Media Mentions

An article on Civil Eats interviews Samina Raja, professor of urban and regional planning in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, about her work on food access, trends in the field and potential solutions. “We have one neighborhood in Buffalo that by federal guidelines is described as a food desert, but it had a thriving mom-and-pop grocery store in it. So if you went to look for grant funding, it would bring in a competitive supermarket that wouldn’t hire local people,” she said. “So defining a neighborhood as a food desert would thwart an existing, functioning grocery store because it didn’t fit the idea of a supermarket. I’m much more in favor of letting residents decide how they want to define their neighborhood and getting to the precision of the issue whether it’s a problem or an asset.”

An article on CLAD News about plans that were unveiled recently to transform Buffalo’s LaSalle Park into the future Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park reports that the UB Regional Institute is among the stakeholders in the project. Articles also appeared on Sports Management, Leisure Management, World Leisure Jobs & News and Leisure Week. 

A story on Investigative Post reports on the “staggering” number of motorists across the state who lose their driver’s license every year and interviews Henry Louis Taylor Jr., director of the Center for Urban Studies, who said that debt-related suspensions provide little to no public safety benefit. “We are taking people who are already on the economic edge, we are criminalizing them and increasing the burdens and hardships on their lives,” he said.

A front-page article about a contest to rethink the Buffalo Skyway, a process that will unfold over four months, reports the 11-member selection jury will include Robert Shibley, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning.

An article reports 31 students from the UB School of Architecture and Planning’s Environmental Design program will lead presentations this evening on ways to make the Hooks Neighborhood – a stretch between Canalside and City Hall – more walkable.

An article reports 31 students from the UB School of Architecture and Planning’s Environmental Design program will lead presentations this evening on ways to make the Hooks Neighborhood – a stretch between Canalside and City Hall – more walkable.

An article in The New York Times reports on “Growing Up Modern,” a book and exhibition project by Julia Jamrozik, assistant professor of architecture in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, and architect Coryn Kempster, which interviews members of the first families who lived in European homes designed by architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. There is some urgency to the project given the advanced ages of the eyewitnesses, Jamrozik said.

A front-page article reports on plans that were presented Friday to reshape LaSalle Park, including the addition of a hill for sunset watchers, snow sledders and concertgoers, and notes that the UB Regional Institute is among the stakeholders in the conceptual design. The article quotes Robert Shibley, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning. "I think the community, right down to the kids from the Belle Center, brought us a very sophisticated understanding of the strengths of the current park, its limitations and its potential," he said. "Having the focus group make these trips and then relate their findings to their own critique of the park elevated the conversation and the clarity of aspiration." Stories also appeared on WBFO-FM, Business First, Plans presented on WGRZ-TV, WIVB-TV, WKBW-TV, Spectrum News, Yahoo News and Buffalo Rising.

A story on WBEN-AM featured an interview with Robert Shibley, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning, discussing the new plans for Buffalo’s LaSalle Park. He said that one of the plans for the project is to overhaul some of the terrain and add hills to the park. "It is a park now and will become a new one but it will retain the program elements of the existing parks," Shibley said. "All of the current users and people committed to this place are accommodated in what I think is a richly designed and improved park space. There will be additional activities. You'll be able to sled on what is otherwise a flat park now." The Imagine LaSalle initiative is a partnership among the UB Regional Institute, the City of Buffalo and the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation. Stories also appeared on Imagine Lasalle on WGRZ-TV and WKBW-TV.

An article in City Lab reports on the work of students in a studio in the UB School of Architecture and Planning who created laufmaschines, also known as the “dandy horse,” a precursor to the bicycle that was invented in 1816 in response to a very serious climate crisis that impacted the entire world. The article interviews Nick Rajkovich, assistant professor of architecture, who said, “What’s pretty amazing is, among the 15 vehicles and among these dozens and dozens of students, there’s not one solution that’s exactly the same,” adding, “The laufmaschine was designed 200 years ago in response to a climate crisis. It still holds valuable lessons today, because there’s a lot of interest in the bicycle as a carbon-neutral mode of transportation.”