Archinect - News

U.S. Census Bureau changes its definition of an urban area, impacting 1,300 former cities and towns

2022-05-03T11:41:00-04:00

The U.S. Census Bureau has changed its definition of an urban area, which will cause hundreds of existing urban areas to be reclassified as rural. The change is centered on a new methodology for how urban areas are calculated, with the number of housing units being used as the key metric, rather than the number of inhabitants.

Under the century-old definition used prior to now, an urban area was classed as one with at least 2,500 people. Now, a place will need 2,000 housing units before being classed as urban, equivalent to around 5,000 people. In addition, the previous distinction between an “urbanized area” (50,000 residents or more) and an “urban cluster” (2,500 to 50,000 residents) will be removed, with all qualifying areas simply referred to as “urban areas.”

In addition, the Census Bureau has created three levels of definition for census blocks, the smallest geographic unit in the United States. Census blocks will be considered urban if they contain a density of 425 housing u...

UAE is making artificial rainstorms to mitigate intense heat

2021-07-23T17:55:00-04:00

With temperatures in Dubai regularly surpassing 115 degrees Fahrenheit, the government has decided to take control of the scorching weather. Scientists in the United Arab Emirates are making it rain — artificially — using electrical charges from drones to manipulate the weather and force rainfall across the desert nation. Meteorological officials released video footage this week showing a downpour over Ras al Khaimah, as well as several other regions.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by المركز الوطني للأرصاد (@officialuaeweather)

Called cloud seeding, this is a weather-modification technique that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by artificially adding substances, called condensation nuclei, to the atmosphere. Given dwindling water sources, increasing temperatures, and a rising population, the United Arab Emirates hopes to regularly use this method to increase rainfall.

Based on research at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, scientists created the storms using drones, which jolted clouds with electricity, causing droplets in the clouds to clump together. The larger raindrops are then able to fall to the ground, instead of evaporating midair, which is what occurs to smaller droplets in such a hot climate.

In 2017, the researchers at the university received $1.5 million for use over three years from the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Scien...

City of Seattle tackles housing affordability, workforce automation, seismic upgrades with new "resilience roadmap"

2019-08-30T21:00:00-04:00

We must continue to prepare for acute shocks— events that could threaten our City’s ability to function, such as natural disasters. We must also address chronic stresses—challenges that weaken our natural, built, or human resources, such as income inequality and chronic homelessness. Stresses often exacerbate the effects of shocks when they occur, particularly for vulnerable populations.

The plan comes as Seattle, the fastest-growing city in the country, and the larger Puget Sound metropolitan region around it, prepare to nearly double in population by 2050.

Buffalo’s population grows for the first time since 1950

2019-07-02T18:21:00-04:00

Mayor Byron Brown said there will be a significant change documented in the 2020 Census for Buffalo. "We believe that in the 2020 census will allow Buffalo to show its first population growth since the 1950 census,” he said.

After nearly 70 years of population declines, The City of Good Neighbors is growing once again.

According to Buffalo mayor Byron W. Brown, the city could register significant population growth after the 2020 Census, a product, in part, of the city's growing refugee and immigrant communities. According to Census counts, Buffalo's population registered at roughly 260,000 inhabitants in 2010; Updated estimates for the 2020 Census have not been announced.

At an event commemorating World Refugee day, Brown touted the city's population boost, saying, "Diversity is an engine of growth," adding, "It is the way our country has grown from the very beginning."

To help guide future growth, the city overhauled its zoning code in 2017, another first since the 1950s.

Rendering depicting OMA's proposed expansion of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Image courtesy of © OMA and Brick Visuals.

The new Unified Development Ordinance is billed as as a form-based "green code" that eliminates parking requir...

Sir David Adjaye + Sadie Morgan join London Mayor Sadiq Khan's "Good Growth by Design"

2017-07-11T12:44:00-04:00

London needs to provide space for 46,000 new jobs and build 50,000 new homes a year just to keep up with demand, as well as build the social infrastructure to support both. Good Growth will enable this, leaving a legacy of world-class buildings, outstanding public realm and large-scale regeneration for Londoners of the future.

Exhibiting both farsightedness and excellent aesthetic taste, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has created a program specifically meant to help anticipate and solve London's growth (experts estimate the city will soon have a population of 10 million). The "Good Growth by Design" program will have an advisory panel of 50 design advisors, including Sir David Adjaye and Sadie Morgan.

London. Image: Juan Cabanillas via Flickr

As the mayor explained in a statement, “London is facing unprecedented population growth and with that comes challenging work, but also amazing opportunities to deliver a city that is socially integrated, sustainable, healthier, safer and with a world class public realm. We must embrace London’s rapid growth with both hands and take this chance to use good architecture and planning to make a real difference to the lives of Londoners. And this is a chance to learn from past mistakes, some of which are still dotted across our city, and blight the lives of the communities that...

Can Cleveland combat climate change with compact communities?

2016-10-18T12:54:00-04:00

Although Cleveland often serves more as a punchline than a solution (the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969 due to pollution), a climate change conference convened by the United Nations and currently being held in Quito, Ecuador sees new potential in the city. As StreetsBlog reports, if Cleveland can transform its current suburbia into denser neighborhoods, the metropolis could serve as a model for numerous water and climate-challenged cities in how to adapt to the demands of an increasingly populated globe. As a paper entitled "Where to put the next billion people" states:

"Cleveland could play a significant role in the fight against climate change by developing a strategy for more compact communities and with a more open and encouraging immigration policy, the report concludes.

The influx of immigrants should probably be planned better.

Cleveland’s outer suburbs and nearby rural towns hold the key. If the suburbs can figure out strategies to retrofit themselves as dense, walkable com...

