In contrast to Beijing's monumental building projects, future Olympic hosts like London shouldn't think that bigger is better. Guardian | prev. 1 | 2 | related Op-Ed View full entry
The fine folks at MONU have just released issue #9 (!) on the theme of Exotic Urbanism. (available here) View full entry
Two excellent recent posts by the folks at Airoots which look at the model of urban development which has shaped modern metropolitan Tokyo. They argue that the mixed-used, high density, low-rise, non-hierarchical model of urban/community planned epitomized by Post WW II Tokyo is in many cases... View full entry
As more and more people move from rural to urban aggregations, an increasing percentage of urban water is being used by the informal agricultural sector. A recent IWMI study tried to identify how much of the water being used is either treated or untreated wastewater. BBC News The report found... View full entry
In many American cities, public transportation infrastructure has been neglected for a long time in favor of other services, or where that is not incentive enough, for economic drivers like civic centers and ballparks. It seems things might be changing as many smaller cities in the US are... View full entry
Planners seeking to rebuild the World Trade Center have always envisioned that the 16-acre site would have a vibrant streetscape with distinctive buildings, shops and cultural institutions lining a newly restored street grid. From the destruction of Sept. 11, 2001, a new neighborhood teeming with... View full entry
Nine prominent Canadians critique the architecture of the cities they live in... National Post View full entry
When Ikea, the Swedish furniture giant, announced that it would open one of its trademark big-box stores on the Brooklyn waterfront in Red Hook, many in the area feared that throngs of shoppers would transform and scar a quiet neighborhood possessed of a battered industrial charm...But since the... View full entry
Albert Speer's son helped design the architecture of the Beijing games. But the similarities with Berlin 1936 don't end there. Guardian | related View full entry
Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone has launched a stinging attack on his successor Boris Johnson, accusing him of cost cutting and “hypocrisy” following BD’s revelation that he has axed the 100 Public Spaces programme. BD | prev. View full entry
Plans to transform London’s urban realm through the mayor’s 100 Public Spaces programme have been abandoned and the 18-month-old organisation Design for London subsumed into a larger “land and infrastructure” directorate. BD View full entry
Many cities have sought to remake their image when hosting global events like the Olympics. Beijing is polishing off one of the world’s most expensive makeovers with a whitewash...To hide neighborhoods leveled for redevelopment in recent years or anything else the government considers... View full entry
The Utopian community of Auroville in India started 40 years ago. However well planned, it has failed in retrospective, asserts one critic. elseplace View full entry
At a time when the siheyuans, some of them centuries old, have been disappearing at an alarming rate, these renovators, including Westerners and some newly moneyed Chinese, are emerging as the city’s best hope for holding on to what’s left of the old hutongs.NYT related View full entry
Walkscore.com , which uses an algorithm to identify those neighborhoods boasting the most amenities per person, published its ranking on Thursday and deemed San Francisco the most walkable city, with a "Walk Score" of 86 out of 100. Type an address, and the Walkscore site generates a map showing... View full entry
