Living at land’s edge has always come with a certain amount of risk: storms coming off the ocean can be violent and proximity to water always carries with it a possibility of getting wet.

[...] in three communities on Staten Island, a New York State program to encourage managed retreat through homeowner buyouts has elicited strong interest and vocal support. — urbanomnibus.net

Russia’s northern cities are a triumph of will; grand settlements in the middle of snow and darkness where people are dwarfed by the outsized factories they’ve built and helpless next to the industrial waste those factories create. Photographer Alexander Gronsky’s images of Norilsk seem both close to reality and something out of a dream. [...] But at the same time it is a place of heart-wrenching almost Arcadian beauty. A place of pale skies and metallic rivers. — calvertjournal.com

Burlington’s switch to renewable energy will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save $20 million over the next 20 years and keep energy prices stable [...]

The move is only one part of a solution for climate change, according to Taylor Ricketts, professor of Environmental Science at the University of Vermont. “Climate change is the biggest problem we face, maybe the biggest problem we’ve ever faced. But there’s no silver bullet to fix it,” he said. — pbs.org

This week, English Heritage ... listed 14 late 20th century office developments as historic monuments. The buildings, all constructed between 1964 and 1984, will now be protected from summary demolition or insensitive remodeling, standing as examples of the best architecture of their period. [...]

The buildings being spared might seem extremely modest, even provincial. That could partly be the point—the buildings are supposed to be representative of their country, after all. — citylab.com

Boris Johnson today confirmed he would build Europe’s longest segregated urban cycle lane through central London after delays likely to be suffered by motorists were reduced.

The Mayor approved the “Crossrail for bikes” protected route through Parliament Square and along the Victoria Embankment and Upper Thames Street after it won overwhelming public support. — standard.co.uk

China's smog-shrouded, overcrowded, traffic-choked capital has become unlivable.

And that's not the assessment of some tourist or disgruntled cubicle-dweller: That's the mayor talking. [...]

"In establishing a top-tier, internationalized livable and harmonious city, Beijing is currently establishing a system of standards, something that is very important," Wang said in comments reported by state news outlets. "At the present time, however, Beijing is not a livable city." — VICE

“Our business is more regional and high-end focused,” he said. “There are gradients of dead or dying or flat, but anything that’s caught in the middle of the market is problematic." — NYT

Does it make sense for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup? German architect Albert Speer, whose office is in charge of the project, says yes -- and is doing all he can to ensure sustainability. In a SPIEGEL interview, he says how. — spiegel.de

A couple who spent $35,000 building a tiny house-on-wheels to live an eco-friendly life were stunned to find their home-to-be had been towed away by thieves.

Casey Friday and his wife Jessica spent two and a half years building the house themselves from the raw materials so they could reduce their environmental impact.

The 650sqft home... could run on rainwater, compost its waste and get by on 'very little' electricity - but was purloined from its custom-paved driveway in Spring Branch, Texas. — dailymail.co.uk

Mt. Prospect Avenue in Newark has New Jersey’s first protected bike lane, as far as we know. But unfortunately it looks like the Garden State will soon be back to zero.

Andrew Besold at WalkBikeJersey is reporting Mayor Ras Baraka has ordered the removal of the bike lane, and in the meantime is allowing people to park in it. — streetsblog.net

The mortar resists microcracking through in situ crystallization of platy strätlingite, a durable calcium-alumino-silicate mineral that reinforces interfacial zones and the cementitious matrix. The dense intergrowths of the platy crystals obstruct crack propagation and preserve cohesion at the micron scale, which in turn enables the concrete to maintain its chemical resilience and structural integrity in a seismically active environment at the millennial scale. — Berkeley Lab

...As a practical matter, limiting global warming to no more than 2C seemed like the most ambitious target that could possibly be achieved, since it would require virtually ending fossil fuel emissions within 30 to 40 years... Yet even as the 2C target has become a touchstone for the climate talks, scientific theory and real-world observations have begun to raise serious questions about whether the target is stringent enough." — NY Times

You know how you’re supposed to turn out the lights when you leave a room to save energy? New York City Council member Donovan Richards wants the owners of many of the city’s office buildings to start doing the same—on a much bigger scale.

Richards [...] has introduced a bill that would prohibit owners of approximately 40,000 New York commercial buildings from illuminating the interiors or exteriors of their structures once workers have gone home for the night. — citylab.com