A large crack formed in a window at the sinking and tilting Millennium Tower over the Labor Day weekend, prompting officials there to block off part of the sidewalk on Mission Street as a precaution, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned. City inspectors issued a notice of violation on Tuesday, giving the Millennium management 72 hours to report back on the extent of the problem and the soundness of the building’s façade in light of the failure. — nbcbayarea.com

The train will not come because the track does not exist, says the voice on the loudspeaker. You must believe as hard as you can.

Everyone on the platform ignores him. Your belief is not enough. It has never been enough.

Construction has just begun on the new Fuchsia Line, which Metro management says will solve all the system’s problems, and which is the only thing that anyone has allocated any funding for. It is entirely under water and plated in gold. It will be completed in 18 years. — The Washington Post

We’re growing faster than any other metropolitan area in the country, and we have been for the last five years...And the challenges are, with all the growth that we’re having, we’re going to stop being the city that we imagine that we are, that we remember being. We have to grow to be the city that we still recognize. So those challenges are not optional challenges for us to deal with, they’re the challenges for us to deal with. — Metropolis Magazine

After officials announced that Metro, Washington’s subway system, would be shut down for 29 hours, riders began preparations for another problematic travel day in a city already well known for its cramped and sometimes dangerous train commutes.

The controlled chaos began early Wednesday and will continue until 5 a.m. Thursday, affecting 91 Metro stations that provide 700,000 rides each day in the city and its suburbs. — the New York Times

Given the threat of ongoing lead exposure and the community’s well-founded mistrust of government, should families be offered at least temporary resettlement while upgrades, repairs and enhancements are made to Flint’s badly contaminated water infrastructure?

I ask this fully aware of how unprecedented and complex such a policy would be. After all, some 9,000 young children may have been exposed to contaminated water. — Washington Post

The number of premature deaths attributed to particulate pollution has risen, government figures show.

According to Public Health England, the percentage of premature deaths attributable to minute particles known as PM2.5s rose to 5.3% in 2013 in England from 5.1% in 2012. The death rate in London rose to 6.7% from 6.6%. The figures follow significant improvements in air quality across England in 2010 and 2011. — the Guardian

What went wrong in Winnipeg was not just about architecture, and 5468796 were stuck trying to make the best of a bad situation. The pulling out of government support to make Centre Village an actual co-operative changed the [project's direction]...'It’s time to get the peanut butter off our fingers,' said Ross McGowan, former chief executive and president of CentreVenture...He admits that a failure to understand the needs of the community took a considerable toll on the project. — The Guardian

Serious money is in play in the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ “Mayors’ Challenge” for cities competing to show they have come up with promising innovations to cope with 21st-century challenges.

“It was a big surprise to hear we’d share our ideas with competitors,” says Gomes. “But it works brilliantly. It’s exactly what you need—everyone sharing and trying to help each other. It’s crazy, but it works.” — urbanland.uli.org

Can a U.S. organization really tell Europe how to run its cities better? [...]

Following a successful inaugural challenge last year, the city innovation contest crossed the Atlantic in 2014, winnowing down European applicant cities to a shortlist of 21*, all of whom attended a two-day Ideas Camp staged in Berlin earlier this month. [...]

A European organization could not realistically offer anything as substantial as €9 million in prize money. — citylab.com

Twenty-one of what was deemed as the most bold and creative ideas were listed as finalists in the first European edition of the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge Competition. European cities with populations of at least 100,000 residents were invited to submit ideas that address a variety of some of the most common and complex urban issues throughout the continent. — bustler.net