Joel Kotkin looks at cities that embraced the false promise of the "creative class" theory, focusing their efforts on bringing in the "cool kids" at the expense of schools, transport, jobs and security. Prospect (Thank you ALDaily.) View full entry
According to this article, the latest statistics show that in 2005, China has an urban population of 542 million people. Of a total of 660 cities across the nation, 171 are mega cities with more than 1 million. Ten million people move to cities in China each year. In the next five years, China... View full entry
From this report, a judge denied a call for a restraining order on the project as local officials in Marin continue to try and stop the construction of a new San Quentin Death Row Facility. Arguments that the cost of the new project violates spending limits, and has avoided proper environmental... View full entry
A confluence of forces - a cleaner river, empty lots created by vanished factories, a housing boom, the proliferation of suburban developers, a willingness by local officials to embrace a new source of tax revenues, and a crystallizing Hudson Valley consciousness - have come together in recent... View full entry
With new cities popping up literally over night, and an estimated 200 million peasants leaving the countryside to live in urban areas in the past decade, China is exploring plans to abolish certain "legal distinctions between urban residents and peasants in 11 provinces." By allowing peasants to... View full entry
Metropolis cooks up twenty (some half-baked) ideas for a new New Orleans. I still want the twenty-five questions answered first. View full entry
In car-loving Pasadena, "[f]rustration with ever worsening traffic is stimulating new interest in denser, more urban patterns of development, a trend reflected by new mixed-use complexes near - or right on top of - transit stations." Find out more in The New York Times. View full entry
The CIA has been operating a "covert global prison system that has included sites in eight countries and was set up after the September 11, 2001, attacks." Reuters. This "hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the... View full entry
The SFGate is running a seven-part series on the Golden Gate Bridge, the world's No. 1 magnet for suicides. The iconic gateway has seen approximately 1,218 since it was built, lacing the fog-cloaked allure that has drawn people's destinies from all over the world for decades with a haunting urban... View full entry
Los Angeles resident urban farmers are vow to fight eviction from a 14-acre plot called the South Central Community Garden. TMN View full entry
Dubai: The Hippest City in the World: "Sixteen percent of all the building cranes in the world are in Dubai right now" foxnews Also, Transfer: nyc's chronicler of architecture. "Dubai embarks on a Massive Simulacra; simulating nothing but The Massiveness of its own self." read View full entry
The future of pollution lies in China, where airborne particulates and other chemicals "could more than quadruple within 15 years if the country does not curb its rapid growth in energy consumption and automobile use." And, yes, "China is already the world's second-biggest producer of greenhouse... View full entry
New York dims lights to aid birds. BBC View full entry
More scoopage on worldwide 'military urbanism,' the surveillatopia, squatter displacement, border cities, (un)natural disasters, the politics of territorial reconstruction and settlement, emergent land use, refugees, and an ambiance of war...[enter] MILITARY URBANism"Open Source War" Hits the... View full entry
Mike Davis takes on New Urbanism, the GOP, FEMA, and what he calls "ethnic cleansing" via New Orleans' impending gentrification. Something for the caffeinated, at ZNet. And see earlier. View full entry