Planning December 2018
Et Cetera
Exhibits: A Dream Deferred
Image courtesy Little Giant Creative.
Mortgage redlining continues to shape American cities, including Philadelphia, where a recent multimedia exhibit, A Dream Deferred: PHL Redlining, Past, Present, Future, illustrated the decades-long impact of redlining in various neighborhoods. Organized by marketing agency Little Giant Creative, the exhibit included interactive maps, a documentary, and a private booth in which audience members could record stories about their own experiences with redlining.
Some visitors had never heard of redlining, says Little Giant Creative co-founder Tayyib Smith, while others didn't know how pervasive it was, or how long it lasted. Many were also surprised to learn that redlining was established as federal policy by the National Housing Act of 1934, says cofounder Meegan Denenberg. Redlining was banned by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but its effects linger to this day, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development continues to sanction banks and mortgage lenders.
While the exhibit closed in November, the final panel of a four-part series will soon take place on the impact of federal policies on people of color, and the accompanying documentary is available online at adreamdeferredphl.org.
—Jim Sweeney
Sweeney writes about architecture, art, and design from Rockville, Maryland.
Film: City Dreamers
Image courtesy Rêveuses de villes.
The new documentary Rêveuses de villes (City Dreamers) from filmmaker Joseph Hillel celebrates four female pioneers in architecture and planning: American Denise Scott Brown and Canadians Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. Using archival footage and new interviews — shot on location in their home cities of Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver — Hillel explores their experiences in male-dominated fields over the past 60 years and poses a vital question: What makes a place livable? The film is set to be released in 2019, with early screenings at film festivals; for more, go to facebook.com/CityDreamersFilm.
Tech: Surveyor
Coord, the Sidewalk Labs-backed mobility data company (www.planning.org/planning/2018/jun/etcetera), launched a new app that collects the position of street features like parking signs and fire hydrants to produce maps of curb rules. Surveyor is already being used by public agencies, transportation consultants, and new mobility providers, and is now available for public use. Go to coord.co/surveyor to learn more.
Ranked: 2018 Sustainable Cities Index
Getty Images illustration.
Arcadis, an international design firm for natural and built assets, released an index that assesses 100 global cities on their adherence to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and features like affordability, access to public transportation, and income equality. See the top five most sustainable cities here, then go to bit.ly/2EVmH69 for more on the methodology, how residents' experiences correlate to the rankings, and where North American cities rank.
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London
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Stockholm
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Edinburgh
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Singapore
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Vienna
Et Cetera is a curated collection of planning odds and ends. Please send information to Lindsay R. Nieman, Planning's associate editor, at lnieman@planning.org.