[Finbarr Fallon's] photo series Dead Space explores how these monuments are designed, and how their history contrasts with Hong Kong’s more modern developments. “I have always been intrigued by how city-specific cemetery design can be,” Fallon says via email. “While death is universal, its memorialization practices are not. I found it fascinating that extreme density and verticality continue to be a defining characteristic of Hong Kong’s dwellings for both the living and the dead.” — Fast Company

Which is the world's most vertical city?

You might think of Hong Kong, given its famous skyscraper skyline, but by different measures of verticality other cities come out on top — The Guardian

China’s State Council announced that “weird architecture that is not economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly will be forbidden.” Many architects and members of the public understood the frustration and bewilderment, even if they questioned the subjective nature of the official instruction. — The Economist

Could Los Angeles grow to become a “real city” like New York or London? Last year, LA gained at least 50,000 people, according to a recent report from the California Department of Finance, pushing the population to more than 4 million people for the first time in the city’s history. — Vice

If Mr. Ratti’s projections are correct, and self-driving cars can radically reduce traffic without cannibalizing existing mass transit—the hypotheticals pile up—it is possible that self-driving cars will make many cities livable in a way they aren’t now. Imagine if every U.S. city had a hybrid public-private mass-transit system on par with those in New York City or Washington, D.C., comprised entirely of self-driving vehicles. — wsj.com

Many buildings in distinctive Manhattan neighborhoods like Chinatown, the Upper East Side and Washington Heights could not be erected now: Properties in those areas tend to cover too much of their lots (Washington Heights), have too much commercial space (Chinatown) or rise too high (the Upper East Side). [...]

“It’s ridiculous that we have these hundred-year-old buildings that everyone loves, and none of them ‘should’ be the way they are.” — nytimes.com

Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet. To accommodate a rapidly growing number of inhabitants in a limited area of land, the emphasis is on space efficiency – which often translates into extremes of verticality and compact living.

Alex Nimmo grew up in the English countryside but moved to Hong Kong three years ago. The contrast, as you might imagine, was sharp. — theguardian.com

But all New Yorkers are losing familiar vistas, and some are losing light and air, as supertall buildings sprout like beanstalks in midtown Manhattan. There are a dozen such “supertalls” – buildings of 1,000 feet or higher – in the construction or planning stages. And the buildings are not, as in Dubai or Shanghai’s Pudong district, being constructed where nothing else had stood. They are, instead, crowding into already dense neighbourhoods where light and air are at a premium [...]. — theguardian.com

In 1910, Manhattan reached a peak population of 2.2 million, from which it has never since rebounded, even after modest growth in the past three decades. Angel’s research found that today, Manhattan’s population density is down a surprising 40% from 1910. — urbanomnibus.net

It is a fractal of contemporary Los Angeles architecture, the fragment that both contains and helps explain the whole. [...]

What gives the $165-million project its unusual symbolic power is that it takes the generic stuff of a typical L.A. apartment building — a wood frame slathered in white stucco and lifted above a concrete parking deck — and expands it dramatically to urban scale. [...]

The design takes banality and stretches it like taffy in the direction of monumentality. — latimes.com