Biking Infrastructure as Sign of Modernity and Progress

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet “Bruges is a biking city” declared the woman at the information counter at the train station when we arrived from Brussels. I found out first hand that she wasn’t kidding. Biking is an integral part of the infrastructure in Bruges, which is a tiny city in Belgium that has gotten a few big things right. And one of those things is their bicycle culture. Right from the get go, when we walked out of the train station, I saw a sea of bicycles parked outside: The woman at the information counter would later tell me that locals bike to…

October 04, 2010

Learning from European Cities: An Introduction

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet It’s good to be back in the Valley of the Sun! I had a fantastic time in Europe and learned a great deal about how dense urban centers work. I’d like to share what I learned over the coming weeks on Mondays in my Learning from European Cities Series. It’s true that Phoenix will never be and shouldn’t be a reproduction of a European city. We have very unique characteristics here, as well as a completely different climate and landscape, land availability, and cultural differences among other factors. However, there are a few universal things that work well in…