The government hopes to cap the cost of building the main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at ¥155 billion, much lower than the ¥252 billion projected under a recently scrapped plan [...].

The government intends to make sure that the stadium will be built by April 2020. But given the International Olympic Committee’s request that the venue be built by January of that year, it plans to ask a yet-to-be-named contractor to propose shortening its construction schedule, the sources said. — japantimes.co.jp

Open data, and the interactive mapping and data visualization that can come of it, has become a de facto engagement and storytelling tool among contemporary journalists, social justice activists, and civic-minded technologists. But despite its allure, open data’s potential for fostering civic engagement and creating transparency and dialogue is plagued by issues of usability, access, and quality control. — urbanomnibus.net

Welcome to the wonderful world of governing urban regions, where between fragmentation and amalgamation no one actually knows what the right-sized box for local government is or how to change it [...]

Municipal fragmentation has been criticised for decades... amalgamation – bringing fragmented government regions together – comes with downsides of its own. Of course, you can put people in the same governmental box, but that won’t necessarily create common ground — theguardian.com

Let me share a secret with you. Even those who love the Gothic extravagance that is the Victorian Palace of Westminster know that great swaths of it are out of date. [...]

In 2015 the urgent question is again what to do about it. [...] options ranging from staggering on as usual with make-do-and-mending to a new 21st-century building on a new site, possibly far from London. — theguardian.com

“The first thing is to find the identity of Seoul,” he says. “Seoul was created very differently from western cities, with special theories of feng shui and Confucianism, and we kept that for 600 years. We didn’t change anything – even under Japanese colonialism, that was kept. But since the 1960s, under American influence, it has changed very much.”

If Seung has his way, the days of skyscrapers springing up in central Seoul would come to an end. — ft.com

[Santa Monica will] be able to offer its residents real net neutrality, which the [FCC] is working on rolling back for just about everyone else in the US. [...]

Santa Monica has cleverly and quietly been installing its own network of city-owned fiber-optic cables for years, and they intend to keep the net neutral. [...]

Santa Monica has also made about $5 million providing internet service and leasing out the cables to other providers, and their competition has driven down rates. — la.curbed.com

Since the Civil War, the majestic dome of the U.S. Capitol has symbolized the unity of the United States, despite the discord in the government it overlooks. [...]

But the dome has lately grown as fractured as the federal government, and Tuesday the Architect of the Capitol announced that a $59 million project to save it would begin next month. [...]

There are now hundreds of cracks and deficiencies, and water already has stained parts of the Capitol’s interior. — The Washington Post

Power to the people is the driving force behind the Austrian Pavilion for the upcoming 2014 Venice Biennale. The pavilion will include an exhibition that explores the concept of parliament and its architectural influence on the world's more than 200 national parliament monuments. — bustler.net

Communities can transform underused areas of L.A.’s largest public asset—our 7,500 miles of city streets—into active, vibrant, and accessible public space with People St, a program of the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT). Eligible Community Partners can apply for approval to create projects that enhance the quality of life in this city. Three innovative types of projects are available: Plazas, Parklets, and Bicycle Corrals. — People St.

Looking at the diagram of a restricted image reminded me of the ubiquitous stock photograph of the NSA, the one reminiscent of the Kaaba and among the few used by news outlets. The photograph’s ubiquity, along with its subject’s resemblance to another opaque monument, serves as shorthand for an institution that seeks to be perceived as beyond human comprehension or accountability.

I made my pilgrimage not to the NSA, however, but to adjacent temples of lesser gods. — creativetimereports.org

At the intersection of these two domains – technology and civic life – a small and fascinating sector has been taking root for the last few years. [...]

Together, these types of companies and organizations have loosely come to define "civic tech" – and the potential for a future where technology finally, seamlessly, significantly alters how we relate to government and our neighbors. — The Atlantic Cities

It’s been 17 years since the federal government last experienced a shutdown. As federal agencies begin the process of shutting their doors and furloughing non-essential personnel, there are lots of questions about how it will affect all Americans, especially those who work with (and for) the federal government. If your projects receive federal funding, will they have to stop? If you are a federal contractor, what should you be doing? — aia.org