Last month, the journal Science published a special issue examining the challenges and opportunities of an urbanizing world. Titled “Urban Planet” and featuring an image of clouds wafting across skyscrapers in Dubai, the issue opened with an eye-catching statistic: “More than half of the world’s people now live in cities.”

Of course, that number would be even more impressive if it were actually true. — UNDark

Last year, Greater Manchester’s economy outgrew that of inner-city London. Further devolution of powers from Whitehall are about to be realised, and the campaign for the title of first elected mayor of Greater Manchester has picked up pace.

However, Manchester is also about to contend with the capital in other ways. A major housing crisis lurks, and a growing deficit of office space needs to be dealt with. To make amends, Manchester’s skyline is heading for dramatic change. — theguardian.com

An approach called Projective Preservation brings speculation about the future into a dialectical relationship with preservation of a city’s historic and pre-existing environments. Historic architecture, sites and cities can and should be preserved, but they must also be open to reinterpretation and adaptation to meet the needs of present and future generations. — Strelka Magazine

By living above 800 feet, Estis and Enkin are two members of an unexpectedly exclusive group in Manhattan. In my estimation, no more than 40 people currently live above that line, scattered among just three buildings...

As my elevator descended and my ears popped, it occurred to me that I would almost certainly never take in such a view again. And in fact, maybe nobody will, if these apartments wind up becoming empty investments. — The New York Times

The scheme was designed by EMA Architecture + Design, a local practice specialising in commercial mixed-use masterplans and residential development.

The first phase will be followed by subsequent ones over 20 years, resulting in a £1bn ($1.4bn) “Garden District”. As well as the homes, there will be a school, shopping centre, sports facilities and parks.

A quarter of all the homes will be affordable housing, with the remainder split between private homes and apartments. — globalconstructionreview.com

The Turkish word for Gated Community is site, from the French cité, and they generally resemble the French highrises of the same name, rather than American tract housing. Towers and slabs stand shoulder to shoulder, dancing in a circle around the gardens they surround. — failed architecture

my research shows that longtime residents aren’t more likely to move when their neighborhood gentrifies; sometimes they’re actually less likely to leave [...]

In a 2009 study, I found that gentrifying neighborhoods are more racially diverse than non-gentrifying ones. [...]

To be sure, market forces help change commerce in gentrifying neighborhoods. But often lurking behind the “invisible hand” are activists and policymakers who wish to nudge the market to produce certain outcomes. — washingtonpost.com

With the new mayor focusing our attention on smart development and social equality, 2016 will be a banner year for the London Festival of Architecture. Election watchers will be familiar with many of this year’s hot topics: community spaces, social housing, docklands renewal. But considering the theme this year is ‘community’, there will be something for every tribe of Londoner. Out of 300 events, we’ve picked the 10 must-sees. — thespaces.com

In any city, space is a commodity. In South African cities space is historical and emotional. A new photo series by an American living in Cape Town captures the dramatic inequality of South Africa’s most beloved city. From an aerial view, Cape Town’s scenic beauty gives way to a stark reminder of the country’s past and the continued racial segregation. [...]

“Looking straight down from a height of several hundred meters, incredible scenes of inequality emerge,” he writes on his website. — qz.com

"If you design for everyone to drive, then what will you get? Congestion." [...]

“We really need to shift now, from a situation like this, where you have a heavy parking load associated with an apartment building in a very urban setting, to way less parking,” [...]

"You really have to start with the density and less parking. If you don't, then you've lost your opportunity, because once you've built that infrastructure, it's so difficult to undo that." — news.wabe.org

In a region at once feared and exoticized, we have been witnessing for more than a generation the devastation of old centers and the rise of new ones. Today there is no better context in which to investigate the complexities of global practice in architecture than that of the rapidly changing Arab city. — Places Journal

The original plan [for a new park in Brooklyn] would tear down the graveyard of rusting oil refineries that sit on the site, which stretches from Greenpoint to Williamsburg along the East River, and return the reedy riverbank to something closer to nature. The new idea, called Maker Park, would keep the refineries and turn them into a sort of industrial theme park — “a beautiful and otherworldly industrial topography,” according to the website of its advocates. — the New York Times

A Labour MP has formally asked the government’s independent spending watchdog to investigate how the trust behind London’s proposed garden bridge has spent almost two-thirds of the government funding for the project before construction has begun.

“We’ve had millions of pounds of public money spent and we have no idea what it’s actually been spent on, and it was spent before it even got full planning permission,” Hoey said. — theguardian.com