China
China Coping with "Ecological Disaster Areas"
Climate change and irrigation schemes are drying up rivers and speeding the spread of deserts, leading to plans to move tens of millions of people.
Guardian (UK)
Beijing's Olympic Pollution Efforts Fall Short
Despite efforts to clean up Beijing during last year's Olympic Games, pollutant reductions were very minor, according to a new report.
ScienceNOW Daily News
U.S. Shuns World's Fair-like Expositions
A 1999 law forbids the State Department from funding pavilions at international expositions. Fred Bernstein argues that the law is misguided, and should be changed before the next year's World's Fair in Shanghai.
The Architect's Newspaper
Shanghai "Swaggers" Into the Future
With the unfettered ability to zone, plan and fund construction projects, the government of Shanghai is turning the city into what looks like "one immense architectural competition."
The Globe and Mail
The Horizontal Skyscraper
A new building going up in China is will be the as long as the Empire State Building is high. It will also be raised on columns to create a parkland underneath, giving the impression that it is floating.
ASLA's The Dirt blog
China's Eco-Cities Stumble and Fall
The ambitious green Chinese city of Dongtan was hyped up to be one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world. But now, like other eco-city plans, work on the project has slowed to a halt.
Yale Environment 360
Beijing Extends Car Restrictions
A slightly watered-down version of the traffic reduction methods the Chinese city of Beijing instituted in Summer 2008 to reduce congestion and pollution during the Olympics has been extended for another year.
Associated Press
China Starts to Lean Green
Environmental issues are becoming a growing concern in China, and officials there seem ready to begin addressing them.
BBC
Clash of Subways and Car Culture in Chinese Cities
The question is whether the burrowing machines can outrace China’s growing love affair with the automobile.
The New York Times
China's Eco Island A Pipedream?
Flashy plans to build a green city on an island near Shanghai have yet to take any shape. The Chinese government claims the project is still on its way.
The Economist
How Does Maglev Work, Anyway?
A new sixty-minute TV documentary explains how maglev technology works, and covers the first major accident on a maglev track.
Parallax Film Productions
A Building Boom with a Human Cost
This piece from Next American City looks at the human toll major building projects are taking on construction workers in China, Dubai and other rapidly developing places.
Next American City
Olympic Park Still Serving Beijing
The Olympic Forest Park in Beijing is standing out as one of the rare Olympics-related projects to remain in use after the 2008 event. Hu Jie, the park's designer, talks about its planning and the role of public space in Beijing.
Bangkok Post
Emptiness in Beijing After Olympic Building Boom
The 2008 Summer Olympics brought a boom of construction to host city Beijing. But now, six months later, much of the office space built in the lead up to the games sits empty -- and likely will for years.
Los Angeles Times
China's Urban-to-Rural Migration
The global economic downturn is hitting China's urban factories. Millions of migrant workers who had left their farms for factory work are now facing the possibility of making an urban-to-rural migration.
The Globe and Mail
Beijing Adds 1,466 New Cars Daily
For the first month and a half of 2009, the amount of new cars added daily in Beijing has climbed from 1,350 in 2008 to more than 1,450, bringing more than 65,000 cars into the city so far this year.
Agence France Presse via Grist
With No Jobs, China's Rural Exodus Retracting
More than 20 million Chinese who had migrated to cities for work have been forced to return to the rural countryside as urban jobs dry up.
Guardian
Stimulus Gets Transportation Projects Moving - In China
While the U.S. waffles over its stimulus package, China is two months into a grand countrywide transportation facelift, building high-speed rail, expanding freight capacity and generally beefing up the country's mobility.
The New York Times
Rural-Urban Income Gap Widens in China
The income gap between rural and urban residents in China has increased again in 2008, and has been attributed to other social inequities in the growing country.
BBC
Beijing Disappearing
Wrecking crews continue to clear the old hutongs of Beijing, replacing them with modern streets and skyscrapers. Meanwhile, a handful of scavengers work to save pieces of history from the wreckage.
The New York Times





















