The occupants of more than 4,500 government-paid hotel rooms were ordered to turn in their keys Tuesday, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency began cutting off money to pay for their stays. View full entry
Let him explain... LATimes View full entry
If you're in NYC on 7 Feb., stop by the opening gala (7-10pm) of the Municipal Art Society's vision of Manhattan, pedestrianized: "Proceeding from the premise that designing New York City's streets to accommodate ever-increasing traffic only exacerbates the problem, [this new] exhibit offers... View full entry
"About 600 feet deep in the bedrock that supports Midtown Manhattan," we meet "a 450-ton tunnel-boring machine known as the Mole." The Mole is "digging City Tunnel No. 3 far beneath Manhattan's street level, part of a 50-year, $6 billion project to upgrade New York City's water system." Read... View full entry
"Governors Island, 172 acres of American history lying just off the southern tip of Manhattan, is terra incognita to most New Yorkers. Commuters, glimpsing it from the Staten Island Ferry, see only an array of abandoned modern buildings and two unpromising landmarks: a white ventilation tower... View full entry
Grand Theft Auto meets GPS. Pretty soon you could be pursuing a real-time speeding outlaw from your home computer in yet another crossover of the simulacrum and the simulated. News is that Los Angeles police will propel a GPS device onto a fleeing car. The device will stick to the car and track... View full entry
Chiristopher Caldwell writes on Sweden's complicated immigration and housing situation and perhaps sheds a light on recent cartoon crisis taking up the headlines in the world. NYT View full entry
"House by house, in devastated neighborhoods across the city, homeowners are bringing back their new-minted building permits and rebuilding New Orleans. As many as 500 such permits are issued every day, said Greg Meffert, the city official in charge of the rebuilding process. And there is no... View full entry
Another good article in Wired, examines LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), an aerial process utilizing "lasers and GPS technology to create a series of height markings that measure ground topography," which was used by NASA to map damage to hurricane levees and the water levels in the submerged... View full entry
Surfacing Urbanisms: Recent Approaches to Metropolitan Design October 12 -15, 2006, Woodbury University, Pasadena, California Keynote Speaker: Keller Easterling The past decade has witnessed an increased interest in certain research topics---the explosion of sprawl, regional planning, geography... View full entry
ADPSR's Prison Design Boycott (see Feature) is featured on the latest issue of Prison Legal News. The article comes after months of research done by members of ADPSR in an effort to expose the big players in prison design today. Read PDF View full entry
Jesse Ausubel thinks "compact high-rise cities could be a huge benefit to the natural environment. They save land and allow mass transport to work. I imagine future pedestrianised super-dense settlements with 100,000 people all within 1 square kilometre, connected by high-speed underground maglev... View full entry
Whereas, Trees that have historic or cultural importance, contribute in an exceptional way to the visual character of neighborhoods, or provide important environemental benefits have special value and meaning to the community; and, Whereas , San Francisco amends its Urban Forestry Ordinance to... View full entry
It's humans vs wildlife in the booming American West, where land that served as wildlife habitat is being converted into housing and commercial developments. Reuters l Related View full entry
The much vaulted Dutch Red Light Districts, which have been described in recent planning lectures as a model for a progressive society--are now being exposed as dens for the global trafficking of women. Or are they? Reuters View full entry