As you roast in the record summer heat, here's hoping that Henry Grabar's slide show of improvised urban beaches from across the globe gets you motivated to create one in your city. Hop to it, global warming isn't going away any time soon!
Sparked by Paris-Plage, the project that provoked the urban beach movement with its construction in 2002, "temporary or permanent parks that offer the pleasures of the seaside without the cost of getting there" have been popping up across the world.
Grabar has collected a tantalizing slide show of seven prime examples, including: HTO Park in Toronto, the year-round destination "sandwiched between an expressway, an airport and a ferry line," and Plage de L'Hotel de Ville - "the first modern artificial city beach" - built in 1996 in the Parisian suburb Saint-Quentin, and copied by the French capital six years later.
FULL STORY: The Fun Is Real But the Beach Is Not
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
EMC Planning Group, Inc.
Planetizen
Planetizen
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service