Providence Journal, “Bus proposal is appalling,” is dead on. The more you think about it, as Zipf has clearly done, the more difficult it is to imagine a rational reason for the state’s proposal to … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Landscape Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Tragic London tower lesson

Posted on June 25, 2017 by David Brussat

The Grenfell Tower that burned in London, costing several score of lives, offers lessons that we can and will again fail to heed. No building can be perfectly fireproof, and no ladder truck can reach beyond 20 stories anyhow. If … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

‘Transforming Providence’

Posted on March 25, 2017 by David Brussat

Yesterday’s announcement of the publication date of Lost Providence brings to mind that Transforming Providence, by Gene Bunnell, a professor of city planning at SUNY/Albany, has just been published. I am pleased that he has weighed in on the redevelopment … Continue reading →

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A Jane Jacobs cornucopia

Posted on February 22, 2017 by David Brussat

Here is an excellent review of recent books published by and about Jane Jacobs in the past year, which was the centennial of her birth. “What Jane Jacobs Saw,” by Michael Lewis in the upcoming March issue of First Things, … Continue reading →

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The parking meter idiocy

Posted on June 19, 2016 by David Brussat

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza appears determined to serve a single term. How do I know? Just look! He is trying to offend every constituency he can by installing parking meters where they shop. Several neighborhoods on the East Side have … Continue reading →

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Plymouth after World War II

Posted on January 28, 2016 by David Brussat

Mark Motte, author with Francis Leazes of Providence: The Renaissance City, urged me to view an old documentary on video called “How We Live Now,” filmed in 1946, about the effort to rebuild Plymouth, the most heavily bombed city per … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Development, Other countries, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is this tactical urbanism?

Posted on December 7, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is a street sign that seems to epitomize the fatuousness, and perhaps the corruption, of municipal bureaucracy. Warning signs just like this have been popping up in the middle of streets in Providence for the past year or so. … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Legal on Blackstone Blvd.

Posted on November 6, 2014 by David Brussat

Even the Blackstone neighborhood of Providence can be relied on to prove that no place in the city is absolutely stereotypical. I didn’t realize the extent to which this was so until yesterday, when I went, ahem!, “jogging” up and … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , | 2 Comments