Downtown Orlando has two public restrooms and they're both located at Lake Eola Park. The result of the poor access to public restrooms means when the bars let out at the end of the night, those heavy drinkers have...
As seen in the viral video above, Mexico City has installed vertical gardens on their highway pillars, not only for aesthetic reasons but also to help the environment.
Via Verde (Website), when completed, will wrap roughly 1,000 highway support pillars...
Netherlands-based urban problem solvers, Social Sofa (Website), are a group that is working to make residential neighborhoods more civil and friendly simply by placing benches in them.
Social Sofa believes that people feel safer in their neighborhoods when they are...
An advisory panel at the Florida State University has recommended the removal of a statue of Francis Eppes from a high profile location in front of the Westcott Building on campus, near one of the main entrances.
The same panel has...
Self-reliance and grassroots economic initiatives are snowballing in communities across the country, and most importantly, those affected by generational poverty and segregation.
Us Lifting Us Economic Development Cooperative is a black-led coop that reinvests black-owned income into black neighborhoods, in...
Chelsea Market (Website) the uber-famous New York City food hall, is looking to open new locations outside of the Big Apple by the end of the year.
Jamestown (Website), the real estate company behind the Market, just sold the building...
A "participatory budget" is a democratic platform tool that allows ordinary people to decide how to allocate part of a municipal budget. This "democratic deliberation" process allows citizens to identify, discuss, and prioritize certain public spending projects and gives...
Plastic Bank (Website) is a Vancouver-based startup that monetizes waste by paying people to collect it from the oceans.
The Canadian concept was launched in 2013 and is based on a model that pays people in developing nations to collect...
A professor at Carnegie Mellon has invented a new smart traffic system called Surtrac (Website) that changes traffic lights based on real-time traffic. In short, Surtrac combines AI with basic traffic theory to allow for less time waiting at stop...
Spacious (Website) is a service that partners with restaurants to rent them out to coworkers during their off-hours.
The innovative start-up connects freelancers and remote workers with otherwise empty venues to hold meetings, presentations, or just to take advantage of...
Cities are hotter than their suburban cousins, that's a fact. And the main culprit is pavement and asphalt. Bitumen, a petroleum-based product, is naturally black and is used in the creation of asphalt as a binder. The result is that...
Mural Arts Philadelphia (Website) is hosting a revolutionary event in the fall of 2017, called Monument Lab; a participatory, city-wide project that asks residents for their vision of a monument that best represents Philadelphia.
In 2015, the Monument Lab team collected over 400...
Rent the Chicken (Website) is a new service that rents everything you need to have backyard chickens, without any of the guess work.
The service provides a portable chicken coop, two to four egg-laying hens, 100-200 pounds of feed, food and...
EDIT: We originally described Brightline as "high-speed" rail, which is incorrect. Brightline is expected to travel at an average speed of 80 miles per hour. The average definition of high speed rail is between 120 to 160 miles per...
Instagram and selfie-culture dictate today's trends, so much so that only the most photogenic can survive. With that said, we want our local bakeries and cupcakeries to hop on this fun new trend; cactus cakes.
The only thing more popular...
This video and project is an effort by Improv Everywhere (Facebook | Website) a group that
Two runners would enter an elevator with an unsuspecting bystander, dressed in marathon gear. When the elevator doors opened at the bottom floor, the...
The Fisher Beacon Project is an effort being spearheaded by MKR City, a group that connects makers and creatives in Detroit, that has resulted in the creation of a pop-up halfpipe in the Fisher Building in Detroit.
The Fisher Halfpipe is bringing...
In November 2016, we wrote a Bring to Orlando column about the Repair Cafe phenomenon popping up around the world, HERE, and now one is coming to the Winter Park Public Library (Website).
A Repair Cafe is a pop-up event...
A new website in Philadelphia has been launched to combat a rampant litter problem.
Not In Philly (Website) is a variation on adopt-a-block programs where residents and businesses can lay claim to certain areas of a town, usually highly-trafficked streets,...
PHOTO BY ILVY NJIOKIKTJIEN VIA WIKICOMMONS
A Repair Cafe is a pop-up event where people bring broken items to be repaired by other local residents. Tools are on-hand for quick on-site problem fixing in order to divert waste from the...
IMAGE VIA FOOD FOR ALL WEBSITE
Food for All (Website) is an organization that is currently raising money via Kickstarter to launch a new app to reduce food waste. Their model is based on identifying restaurants that have dishes still left...
A small business incubator program in Oakland has taken an innovative approach of promoting not just one pop-up business, but doing it street-by-street instead. By creating pockets of pop-up retail Oakland's PopupHood (Website) is promoting larger destinations with the...
Gainesville, Florida's city manager, Anthoy Lyons, is trying to apply human-centered design to his city, based on user experience.
They will be transforming an empty storefront in downtown Gainesville into a pop-up City Hall where residents can share ideas and...
A ten-day art project culminating in dozens of new murals in St. Petersburg has just come to a close, so we made a pilgrimage to the Gulf Coast to get a look at the results late last week.
Shine on St...
An initiative in St. Paul, Minnesota is seeking to bring positive community change by applying interdisciplinary placemaking and space activation to private front yards. The project is called the Front Yard Festival (Website).
The Front Yard Festival will be held...
