The historic Eastern Market, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, was badly damaged by a fire that apparently started in a dumpster.

Most of the southern half of the building was gutted by the fire, and all the vendors in the hall will be temporarily displaced.  Many are already calling for federal funding to rebuild the market.

The flea market, which operates on Sundays in outdoor stalls next to the market hall, has vowed to stay open.

 

Cities across California are taking extra steps to encourage people to use their bikes, offering such services as full-service bike stations equipped with showers, and even valet bike parking.

This article in from the NY Times looks at why a person's wealth is the most reliable predictor of obesity in America, and what the farm bill has to do with it.

"We should learn to build villages in the way they were built in the past," says Hans Monderman, the Dutch engineer seen as the father of Shared Space. He is not advocating unpaved roads, horse-drawn transport and reinstating stocks - he just wants neighbourhoods that work for everyone, satisfying residents as well as moving traffic along. Cars, he argues, have been allowed to dominate residential areas, particularly in suburbs, for far too long, and quality of life has declined has a result.

Policymakers are ignoring the wishes of local people and exaggerating the importance of “metropolitan” urban design in creating successful public spaces, according to a new report, the Social Value of Public Spaces.  

“Most public spaces that people use are local spaces they visit regularly, often quite banal in design, or untidy in their activities or functions, such as street markets and car boot sales,” the report said.

A farmers' market has been invited to set up on campus by the University of the West of England (UWE) in a bid to get students to eat healthily.

The World Health Organization announced that car crashes are the leading cause of death worldwide for people between 10 and 24, adding that most such fatalities occur in developing countries with poor road safety conditions.

"The lack of safety on our roads has become an important obstacle to health and development," said WHO's director-general, Dr. Margaret Chan. "Our children and young adults are among the most vulnerable."

"Road traffic crashes are not 'accidents,'" Chan said. "We need to challenge the notion that they are unavoidable."

Louisville has adopted a "complete streets" policy which makes the provision of sidewalks, bike lanes and bus stops mandatory. Neal Peirce discusses the plan in his column, and offers some international examples.

Is progress taking the farmers out of farmers markets?

Are farmers markets an inefficient business model?

New York City is eyeing a new target for promoting health among Gotham’s poor: supermarkets.

On Friday, the city’s food policy coordinator, Benjamin Thomases, sat in on a briefing about the nuts and bolts of bringing supermarkets into low-income neighborhoods. “We’re definitely looking at the issues of access to healthy food,” said Thomases, who said the city has been meeting with local food industry players, from biggies like Pathmark – whose extremely successful store on 125th Street in Harlem is generally considered a model project – down to the Washington Heights-based National Association of Bodega Owners, to discuss possible strategies.

"Increased pressure to find land for museums and memorials on the cramped National Mall could spur new ideas about the future development of the nation's capital.

New additions approved for Washington's monumental core in recent years - from the World War II Memorial in 2000 to the future Smithsonian black history museum and a visitor's center planned for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - have drawn heated debate.

A symposium Wednesday at the National Building Museum will explore ways to rethink monuments to history and where they should go. Scholars, designers and architects from across the country will join city planners who are creating a plan to help broaden the image of Washington beyond the National Mall.

City planners, though, want to think beyond the mall. Their plans call for recentering the city around the U.S. Capitol and the grand boulevards that lead up to it with more pedestrian-friendly passages, shops and housing mixed with memorials or museums. They're also looking at new spaces along a new waterfront and ballpark district, which will be the future home of the Washington Nationals. "

The Public Market House in Portland, Me., is an example of how fresh local food and downtown markets promote activity in American cities.

Image (c) Herb Swanson for The New York Times

"The neighborhoods here seem plucked from an urban planner's catalog: trimmed lawns, picket fences and freshly minted homes. Shopping is an easy stroll away on the wide sidewalks. A greenbelt wraps the town like a bow.

But there is growing frustration with the very thing that attracted thousands of families here in the first place: a high-density "smart-growth" development in the middle of town."

Interior decorators hijacked an F train yesterday morning, transforming Car 5929 into a cozy living room with curtains, flowers, throw pillows and rugs.

 

Image (c) New York Post 

Newly opened urban beaches in Mexico City are being welcomed by the city's millions of residents who have never seen a beach.

The plan has been met with criticism from the city's upperclass, who tend to vacation on Mexico's coastal resort cities, but many of the city's poor residents can not afford travel, and have never been to a beach.

Mexico City's plan to open beaches in city parks was inspired by artificial beaches in European capitals such as Paris, Berlin, Rome, Amsterdam and Budapest. The Paris beach turns the banks of the River Seine into a faux-tropical retreat.

PPS Board Member Roberta Brandes Gratz reminds us what was lost when Robert Moses deemed areas 'slums' and tore them down in this piece from City Limits.  

Propelled by the obesity epidemic and the drive for more sustainable economies, an urban agriculture movement is flowering across the U.S.

UCLA Professor Donald Shoup demonstrates that by pricing curb parking too low, cities are contributing to traffic and pollution and losing out on revenue.

The Americans for Libraries Council will hold the first annual Voices for America's Libraries Awards at a special reception at the Grolier Club in New York City on Friday, March 30th. This year's awardees are four prominent individuals who through their work have shown a deep commitment to supporting community access to literature and libraries.

They are:

• Peter J Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church Harvard University.
• Sybil Jacobson, President and CEO, the MetLife Foundation
• Susan Jacoby, author, journalist
• Fred Kent, President, Project for Public Spaces

The first annual Voices for America's Libraries Awards should be an interesting and edifying event, as well as a chance to learn more about getting involved with a well-respected national institution.