Amsterdam

Linking American Individualism to Transportation Planning

Author Russell Shorto claims that "the willingness of Europeans to follow top-down social planning" makes public transit and bicycling more feasible in European cities than they are in the States where people don't always agree with technocrats.

August 8, 2011 - The New York Times

The Bicycles of Amsterdam

Cargo bikes, tandems and even ice cream bikes - this photo-essay highlights the great variety of bicycles being used in Amsterdam. Charles Siegel hopes the pictures will get Americans over their timidness when it comes to practical bicycling.

July 7, 2011 - Preservation Institute Blog

Bicycle Use Surpasses Car Use in Amsterdam

According to the latest numbers out of Amsterdam, residents are for the first time using bicycles for transport more often than they use their cars.

June 27, 2009 - The Oregonian

Smart Grid for a Smart City

Amsterdam has taken its smart grid live, installing solar panels and 300 electric car recharging stations throughout the city.

June 11, 2009 - Business Week

Will Developing Nations Drive/Follow in our Faulted Footsteps?

The growth in hybrid car sales is a welcome sign that a major change in the automobile industry is afoot.  The shift to transport infrastructure that is not based on the archaic complexity of an internal combustion engine, with its hundreds of moving parts and compressed fuel explosions, has been long put off by an automobile industry, happy with status quo, partnered with oil cartels with the power to price their product as if it were in endless supply.  But with smack-in-the-face-reality fuel prices last summer, the collapse of the so-called “Big Three” over the winter, and the simultaneous heralding assertion of alternative energy technologies (Daimler AG bought a 10% stake in Tesla Motors last month!), the fallout of western economic near-collapse has changed everything we’ve known to be sacrosanct; Leonard Lopate even waxed nostalgic about the “Death of the Car Song” yesterday on National Public Radio’s local station, WNYC.

June 9, 2009 - Ian Sacs

Amsterdam Leading Green City Movement

In the next few months, the Dutch capital will make numerous changes to make its infrastructure greener. With the help of private companies like Cisco and IBM, Amsterdam is closer to becoming a "smart city" than any other in Europe.

March 19, 2009 - BusinessWeek

Why Culture Matters: Do as Others Do, Whether In Eating or Cycling

Why Americans don't cycle in the cold and rain, and why they do in Amsterdam.

March 22, 2008 - Streetsblog

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.

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