What We're Reading: Livability Links

Partners in Progress: Initiative in Los Angeles creates one-stop shops for needy families (Photo credit: Al Jazeera America)

Will this be the Decade of Big City Growth?

William H. Frey, Brookings Institution

For the first third of this decade, big city population growth continues to outpace the rates of 2000 through 2010, according to new data released by the Census Bureau. It raises the question: Is this city growth revival here to stay? Or, is it a lingering symptom of the recession, mortgage meltdown and the plight of still stuck in place young adults? The new statistics, which update city populations through July 2013, give some credence to both theories."

Livability Links is an ongoing feature highlighting a selection compelling stories throughout the livability realm.

An Economic Defense of Old Buildings

Emily Badger, Wonk Blog

"Cities need old buildings so badly," Jacobs wrote in her classic "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," "it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.”

Ever since, this idea -- based on the intuition of a woman who was surveying her own New York Greenwich Village neighborhood -- has been received wisdom among planners and urban theorists. But what happens when we look at the data?

Livability Links is an ongoing feature highlighting some compelling stories from throughout the livability realm that we want to share with you.

Resilience

• At Citiscope, Justin Gerdes reports on how the Bayview neighborhood in San Francisco is modeling a grassroots form of resilience planning.
• Also at Citiscope, Sarah Goodyear writes about the importance of place-based social networks in measuring a community's resilience. Goodyear argues that resilience planning needs to place a greater value on human connections rather than a strict focus on infrastructure.

This is the first in what will be an ongoing series of blog posts that shares links to stories and ideas that are driving and shaping the dialogue on livability.

• The Atlantic Cities covers a city progam in Los Angeles to distribute make your own park kits to community groups who want to transform a metered parking spot in their neighborhood into pop-up park. Using the pre-approved designs from the kit, groups can turn a metered parking spot into a parklet for one year.

• Partners Trustee Peter Harkness wrote an article at Governing about how cities serve as centers of innovation and problem solving throughout the world and are increasingly international in their leadership in a time when national governments often are not.