In just a few weeks, the residents of New York’s first micro-apartment building can move in to their new homes. And when they say micro, they mean it [...].

Spending extended amounts of time in a crowded space can be stressful; if the unit holds multiple people, the occupants – especially kids – can suffer as a result of the lack of privacy. And creative space-saving layouts, she explained, can become a source of mental fatigue. — nymag.com

Next month, media organizations in the Bay Area are planning to put aside their rivalries and competitive instincts for a day of coordinated coverage on the homeless crisis in the city. [...]

“We want the full force of the Fourth Estate to bear down on this problem” [...]

“You will not be able to log onto Facebook, turn on the radio, watch TV, read a newspaper, log onto Twitter without seeing a story about the causes and solutions to homelessness” — nytimes.com

We inhabit a lampoon of capitalism. Marx would certainly get a laugh out of the view: the mountain of capital left to rust unused, and just beyond, a second mountain, still alive with fire and action and thriving alongside the corpse of its former rival. — Numéro Cinq

His installation invites comparison to other kinds of architectural fakery, including malls, entertainment centers, theme parks and casinos. Many of these businesses serve themselves up as sanitized versions of real cities. — L.A Times

Scientists can disagree on how much the mass migration of 500,000 foreigners will accelerate the virus’s global spread and make the pandemic worse—but none can possibly argue that it will slow it down or make things better. [...]

“Olympism seeks to create … social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles”. [...] But for the Games, would anyone recommend sending an extra half a million visitors into Brazil right now? — harvardpublichealthreview.org

Is planning still important in a city that's been razed to the ground by civil war? Syrian architect Marwa Al-Sabouni thinks so. She describes life in the city of Homs, which has sustained massive destruction during the Syrian war, and reveals what she'd like it to look like in the future. — abc.net.au

Deutsche Bahn, a German-based railway and logistics company that transports about seven million train passengers every day ... plans to operate fleets of autonomous vehicles that could be ordered via an app, much people already do when they order a ride-hailing service like Uber. These driverless cars would be used to pick people up and bring them to public transit stations, solving the so-called “last mile” problem. — fortune.com

School buildings in the UK are of such poor quality that children are underperforming and teachers are quitting the classroom, experts have warned.

A new study by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) found that one in five teachers have considered leaving their school as a result of stressful, overcrowded working environments caused by the poorly designed buildings they have to teach in. — independent.co.uk

We’re facing climate change, and our attitude about the natural world, natural resources has changed. What’s really come to an end is this kind of frontier mentality about the city—this idea of infinite growth and infinite expansion, and that the way to study the city is to look at the edges, where it’s gobbling up new territory. [...]

This idea that we can grow our way out of any problem and that we’re always a city that’s expanding and finding or even colonizing new territory—that has ended. — LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne – boomcalifornia.com

For years now, people have been talking about the insulated world of the top 1 percent of Americans, but the top 20 percent of the income distribution is also steadily separating itself — by geography and by education as well as by income.

This self-segregation of a privileged fifth of the population is changing the American social order and the American political system, creating a self-perpetuating class at the top, which is ever more difficult to break into. — the New York Times

Outdoor air pollution has grown 8% globally in the past five years, with billions of people around the world now exposed to dangerous air, according to new data from more than 3,000 cities compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

While all regions are affected, fast-growing cities in the Middle East, south-east Asia and the western Pacific are the most impacted with many showing pollution levels at five to 10 times above WHO recommended levels. — The Guardian