The main members of the village are Koreans returning from Germany and their spouses

Hi everyone,

I'm a final-year Computer Science student working on my dissertation for my project, a web-based platform that lets residents report urban infrastructure issues like potholes, broken streetlights, and illegal dumping.

As part of my research I need to interview a few professionals with experience in urban planning or municipal services. It's only 3 questions and would take around 10 minutes max. Happy to do it over Reddit DM, email, or whatever's easiest for you.

If you're open to it, drop a comment or send me a DM and I'll reach out with the questions.

Thanks in advance!

In the U.S. major cities have Chinatowns, Koreatowns, Greektowns, etc., but even among neighborhoods that aren't ethnic enclaves there is a great degree of variety. What neighborhoods make you feel like you've walked into a different city (or even country), which cities have the most of these?

If we look back in history, we see through the architecture and urban design, the effects it has had on cultural heritage, as well as the culture that existed at a given time. Great cities of the past Athens, Rome, Paris, Mexico City, to mention but a few, not only left a mark on the cultural heritage that followed over the centuries, but their urban design and architecture shaped the identity of the community and society, even if we go back thousands of years.

The urban design and architecture of times past gave the population a collective consciousness, and were a view to the economic, political, social and philosophical basis that existed in a given community/society at a given period. The human condition, at any time in history, frames the development of the Self, the family unit, the community and the desires of government and individuals.

Today’s architecture and urban design hold importance far beyond the planning of a city, they reflect the citizenship and identity that holds communities together. It also offers a view into the human being, and their search for a comfortable space and good life. Today is a good time for us all, as members of communities and societies, to see what this generation will culturally pass on, and how it will affect the future.  It is time for all of us to look around us and decide what is the architectural and urban design storyline we want to pass to the following generations.

What are your thought about the design and is it an adequate improvement to the present road layout?

I’m 18, just graduated high school in Pennsylvania, and my long-term goal is to found a real estate development company focused on infill housing, mixed-use, and walkable communities in the Mid-Atlantic region. Think missing middle housing, strip mall conversions with apartments above retail, suburban density done right.

I’m currently deciding between two undergraduate paths:

Option A: B.S. Civil Engineering (EAC)
Pros: Technical credibility, PE licensure path, deep site/infrastructure knowledge
Cons: Heavy math sequence (Calc I-III, Diff Eq, Statics, Physics) risks burnout and delayed graduation. Doesn’t teach pro formas, capital stacks, or deal structures.

Option B: B.S. Real Estate / Finance (with GIS/Urban Planning minor)
Pros: Direct training in financial modeling, land use, valuation, capital stacks. Lower academic risk, more time for internships and networking.
Cons: No PE path, less technical credibility on site/infrastructure questions.

For those who work in development or got there from one of these paths — which degree actually gets you in the door as a development analyst, and which one do you wish you’d chosen knowing what you know now?

Also open to paths I haven’t considered.

I’d like to first preface this by saying that I completely agree with the fact that cities must be human-centric, not car-centric, and that cars need to be unnecessary for most of daily life.

I’m all for most common-sense “fuck cars” rhetoric. Cars should be about specialist utility. They should be smaller, more efficient/environmentally-sustainable, non-subsidised, required to give way to pedestrians, and they should have to slowly make their way out of neighbourhoods through infrastructure that merely temporarily accommodates them (rather than infrastructure that is purpose-built for them or which prioritises them) etc.

But, I also believe that a truly developed society needs to respect the fact that people will desire cars. They are useful for families when needing to transport vulnerable people like little children and elderly relatives (especially in dense, vertical communities) - and we should be able to accommodate some form of recreational driving/road-tripping for the sake of empowering individuality where we can justify it / afford to do so.

Anyway, this is just a crude AI mock-up and is merely to illustrate a rough idea, and obviously it’s not supposed to represent how the average housing solution look like - but I thought it could offer a good alternative to single-family suburban homes.

It’s still not the most land efficient or sociable architecture - but compared to suburban single family homes, it seems like it could be a very welcome improvement, no?

I feel like, at ~6 stories tall, you could have ~12 much more economical single-family homes without sacrificing hardly any of the ‘luxury’ or major USPs of suburban single family homes. You could even have large, staggered garden-balconies to the rear so that everyone still gets their own private garden, as well as a freight elevator for easy home access without using the ramps - and you give everyone (that would usually buy a suburban single family home) what they want, whilst using less than half the land typically required.

None of it has to be mutually private though. You could still have shared spaces and amenities, if not for anything else other than to be deliberately social (rather than economic necessity).

I’m not saying that such a design wouldn’t come with its own challenges or drawbacks, and it certainly would be a luxury way of living - but, imo, it just seems like a good way to reduce the impact of typical single family housing solutions without compromising on what single family homes are most specifically desired for in the first place!

Kia Ora

I’ve released Crowd Count Version 2, a free open-source tool for estimating how many people can fit within indoor or outdoor spaces.

You can draw crowd zones on maps, adjust density, remove obstructions, create density gradients, and visualise crowds in 3D using satellite imagery and Google 3D Tiles. It may be useful for journalists, researchers, event planners, fact-checkers, and crowd-safety professionals.

Video tutorial: https://youtu.be/x5br6jshsyM

Feedback and suggestions for future features are very welcome.

Many thanks

Scheduled to be completed in August 2029

It is impressive to see the wide variety of layers and the spacing between the buildings

Hi r/urbandesigners!

I'm looking for advice from anyone who got into urban design without an undergraduate or professional background in architecture, planning, or landscape architecture.

I graduated last year with a bachelor's degree in communications and have since realized that I want to pursue urban design. From my research, it seems like graduate school is the most direct path, but because I don't have a bachelors in design, architecture, planning, etc., most Masters of Urban Design programs in the U.S. are off the table since they're post-professional.

So far, it seems like my best options are first-professional Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA I) or Master of Urban Planning/Regional Planning (MUP/MURP) programs, especially ones that offer an urban design concentration or certificate. Based on my research, it seems like an MLA may be a better route at least because it would be more routed in the studio/design experience necessary in urban design work. Though I'm somewhat apprehensive about going this route because these programs are of course 2-3 year commitments that I'm not sure if are worth my time considering that they are not exactly what I want to do.

My interests are in designing urban environments—walkability, public spaces, streetscapes, housing, placemaking, and community-centered development—rather than primarily focusing on policy.

A few questions:

• For someone hoping to become an urban designer, would you recommend an MLA I or a design-focused MUP/MURP?
• Are there any programs that stand out for students coming from unrelated undergraduate degrees?
• Are there alternative pathways into urban design that I should be considering?

I'd love to hear from people who made a similar career change or who work in the field. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

I made a new vid about Honolulu’s bad roads and why they got to be that way

Went from being a place you would avoid to becoming a touristic hot-spot.