2015 U.S. population report shows return to pre-2000 patterns

2016-03-25T14:19:00-04:00

Today the U.S. Census Bureau released its 2015 population estimates for counties and metropolitan areas. After volatile swings in growth patterns during last decade’s housing bubble and bust, long-term trends are reasserting themselves. Population is growing faster in the South and West than in the Northeast and Midwest, and faster in suburban areas than in urban counties; both of these trends accelerated in 2015.

Will tall towers and sky walks populate the Stockholm of the future?

2016-01-12T13:34:00-05:00

Could roof-straddling “sky walks” soon be coming to Stockholm? A new plan proposed for the Swedish capital would see a large slice of its city center built over with densely packed towers, joined at their peaks by a dramatic zigzag of tree-lined, open air gangways... Sweden’s capital is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe... If it isn’t going to sprawl unmanageably or become overcrowded, it’s going to have to find somewhere to put everyone...

Proposed by Anders Berensson Architects, the "Klarastaden," or "clear city" plan, was commissioned by the Swedish Center Party, a center-right party with an environmental focus and neoliberal bent. The Swedish capital is poised to grow 17 percent in the next nine years, putting pressure on its historic infrastructure and architecture.

If you want to avoid sprawling out, you're best options are to go in and up, increasing urban density and height. The Klarastaden proposal does just that, weaving together a matrix of towers of different heights and widths with a series of pathways. Following what is increasingly becoming the go-to trend for marking a project as "green," the building roofs would support a fragmented park.

But, as is noted by CityLab, the Center Party isn't in power at the moment. So Anders Berensson Architects have also crafted a diagram for how their strategy could be retooled as a retrofit instead of a massive development.

Related:

Left to rot: abandoned Swedish mid-cen...

Our cities must adapt to climate change and growing populations within a single generation, according to the head of Arup

2016-01-04T13:43:00-05:00

Cities around the world have only one generation to meet the twin challenges of climate change and a rapidly growing urban population, the head of a global engineering firm has warned. Gregory Hodkinson, chairman of the Arup group, said that with more than half the world’s population already living in cities, and the proportion set to rise to 70% by 2050, city leaders need to take urgent action.

Gregory Hodkinsin, the chairman of the engineering giant Arup Group, has warned that cities must adapt to climate change and booming population growth within the timespan of a single generation.

“If we don’t, in my view, we’re screwed: my children and my grandchildren and everybody else’s children," Hodkinsin told the Guardian. "We need to find a way to do this rapid urbanisation in a way that’s not going to kill us – and to do it once.”

Climate change and urban population growth are "twinned" challenges for a variety of reasons. As global temperatures rise, an increase in natural disasters and resource-driven conflict will likely drive displaced populations to urban centers, where shelter and access to basic necessities are more available. This is a pattern already emerging, for instance, in the mass migration of refugees from Syria and Iraq into Europe and elsewhere.

Cities currently house more than half of the world's population – and will most likely have to shelter up to 70% in t...

See 2,000 Years of Urban Growth Around the World With This Interactive Map

2015-12-22T19:20:00-05:00

Back in 1 A.D., ancient civilizations like the Mayans experienced “urban booms” of their own. This mind-boggling interactive map made by Esri puts thousands of years of global population growth into perspective, ultimately showing us that NYC is kind of just a blip on the radar—or in this case, the 2,000-year timeline of life.

MoMA's “Uneven Growth” case studies conclude with exhibition this month

2014-11-13T13:03:00-05:00

MoMA began its "Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities" initiative last year aiming to advance international discussion on disproportionate urban development and its potential consequences. To address this issue, six interdisciplinary teams spent 14 months in workshops designing proposals that investigate new architectural possibilities for six metropolises. Each case study will be exhibited to the public at MoMA starting on November 22.

But the discussion doesn't end there. MoMA also created a user-generated Tumblr that collects examples of emerging modes of tactical urbanism taking place in the six cities.

Here's a glimpse:

LAGOS
By NLÉ (Lagos, Nigeria and Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Zoohaus/Inteligencias Colectivas (Madrid, Spain)

HONG KONG
By MAP Office (Hong Kong, China)
Network Architecture Lab (Columbia University, New York, U.S.)

ISTANBUL
By Superpool (Istanbul, Turkey)
Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée (Paris, France)

MUMBAI
By URBZ: user-generated cities (Mumbai, India)
Ensamble Studio/MIT-POPlab (Madrid, Spain and Cambridge, U.S.)

RIO DE JANEIRO
By RUA Arquitetos (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
MAS Urban Design at ETH (Zurich, Switzerland)

NEW YORK
By SITU Studio (New York, U.S.)
Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra) (Rotterdam, Netherlands AND New York, U.S.)

For further details and images from each case study, head over to Bustler.

Hong Kong tops Bloomberg's list of "Most Crowded Cities" by 2025

2014-09-25T14:20:00-04:00

Bloomberg published their predictions for the top forty most densely populated cities by 2025, with current #1 Hong Kong keeping the top spot, at nearly twice the projected density of #2, Salvador, Brazil. Hong Kong's population growth is predicted to grow by 32.8%, while Salvador's is nearly triple that rate at a 97.3% increase. Mexico City is #3, at 45.3% increase. The "crowded" metric is population per square mile, assuming that borders don't change (by land erosion or reclamation) by 2025.

Of the Top 40, the two cities with the highest estimated population growth (within the span of the generation leading up to 2025) are both in Saudi Arabia: Riyadh (166.6% increase) and Jiddah (137.4% increase), trailed by Brasilia, Brazil at 118.6%. The only other city with a projected growth of more than 100% is Atlanta, Georgia, at 114.7% population growth to become the 40th most crowded city by 2025.

The cities with the lowest projected population growth are: Seoul-Incheon, South Korea at 1.4...