Philipp Misselwitz 's book 'City of Collision: Jerusalem and the Architecture of Conflict Urbanism' is out: a series of essays from Stephen Graham, Eyal Weizman, and others. Here is a recent essay (pdf) by Misselwitz and Tim Rieniets (published in Monu Magazine) on the topic; an older interview... View full entry
In order to bid for the Olympics: City surveillance cameras go undercover: Daley: By 2016, cameras on 'almost every block': A Chicago Story. View full entry
How a militarized alliance of state-subsidized software firms, real-estate developers and captive Orthodox labour is forging the path of the Separation Wall in the Occupied Territories. Gadi Algazi writes a vey interesting piece for the New Left Review on using low-paid ultra-orthodox women... View full entry
Andrew Blum explains how design super-group IDEO has entered into the ring of urban planning: "They're changing it from a concrete process of infrastructure and building to an imagined one of narrative and identity; they're exchanging the idea of a place for place itself." Such an approach is not... View full entry
A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found. The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare... View full entry
As housing prices drop, Bloomberg finally finds room for developer incentives to build affordable housing. NYT View full entry
Venice's population doesn't just flee from the raising water levels of the Mediterranean Sea, but also the tidal wave of tourists, which sweep away everything in their path. BBC View full entry
Even though Shanghai's development (old and new) has been interested in manifesting a piece of the West into the East--Thames Town takes the cake. ITV l wikipedia View full entry
"The old mantra about the three most important factors for a shop's success - location, location and location - has been borne out by a new mathematical model. It could help retailers pinpoint lucrative sites for their stores." New Scientist. View full entry
Today's Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine is largely devoted to how the city's wealthy elite are creating mega-mansion mania on a several block stretch of Orchard Street in the city's Lincoln Park area. "There goes the neighborhood," is the Trib's Blair Kamin's take. Why? What's really going on? Is... View full entry
Former RIBA President George Ferguson demonstrates how Copenhagen has plenty to teach regarding life in the Public Realm. BD Online View full entry
In cooperation with Partizan Publik and the Pearl Foundation Drawing from earlier experiences with RSVP events in the Middle East, but also from an identified local need to think through future urban development in Beirut (a city which was until recently under siege), [Archis] will instigate an... View full entry
China is building and expanding airports at an unprecedented pace, one that matches its roaring economy. The country will spend $17.4 billion over the next five years to build 42 airports in cities stretching from the Russian border in the northeast to the high Tibetan plateau in the southwest... View full entry
It's the world's most ambitous urban renewal plan. In Dharavi, the biggest slum in Mumbai (where 400,000 residents have managed to turn a fetid marsh into a thriving city unto itself), city officials are implementing a plan to rehouse them all in a deal that gives developers free land there in... View full entry
Tom Vanderbilt of Design Observer meditates over miniature metropolises, especially the vast Beijing model which occupies a whole room. DO View full entry
