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The concept of building or imagining a new City is actually more than just a concept, and has been delivered in recent times for political, economic, social or other reasons. Abuja, Nigeria is one of the more recent, purpose built in the 1980s and now Nigeria’s Capital City since 1991. — thisbigcity.net
Things are changing enormously in almost every sense. The effects of globalization have been positive and negative. My generation of architects is the first that could work almost anywhere in the world. We had the option to repeat the same building everywhere or to push ourselves forward, to create an encounter between ourselves and the local culture. — americancity.org
With the exception of Nairobi — insert joke here about Kenyans crushing everyone at the New York City Marathon — the fastest walking cities were from wealthy nations. The statistical analysis confirmed this general perception: two of the three strongest social predictors of walking speed were a country's G.D.P. and its purchasing power parity (the other was its individualism). — theatlanticcities.com
This reminds of of a fascinating Radiolab episode from a couple years ago about cities. I HIGHLY recommend listening to this - download it here. View full entry
Apple is actually taking a site that is now parking lots and low-rise boxes and making it worse for the community. Yes, it will be iconic, assuming you think a building shaped like a whitewall motorcycle tire is iconic, but it will reduce current street connectivity, seal off potential walking routes and, as I wrote some time back, essentially turn its back on its community. With a parking garage designed to hold over ten thousand cars, by the way. — Switchboard
Kaid Benfield, staff member at the Natural Resources Defense Council, slams Apple on it's proposed new HQ in Cupertino. Before you run off to return your idevices, though, consider that the new Archinect iPhone app will be released shortly ;) Related: Apple's new headquarters lacks vision Plans... View full entry
THE Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist, has devised a new index which ranks the competitiveness of the most prominent cities across the globe using a number of economic, demographic and social variables. The 120 cities in the index are home to some 750m people and $20.2 trillion worth of GDP, 29% of the world's total. — The Economist
Shanghai is the fastest-growing city in the world, according to MetroMonitor, a quarterly analysis from the Brookings Institution that compares the 200 most prosperous metros by income and job growth. The victims of the euro zone crisis dominate the end of the list. Athens, Lisbon, and Dublin, the capitals of the three most endangered nations in Europe's sovereign debt crisis, made up the bottom three. — theatlantic.com
IKEA has proposed to build a complete neighborhood in East London. The Swedish furniture giant tries to implement its ideas and concepts in new fields of knowledge and urbanism. After its injection of each single family’s interior with cheap design furniture and the introduction of the IKEA standard house by daughter company BoKlok, it seems to be time for a complete IKEA neighborhood... — popupcity.net
New York has turned large swaths of Broadway over to bikes, benches and cafes. Los Angeles is going all-in on a plan to turn its car-addicted populace into rail commuters. And Minneapolis, the frostiest city of the Frost Belt, is creating a sophisticated citywide bike trail system that has made it the No. 1 city in the country for bicycling. — salon.com
This survey is not based solely on quality of life, number of trees or the cost of a month’s rent. Instead, we examine some cities that aim to be both smart and well managed, yet have an undeniably hip vibe. Our pick of cities that are, in a phrase, both great and good... — nytimes.com
The NYT selects Auckland, Berlin, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Curitiba, Santiago, Shanghai and Vilnius as the hippest cities for young professionals. View full entry
A complex scale model of Tokyo is on view by appointment at Tokyo's Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills. The model was built in 2003 by 30 Mori employees over approximately 17 months. All streets and buildings were photographed at street level and from above via helicopter. They were then adjusted in Photoshop and glued to polystyrene models. — thepolisblog.org
Imagine a city like Los Angeles disappearing from the map completely. That's exactly what happened to Chaohu, a city in eastern China's Anhui province with a similar population — about 4 million. The people have remained, but the city has vanished in an administrative sleight of hand. — npr.org
This was the city of the 20th Century, but surely nobody, neither utopians or dystopians, imagined that it would look like this. It was nobody's dream and at least in theory, nobody's nightmare. How did we get here? — BBC
In his colorful article, Owen Hatherley, architecture critic and occasional Archinect editor, confronts the ugliness and its legacy 20th century post modern style buildings left the cities with. View full entry
For at least a century, governments have tried to urbanise their nations. Communist states sought to drag people out of what Marx and Engels called their "rural idiocy". Capitalist governments – Mahatir Mohammed's administration in Malaysia is a good example – tried to persuade and bully indigenous people into leaving the land (which then became available for exploitation) and move to the cities to join the consumer economy. Urbanisation was equated with progress and modernity. — George Monbiot, guardian.co.uk