"This project is symbolic of what we've done over the last 12 years, reshaping the streets and the city," Christophe Najovski, the city's deputy mayor in charge of green spaces, stated during the opening ceremony.
Meininger, who grew up in Germany but now lives in London, likes making things. So when he saw how much his young sons enjoyed the jungle gym and play forts at the local park, he made an indoor treehouse for them.
In that small 30-block zone last year, there were 486 reported crashes, injuring 76 cyclists, 108 pedestrians (one fatally) and 67 motorists, according to city stats. That's more than a crash every day, injuring more than 250 people.
The first three months of 2026 were among the three safest first-three-month periods since records started being kept at the dawn of the Automobile Age, with only 42 fatalities from car crashes in New York City.
The original intent of pilotis was to create a sense of lightness that would allow circulation and light to flow beneath a structure, but contemporary requirements render thin columns insufficient for large-scale civic projects.
My family had Slide Show Night when I was growing up. Not every Saturday, but a whole bunch of Saturdays. Either my sister or I would be in charge of setting up the projector, the screen, and loading the carousel. During the show, there'd be a few landscapes or skylines taken during vacations, but almost all the shots were up close. Like most dads, mine wasn't a professional photographer, but he did a good job of capturing memory triggers: faces, gestures, and decorations.
Though they're individually tiny, parking spots quietly play a dominant role in shaping urban landscapes. Most US cities dedicate at least 25% of their developable land to them. Some, even more. That land usage doesn't only determine the way a city looks. It also means covering large swathes of urban areas in heat-absorbing asphalt, which contributes to making summers hotter and heightens the risk of flooding since it prevents drainage during storms and heavy rainfall.
Cities around the world share a common goal: to become healthier and greener, supported by civic infrastructure that restores ecosystems and strengthens public life. The question is how to reach this. Global climate targets, local building codes, and municipal standards increasingly guide designers and planners toward better choices. Still, many cities struggle to translate these frameworks into everyday, street-level comfort and long-term ecological protection.
Jane Jacobs was also one of the voices that challenged this predominantly rationalist logic, arguing that truly vibrant streets are those capable of sustaining the diversity of everyday life, its informal exchanges, and the forms of care and natural surveillance that emerge from them. What these authors share is a fundamental insight: streets are not merely infrastructures for circulation, but social ecosystems, shaped by the relationships, uses, and encounters that take place within them.