Category: Formalization

What’s in a place name? Part 2, urban citizenship

24 July, 2012 (09:15) | Cities, citizenship, Costa Rica, Formalization, informality, Infrastructure, mail, Streets, Theory, Urbanization |

By:David A. Smith   [Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   Yesterday’s post reviewing the Wall Street Journal‘s story of San Jose, Costa Rica’s efforts to formalize its system of street addresses had already uncovered the extraordinary efficiency gains to be realized (today one in four letters in Costa Rica goes astray). And even those gains, [...]

What’s in a place name? Part 1, efficiency

23 July, 2012 (14:49) | Cities, citizenship, Costa Rica, Formalization, informality, Infrastructure, mail, Streets, Theory, Urbanization |

By:David A. Smith   Where’s that damn mailman, anyway?   Hermits need no addresses because they receive no mail; the rest of us need to be connected to the information grid, and for that, each node needs a unique location, the naming of which can be a transitional moment from tribe to government, as reported [...]

Bypassing the twentieth century: Part 2, the future becomes the present

11 February, 2011 (11:09) | Aleppo, Bilateral agencies, Cities, Formalization, GTZ, Infrastructure, Islam, NGOs, Slum upgrading, Speculation, Syria, Urban Renewal |

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]   By: David A. Smith   As we saw in yesterday’s post, to create the future out of the past, a city’s infrastructure – including its grid layout and traffic patterns – have to be remade, all the while preserving the buildings that are its cultural heritage.    Crossroads of [...]

Bypassing the twentieth century: Part 1, the past is ever with us

10 February, 2011 (11:11) | Aleppo, Bilateral agencies, Cities, Formalization, GTZ, Infrastructure, Innovations, Islam, NGOs, Slum upgrading, Speculation, Syria, Urban Renewal |

By: David A. Smith   Cities are urban palimpsests, each new culture laid atop the old, which lies buried in the ruble underneath – or, if the city is continuously inhabited, like Aleppo, still coexisting, the new and the old cheek by jowl.   How many centuries can you see in this picture?   That [...]

The urban palimpsest: Part 4, writing the lessons

17 November, 2009 (11:55) | Cape Town, Formalization, MEEs, Networks, Saving Schemes, Slums, South Africa, Speculation |

 [Continued from yesterday's Part 3 and the previous Part 1 and Part 2.]    By: David A. Smith   It’s taken three days’ worth of posting to describe the three days’ worth of disaster-recovery reblocking that occurred at Joe Slovo township in Cape Town, and like the reblocking, we weren’t quite done in that interval.  [...]