Welcome to Mikey Likes It! This is my endeavor to leave the world a better place by facilitating a discussion among city planners, neighborhood activists and those with an interest in urban affairs about what urban design elements and strategies are effective in elevating the lives of everyone impacted. It’s about the urban things I like… and a loose reference to an unusual 80’s breakfast cereal.
When I was a kid (and a bit of a nerd), I enjoyed drawing overhead layouts and “plan” views. My favorite items to draw were golf course and hotel resorts. Soon the SimCity arcade game was introduced and I lost hours of my life designing entire metropolises.
I ended up going to college for engineering, but found Jane Jacobs’ Life and Death of Great American Cities and various readings of Frederick Law Olmsted to be two things I could just never let go of and kept coming back to. Jane Jacob’s analysis of interacting people and spaces; Olmsted’s urban parks – not just the design of them, but the mission behind those designs to bring together the wealthy and poor to a single space and make them better people individually and also as a community…. they both fit so perfectly for an engineering analysis of space that provided the opportunity to elevate the well-being of all!
This website is meant to be a “conversation” and hopefully facilitate the discussions to increase awareness of what urban design elements are out there and being used… which are successful (and why)… so that researchers, community activists, and urban design nerds are better informed and can push for improvements in their own neighborhood.
The focus for the website will be on midwest cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit – and places in between like Akron, Toledo, and Wheeling. These are cities that have similar backgrounds and similar challenges as decaying industrial regions. They’re places I have lived and have the most familiarity with, but they should also have lessons learned and best practices for those putting work and effort into different geographical locations.
- Mike Collins
“First life, then spaces, then buildings – the other way around never works.”
Jan Gehl