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S400: Solutions For Cities In 400 Words

< Westlake Center in Seattle; photo by Dan Bertolet – click to enlarge >

In March 2011 Citytank launched with the C200 series on why cities matter in 200 words. Over the following weeks, some 70 authors contributed. As a followup to C200, Citytank now gives you S400.

The “S” is for solutions. In 400 words.

C200 was (mostly) about why cities matter. Building on that premise, S400 is about solutions—specific solutions for how we can better leverage the potential of cities to both improve people’s lives, and heal the planet.

Solutions big or small; pie-in-the-sky or implementable tomorrow; local or universal; liberal or conservative. Solutions that may range in scope and scale from creating a new agency for regional planning, to scrapping Seattle’s land use code and starting over, to banning leaf blowers, to painting all sidewalks purple.

Got an idea about how to make cities work better? Citytank wants to hear about it. The S400 series will be an ongoing project.

Something in your neighborhood that is awesome? Or maybe something the opposite of awesome that you’ve got an idea for how to fix? Snap a pic and write a few informal words about it. On the other hand, for those of you who like to get your urban planning wonk on, bring it!

Please send your S400 thoughts, proposals, and drafts to: tanked@citytank.org. The 400 word limit is a loose guideline, intended to help keep the pieces tight and focused on one idea. Because in the fickle wilderness of the blogosphere, less is usually more. And as always, images are worth, well, you know.

View all the S400 posts chronologically here, or check out the growing alphabetical list below.

Thank you thank you thank you to all who contributed!

< List: The Citytank S400 Series >

  1. Ben Bakkenta: Growing Transit Communities
  2. Dan Bertolet: Tax Exempt Status for Used Bookstores
  3. Cary Bozeman: A Cities Bill
  4. Weston Brinkley: Slow Down; Get Honest
  5. Richard Conlin: Let’s Make The Duwamish River The Center For A Sustainable City
  6. Matt Gangemi: Glass Bubbles in the Sky
  7. Gabriel Grant: Why is the City giving away waterfront land for free parking?
  8. Clark Humphrey: Ivar would approve; so would Sylvester the mummy
  9. Joshua Newman: Pull In The Same Direction
  10. Chad Newton: Micro-Retail
  11. Roger Valdez: Density Heals
  12. DJ Wilson: Learning From Small Cities