Search Results for "James Rojas"

This week I'm joined by James Rojas of Place It! to talk about art in planning and Latino urbanism. James is an award-winning planner and a native Angeleno, and he tells us about how growing up in East LA and visiting his grandmother’s house shaped the way he thinks about urban spaces and design.

Airport2Park.org, the coalition formed to turn Santa Monica Airport into a park, has announced its next event: a potluck picnic in Clover Park (2600 Ocean Park Blvd, Santa Monica, adjacent to the airport, bring your own food, drinks and utensils), Sunday, November 3 from noon to 2 PM. The picnic will be a fun follow-up to Airport2Park’s first highly successful event, its October 3 workshop where 150 members of the public envisioned what it would mean to turn the airport into a great park

 Let your imaginations run wild, while problem-solving, planning, designing, cooperating, and collaborating to build a 3-D interactive map/model of a city of your dreams in this critically-acclaimed workshop with MIT-graduate and city planner James Rojas! Rojas will discuss key elements of the logistics, creativity, empathy and design used in shaping how we live using colorful … Continued

(Note: This is the second installment in our four-year series about how Baltimore, Maryland. Our first installment, "Baltimore Getting Serious About Bikes" appeared in May, 2008. - DN)

In a letter to friends and supporters posted on the Latino Urban Forum (LUF) listserve, one of Metro's most progressive planners, James Rojas, announced that he will be leaving the transit agency to create an urban planning high school in East L.A. Rojas may be best known to Streetsblog readers for his "interactive planning models" that have traveled around the world from Site L.A. to the United Nations' World Urban Forum in Brazil.  Ironically, Rojas announced his departure the same day I received a press advisory that Metro will feature one of his interactive models as the show piece of their "Dump the Pump Day" media conference tomorrow.

It was a privilege and honor for my artwork to represent the United States at the United Nation Habitat organized World Urban Forum (WUF) in Brazil. The theme of the fifth biannual conference was The Right to the City: Bridging the Urban Divide. The Forum was established by the United Nations in 2002 to examine urgent problems facing the world today. The conference focused on rapid urbanization and its impact on cities, economies, climate change, and policies. It brought together over 17,000 participants including government leaders, ministers, mayors, diplomats, regional and international associations, community groups, and practitioners. The US delegation was comprised of high-level staff from the White House Office of Urban Affairs, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development, and the United States Department of Agriculture. This year, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan led the US delegation.

(editor's note: This story is written by James Rojas, who's sustainable transportation models have been featured here at least three times in the past.  His most recent model, one of a Santa Monica geared towards cyclists and pedestrians, can be viewed at the 18th Street Art Gallery in Santa Monica until March 27 as part of the Shangri L.A. exhibit.)

When Rojas Speaks, People Build Urban Models

There is a new video out this week from Groundswell, a project of multi-faceted bike activists Joe Biel and Elly Blue. Streetsblog USA profiled Groundswell last month. They've created a series of engaging and entertaining videos that explore the intersections of equity, community and cycling.