Many residents live in shacks made of rusty sheet metal, without access to drinkable water, electricity or basic sanitation. When it rains, their homes flood and residents bail out mud and water. [...]

The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six.

After the earthquake, Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern unveiled ambitious plans to "develop brand-new communities." None has ever been built. — propublica.org

The New York-based World Monuments Fund announced [...] that Joshua David, the co-founder of New York’s High Line—a major urban regeneration project that has inspired similar initiatives in places such as Paris and Philadelphia—will succeed Bonnie Burnham as president of the non-profit heritage preservation organisation. Burnham is to retire in November after 30 years in the post. [...]

David announced in late January that he was stepping down as president of the Friends of the High Line. — The Art Newspaper

Turner Impact Multifamily Fund will target opportunities to acquire housing for workers making up to 80 percent of the area’s median income. The goal is to provide housing for those who earn too much to qualify for subsidized housing, but too little to afford a home or luxury apartment near their workplace [...]

“Workforce housing is an overlooked segment of the real estate market with a significant mismatch in supply and demand that we believe offers a compelling investment opportunity” — labusinessjournal.com

Verizon, the US’s largest wireless telecom company, is developing technology with Nasa to direct and monitor America’s growing fleet of civilian and commercial drones from its network of phone towers.

According to documents obtained by the Guardian, Verizon signed an agreement last year with Nasa “to jointly explore whether cell towers … could support communications and surveillance of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) at low altitudes”. — The Guardian

From the late 19th century to middle of 20th century, all architecture roads let through Chicago. [...]

Today, Chicago still believes in architecture as a force for defining the future. Architects native to the city and beyond are coming there to grapple with post-industrial decline, gentrification, and, commonly hailed as the most “American of all American cities,” the most American of problems: how to soften the degradations of bone-crushing inequality. — aia.org

More homeless people in Los Angeles are leaving Skid Row for other more visible areas of the city, such as parks and near freeways. [...]

Some of the increased visibility is the result of lawsuits. Until the city can supply more affordable housing, the homeless can legally camp on sidewalks from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. [...]

Marketplace reports that advocates say they’ve seen a rise in middle-aged homeless people, some victims of recession-era job loss. — nextcity.org

For a fledgling startup, finding an office in San Francisco can be a real nightmare. Rents are now climbing past $60 a square foot, second only to Manhattan in the US [...].

This means young startups have to get creative if they insist on staying within the city. And Westfield, one of the world’s largest mall operators, has a solution for them: Bespoke, a 37,000-square-foot coworking and event space within its shopping center in downtown San Francisco. — qz.com

The bicycle makes sense in cities. With rising urbanization, our cities need modern mobility solutions, and moving around on two wheels proves time and again that it can offer results [...]

With each edition, the Copenhagen­ize Design Company’s Index of the most bike-friendly cities in the world evolves...This year, we considered cities with a regional population over 600,000 (with a few exceptions because of their political and regional importance, and to keep things interesting). — Wired Magazine

'Architecturally, the ends of the bridge are abysmal: they are sort of hacked off. It’s not a good termination of the bridge – it’s inelegant – and the views of the ends of the bridge are particularly poor and ungraceful. It doesn’t look good. It isn’t a nice piece of work.' — Piers Gough — The Guardian

A vibration control device to dramatically reduce shaking caused by long-period earthquake ground motion — a phenomenon in which major earthquakes shake skyscrapers slowly but severely — was shown to the media on Monday after being installed in a 55-story building in central Tokyo. [...]

The companies said it is the nation’s first rooftop vibration control device against earthquakes. — the-japan-news.com

Berlin has become the first city in Germany in which rent-control legislation has come into force in a bid to put the breaks on some of the fastest rising rents in Europe.

From Monday, landlords in the capital will be barred from increasing rents by more than 10% above the local average. Such controls were already in place for existing tenants but have now been extended to new contracts.

“[...] the difference between the rent paid in existing contracts and new contracts is so high [...]” — theguardian.com

The police in Bangladesh filed formal murder charges on Monday against 41 people accused of involvement in the 2013 collapse of a building that housed several clothing factories, leaving more than 1,100 people dead in the worst disaster in garment industry history. — The New York Times