[...] developer Ben Miller says, until now, it’s been impossible for local people to invest in development right across the street.

“Who owns your environment? You don’t know,” he says. “Who’s building your environment, who’s building your city? Not you.”

Miller is co-founder of the group Fundrise, which has started selling shares of private real estate projects to the public online. [...]

First they bought 1351 H Street with private capital, then crowdfunded about a third of it. — marketplace.org

I foresee that major urban spaces of Pyongyang, such as Kim Il Sung Square, will be used as “public” space with a greater variety of urban activities, such as commercial activities and show events. [...]

The last thing that may happen in North Korea, or the thing that should not happen in some sense, is the Chinese model. Considering the scale of the economy and the potential of the North Korean market compared to China, it is hard to picture radical and massive urban development in Pyongyang. — NK News

[The Catskills] could become a lot flashier, thanks to [Sherry Li's] proposal for the area: a multibillion-dollar "China City of America," complete with an amusement park, mansions, a casino, retail centers, a college, and more. [...]

The Center for Immigration Studies wrote a comprehensive take-down of "China City," criticizing the project's potential for environmental disruption, dubious promise of job creation, and possible role as a stalking horse for the Chinese government. — The Atlantic Cities

After tight competition and vigorous deliberation from the jury, six Project winners were selected for the Public Interest Design Global. The winners will present their projects and discuss social impact design at a public global convening at the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris on April 18-19, 2014. — bustler.net

The Holloway Team was selected as the winners of New Zealand's international "Breathe - The New Urban Village Project" design competition. The team is led by Holloway Builders from Christchurch, NZ in partnership with architecture firm Anselmi Attiani Associated Architects and Cresco engineers, both from Italy. Building and Construction Minister, Hon. Maurice Williamson made the official announcement on Oct. 22 at an event in the transitional Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch. — bustler.net

“We have beaten the odds and the obstructionists over and over again,” the mayor triumphantly declared in his State of the City address in March. He chose an appropriate venue: the Barclays Center, the new home of the Brooklyn Nets, which was a lightning rod for his all-out development policy. A vigorous opposition was beaten in the courts and the City Council in much the same way he often steamrolled opposition to his comprehensive rethinking of development. — nytimes.com

Zhang, a Chinese real estate developer, is the seventh richest self-made women in the world, worth $3.6 billion, according to Forbes. She's worth $800 million more than Oprah Winfrey, the world's best known self-made female billionaire.

Not only does Zhang's rags-to-riches story mirror that of China itself, but it is Zhang who has shaped much of the country's modern urban landscape, with the logo of her company SOHO China, on the side of buildings wherever you turn in Beijing. — cnn.com

Three Gehry towers will replace low-rise brick warehouse office buildings and the Princess of Wales Theatre. The new buildings will contain condos, a new OCADU campus, and gallery space to house David and Audrey Mirvish's significant collection of modern art. — urbantoronto.ca

We cannot expect big American cities to reach their potential when the very professions that purport to defend and perpetuate urbanism recoil at the presence of towers. Left rudderless by the experts, we are forced to inhabit the bleak consequences of a poorly regulated marketplace, analogous to a population that must operate on its own cancers due to the confused surgeons who keep cutting away at the healthy tissue. — Places Journal

Four finalist entries have been unveiled in the Christchurch, New Zealand urban design competition, Breathe - The New Urban Village Project. The brief called for innovative medium-density housing development designs from collaborative groups containing a designer and a property developer. — bustler.net

A proposal for two skyscrapers that would flank the Capitol Records tower in Hollywood gained the approval of the city's planning department Tuesday despite push-back from dozens of disgruntled residents.

The Millennium Hollywood plans are the most ambitious in a string of revitalization projects in the area, including the W Hotel and the Hollywood & Highland Center. The $664-million mixed-use development could include more than 1 million square feet of apartment, office and retail space. — latimes.com

Developer Ditches Gehry Mega-Project for Phased Approach, Starting With Second Residential Tower

The real estate development firm Related’s long-delayed plan to build a $2 billion Frank Gehry-designed hotel, housing and retail complex on Grand Avenue has been off the table for several years. Now, a new proposal is finally coming into focus. — ladowntownnews.com

Like Gehry, Ingels relies on the expertise of Packes, SLCE and Durst in his quest to rethink a played-out product. Design, Ingels said, is more than “coming up with stuff. We translate specific expert knowledge into a response that addresses given conditions in a new way.”

That ought to be an obvious approach. I hope other developers take notice. — bloomberg.com