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Since 2000, the world’s second-largest megacity, Jakarta, has seen its population swell by a staggering 34 percent. Though the city proper is home to just 10 million, the urban zone is home to 30 million [...]
“Jakarta is the largest urban metropolitan area in the world without a metro,” he [Deden Rukmana] says. “And a metro is the most crucial element of transportation for a megacity. There’s no way it can exist otherwise.”
— Inverse
Related stories in the Archinect news:Jakarta, already 40% below sea level, is building one of the biggest sea walls on EarthJakarta's "car-free days" are only the start of the city's long journey to becoming bike-friendlyMVRDV-Jerde-Arup Present Peruri 88 for Jakarta, Indonesia View full entry
China has detailed its urban planning vision, which has been designed to make its sprawling cities more inclusive, safer and better places to live.
[...] policymakers pledged to transform urban development patterns and improve city management.
The last time China held such a high-level meeting was in 1978, when only 18 percent of the population lived in cities. By the end of 2011, in excess of 50 percent of the population called the city their home.
— chinadaily.com.cn
Related news on Archinect:China considering drastic ban on coalDisastrous landslide burying dozens in Shenzhen likely caused by piled up soil from construction workBeijing's latest "airpocalypse" is bad enough for city to issue first ever red alertChina’s "most influential architect" is not... View full entry
In addition to the dense mixed-use development above the rail yards, the new draft calls for doubling the size of Drexel Park, a river overlook, a series of boardwalks and green spaces along the west bank trail of the Schuylkill, and a transit terminal for buses. — Philly.curbed.com
The question is especially important now, given the world’s rapidly increasing population and the accelerating drift of people from countryside to cities. Should we tinker or somehow revamp existing cities to cope, or should we build new places to dwell? — BBC News
Jonathan Glancey looks back through history, at attempts to create the ideal town. Given the many failed attempts, can architects succeed in shaping a truly habitable ideal city? He believes the answer is yes. View full entry
When fully built, [the New Urbanist, corporate development] Lavasa intends to consume 100 sq km...and will cater to a total population of up to 300,000 in five 'towns' built on seven hills...[But] how does it turn itself from a quirky weekend getaway into a fully fledged 'smart city' where people live and work full time? — The Guardian
Previously on Archinect: Lavasa a new orderly, high-tech "city" View full entry
House and Senate negotiators on Tuesday announced a bipartisan agreement on a five-year reauthorization of federal transportation programs—the longest such measure that Congress has advanced since 2005. Both chambers are expected to pass the deal in the next two weeks before leaving for the year.
At a cost of $305 billion, the final compromise is a bit smaller than a $340 billion bill passed by the House last month.
— The Atlantic
In related news, Hilary Clinton recently released a $275 billion infrastructure plan. More information on that can be found here.Related coverage:Are raised bikeways enough to make the San Francisco's riders safer?Entrepreneurs look to tackle Austin's traffic woesMilton Keynes invests in... View full entry
‘El mejor anuncio de la historia’, or ‘the best ad in history’ is a picture taken in February 2008, which neatly encapsulates several aspects of the city’s urban landscape: the formal, the informal and the promotional.
'[...]Around and in between the super bloques a carpet of slums has grown, an organism that now seems to bind the blocks together in some symbiotic relationship. These are the kind of hybrid forms that are developing in Latin American cities [...]’
— failedarchitecture.com
Related in the Archinect news:Venezuelan Government Evicts Residents From World's Tallest SlumWithout Housing Reform, is a "Tower of David" Coming to Your City?Housing mobility vs. America's growing slum problem View full entry
Germane Barnes wants Opa-Locka to be known for something else...He knows [change] can happen because he lives there, and has seen the work of a group of artists and organizers slowly change the landscape...The city's history intrigued him, not merely because it seemed like a perfect case study for his thesis about revitalizing a community without gentrification, but because it also spoke to his own experiences. — Curbed
More on Archinect:In Chicago, forming economically integrated suburbs is more complex than it looksWelcome to Evanston, Illinois: the carless suburbiaBerliners are getting their hopes up for transformed Kulturforum arts districtWith a little compromise, illegal urban squats like Ljubljana's... View full entry
Cairo is an unruly urban sprawl that has spun out of control. Now, officials want to build a new capital in the desert -- a potent symbol of President Sisi's regime. But will it ever happen? [...]
The old Cairo is an ugly city, an affront to the senses. [...] a city of contradictions, created from the bottom up, even though that had never been the intention. It has been growing wildly since the 1960s -- from 3.5 million back then to 18 million now -- against the will of the country's rulers.
— spiegel.de
Previously in the Archinect News: A New "Capital" for Cairo?Egypt's urban growth threatens Nile farmlandPhotographer documents Egypt's monumental housing developments in the desert View full entry
Cities are everywhere. Billions of us live in them, and many of us think we could do a better job than the planners. But for the past 26 years dating back to the original SimCity, we've mostly been proving that idea false. [...]
And now, here, I'm going to take you on a whirlwind tour through the history of the city-building genre—from its antecedents to the hot new thing.
— arstechnica.com
Related on Archinect:The issue of homelessness in SimCityHow video game engines may influence the future of architecture (and everything else)Three guiding principles for a fine fake metropolis View full entry
This is important for Africa, where despite high urbanisation rates the development focus has been primarily rural. Consider Ghana. The country’s urban population has grown from four million in 1984 to more than 14 million today. Fifty one percent of Ghanaians now live in cities. While urbanisation rates vary across Africa, Ghana reflects an overall global trend towards a predominantly urban future.
Ghana demonstrates how cities can be highly productive in Africa.
— qz.com
Related on Archinect:MASS Design Group to propose "Bauhaus of Africa" at U.N. SummitChinese Urbanism takes root in AfricaA Look at Africa's Modernist Architecture View full entry
What is a village? More importantly, how rapidly can one be formed? The 150 academics, students and practicing architects participating in Project Village set out to answer these questions by constructing an entire community in a week, including a stage, a pub, and a residential building. ... View full entry
The Welikia Project, formerly known as the Mannahatta Project, has gotten a powerful update that now lets you explore New York City's historic ecology using a satellite map that imagines how Manhattan might have looked back in 1609—and all the years between then and now. — 6sqft
In 2005, the now defunct Rebar placed coins in a San Francisco parking meter not to park a car but to erect a small public park. Every third Friday in September since then, activists worldwide who wish to foster a conversation about the lack of public space have been transforming parking spaces... View full entry
Like humans, cities and neighborhoods have their own unique fingerprints. The maps were created by researchers at the center’s Urban Age program, who have been studying how the layout of rapidly urbanizing cities can affect their livability. — CityLab
New York is a grid, London is an airy whirl, Hong Kong is dense: at least, that's according to the black and white "fingerprint" maps put together by the Urban Age program at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The project helps researches see at a glance the macroscopic... View full entry