Election day means Gujarat is closed for business—except in Gift City.

Officially known as Gujarat Information Finance Tech City (hence, Gift), construction equipment is everywhere and dust is in the air. [...]

This is the type of development that Narendra Modi supporters hope will be a microcosm for the rest of India should he become prime minister. [...] Here’s a (very stylized) artist rendition of what the area will look look, according to the government brochure. — qz.com

A treasure trove of Coast Miwok life dating back 4,500 years - older than King Tut's tomb - was discovered in Marin County and then destroyed to make way for multimillion-dollar homes, archaeologists told The Chronicle this week.

The American Indian burial ground and village site, so rich in history that it was dubbed the "grandfather midden," was examined and categorized under a shroud of secrecy before construction began this month on the $55 million Rose Lane development in Larkspur. — sfgate.com

When all stages are completed, the 65,000 people daily who pass through the Hudson Yards’ office towers, residences, shops, restaurants, hotel, public school, and public open space will contribute to a massive stream of data intended to help answer the big questions about how cities of the future should be managed. [...]

“It really started from the question: If we could know anything about the city, what would we want to know and how could we do a better job at measuring the pace of life?” — fastcoexist.com

The plan’s backers say it represents a rare chance at economic revitalization for the neighborhood. Its opponents say it would destroy the fabric of Holy Cross, and might represent the first step toward changing the traditionally low-rise New Orleans waterfront into something very different [...]

“The argument is that the Lower Ninth Ward has to take what it can get,” says DeBacher. “We believe that we deserve—as any community deserves—good development, not just any development.” — The Atlantic Cities

As Jersey City has cast off its stigma as a back-office-and-apartment haven of cheap rents and cheaper-looking buildings, more and more professionals and families are calling “Chilltown” and “JC” home. They’re ditching the suburbs of their parents, but also the stratospheric prices and stuffy attitudes of Manhattan and, increasingly, Brooklyn.

The so-called sixth borough has finally become a destination in its own right [...]. — nydailynews.com

The commercialisation of the urban landscape has resulted in the privatisation of public space. As city centres have become tributes to consumption, private interests have permeated these spaces. They have become awash with pseudo-public consumer spaces which belong to corporations rather than the citizenry. Although these places hold the semblance of being “public”, they are owned by corporate interests and are therefore under private control and not accountable to the public. — New Left Project

Gowanus has become the most obvious touchstone for fears surrounding the rapid evolution that has overwhelmed so much of Brooklyn in recent years. It is also a test case for how democratically an area once colonized by industry might evolve into something like a modern Jane Jacobs vision. Dumbo is both a point of reference here and in one view, the representation of a nightmare outcome, given the area’s distinction as a nexus of multimillion-dollar lofts and budding tech empires. — nytimes.com

Rio de Janeiro is set to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games and there are two starkly different visions of what that will mean for the "marvelous city," as it is known[...]

"Instead of creating a space of conviviality, a space of shared culture, of community, of conversation, you are going to have this very isolated element where after 5 o'clock in the afternoon, it's going to be dead. You are creating banks, parking lots, Trump towers," Gaffney said. "It's been rezoned for 50-story buildings." — npr.org

It's hard not to wince when you first look at the renderings of the Mormon Church's expanding kingdom at 16th and Vine Streets, unveiled last week by Mayor Nutter. The architectural chameleons at Robert Stern's office have paired a 1920s-style apartment tower with a teensy redbrick meetinghouse that looks as if it was dragged across town from colonial-era Society Hill. — philly.com

Contrary to what you may have read lately, the Museum of Modern Art is intent on carefully preserving the former American Folk Art Museum next door.

At least, the part of it that is most recognizable to the public: an 82-foot-high sculptural ensemble of 63 panels, cast in a gorgeous copper-bronze alloy [...]

“We will take the facade down, piece by piece, and we will store it,” Glenn D. Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, said in an interview last week. — nytimes.com

The face of London is about to change.

[...] The development surge, fueled by wealthy foreigners looking for a safe place to invest, has spawned concern that the city is sacrificing its heritage for the sake of luxury homes.

"London is in danger of becoming a sort of Abu Dhabi, a sort of Hong Kong," warned Nigel Barker of English Heritage, a body devoted to protecting the nation's inheritance. — npr.org

By intervening in the local planning process, the mayor of London is creating a more exclusive, divided city of private enclaves, designed only for the needs of the rich. [...]

While the Mount Pleasant case might be dismissed as the usual cast of nimbys set against the inevitable steamroller of market forces, it in fact reveals some disturbing truths about how the mayor's planning machine is actively working to make the city a more divided, exclusive place. — theguardian.com