With all the time and energy cartographers spend preparing maps, it makes sense that they would want to protect their investment. One of the ways they do so — although they don’t always admit it — is by including “trap streets,” deliberate mistakes added to maps to catch unsuspecting copyright violators. These may include fake streets, as the name suggests, but the term is also applied to other erroneous cartographic data included to embarrass those who might steal it. — atlasobscura.com

[...] tech guru and multimillionaire Tim Draper has put forth a plan which will solve the ills of the state by – wait for it – splitting it into six smaller states! This “Six Californias” plan [...], as you might expect, divides the state into six smaller chunks, maintaining county lines. [...]

But there’s another reason to oppose the plan that few people are talking about: it would do damage to the state’s transportation systems, especially mass transit. — thisbigcity.net

Serious money is in play in the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ “Mayors’ Challenge” for cities competing to show they have come up with promising innovations to cope with 21st-century challenges.

“It was a big surprise to hear we’d share our ideas with competitors,” says Gomes. “But it works brilliantly. It’s exactly what you need—everyone sharing and trying to help each other. It’s crazy, but it works.” — urbanland.uli.org

Istanbul is the city of transformation and contradiction. As an urbanist, I am trying to keep record and make sense of this transformation and am especially interested in its winners and losers. At the moment we live in a giant construction site, where skyscrapers, mega projects and urban renewal projects are taking place all around. There is a gold rush to real-estate development. — theguardian.com

While YIMBY recently revealed Extell’s Nordstrom Tower, the first glimpse lacked a perspective of the structure’s impact on the broader Midtown skyline. Now, with the help of illustrator Armand Boudreaux, YIMBY has fresh images of the skyscraper’s position on the skyline, including nearby developments like 220 Central Park South, 111 West 57th Street, 432 Park Avenue, and 53 West 53rd Street. — New York Yimby

The city needs places of solace, calm, order and beauty – even prettiness. But prettiness and concealment are anaesthetic. The urban mind needs its regular confrontations with tangle, too, a bracing shock that places the world in perspective and informs us, without either warmth or rancour, that our lives are enmeshed in a vital mechanism. The city is a machine for teaching people to be city-dwellers: one made up of crushing cogs and steel. — aeon.co

In New York City history and lore, the Second Avenue subway is the Loch Ness Monster crossed with the Abominable Snowman. Politicians, transit planners, and everyone in between have witnessed this East Side subway line face countless stops and starts [...] And yet, the Second Avenue line has become a beacon for New York's future and a symbol of the numerous challenges facing a global city that must, in light of massive costs and slow build-outs, expand its transit network to stay competitive. — citylab.com

As money has piled up in recent decades, Chinese are turning to culture and the country is in a museum-building boom. Last year one museum was built every day on average, though the rush has since “slowed” to about one every three days, says Cathy Giangrande, co-author with Miriam Clifford and Antony White of the “Chinese Museums Association Guide,” an updated version of their 2009 book “China: Museums.” — NY Times

Not long enough to be comfortably horizontal, the building was also too tall for its shallow depth and too wide to be reasonably vertical. Both horizontal (modern) and vertical (historic) orientations were on display in the surrounding Seton Hill neighborhood. This bastard was of neither parent. — Baltimore Business Journal

Obama has proposed a $302 billion, four-year transportation spending plan that is paid in part by closing corporate tax loopholes [...] The White House maintains that 65% of U.S. roads are rated in less than good condition, 25% of bridges require significant repair or can't handle today's traffic, and 45% of Americans lack access to transit. — Al Jazeera

Israeli military lawyers argue that if residents are warned, and do not evacuate, then they can be considered legitimate collateral damage. Under this interpretation of the law, the civilian victims become human shields. This is a gross misuse of international law. — AlJazeera

Some have already joked about the city's future three million square foot "wellness district,” saying it is being designed for those who shop not only for new outfits, but also for new bodies.

According to the project's press release, the domed wellness area "will offer a holistic experience to medical tourists and their families, ensuring access to quality healthcare, specialized surgical procedures and cosmetic treatments." — RT

Riots caused tens of millions of shekels in damage and destroyed the Shoafat and Es-Sahl station [...] Residents of Jerusalem’s Shoafat neighborhood are unlikely to enjoy service on the city’s light rail network for several months as CityPass, the company that operates the system, works first to repair the rails and signaling mechanisms destroyed during last week’s rioting, and only later the stations serving the area. — Haaretz

Billboards are commanding territory all over the world, offering just a blaring message in their occupation. Some designers have been looking at how to better use this advertising infrastructure, with Slovakia’s Designdevelop proposing a use for the space as small-scale residences for the homeless. — Hyperallergic

In June, the “Innovation in Mobility Public Policy Summit,” sponsored by the Association for Commuter Transportation, Transportation Sustainability Research Center, Mobility Lab, Transit Center, and Shared-Use Mobility Center, brought together a range of participants to discuss these themes in Washington, DC. — urbanomnibus.net