News

Toward a Universal Subway Typology

Brandon Keim explores the fascinating findings detailed in a new paper, which shows that the world’s major subway systems appear to be organically converging on an ideal form.
16 May 2012 - 2:00pm
Wired Science

Should the Bay Area Have Four Million More Residents?

Noting the Bay Area's relatively slow growth rate over the past two decades, Timothy B. Lee argues that the area's "bad housing policies" are harming business growth and investment opportunities in Silicon Valley.
16 May 2012 - 1:00pm
Forbes

What Does "Creative Placemaking" Look Like?

Launched one year ago, ArtPlace works to accelerate creative placemaking by making grants and loans. So what does that actually look like on the ground? A new video from ArtPlace gives a glimpse of what they've accomplished so far.
16 May 2012 - 12:00pm
ArtPlace

Cities Fight Over Shrinking Convention Pie

Despite a dramatic decline in the number of, and attendance at, conventions nationwide, cities across America are investing their limited resources in building and upgrading convention centers. Fred A. Bernstein explores the irony.
16 May 2012 - 11:00am
Architectural Record

What Are (Realistic) Options For Federal Transportation Funding?

With the unlikely possibility of the Congressional conference committee agreeing to a new transportation bill, much less an agreement to address the decreasing gas tax revenues to the Highway Trust Fund, Kathryn Wolfe looks at the remaining options.
16 May 2012 - 10:00am
Politico

The Dangers of Walking While Poor

Low income people are more likely to get hit by cars. Kate Hinds reports on the social and infrastructural factors responsible for the disparity.
16 May 2012 - 9:00am
Transportation Nation

Sprucing Things Up on the Wrong Side of the Tracks

Will French takes a look at the success of Birmingham's downtown revitalization, which – in the absence of a waterfront – embraced its historic railroads, instead.
16 May 2012 - 8:00am
Urban Land

New York's Killer Trees

It sounds like the plot out of a bad B movie, but to the families of those killed and injured by falling limbs and branches from trees in New York's parks and public spaces, it's a real-life horror story that raises questions of municipal liability.
16 May 2012 - 7:00am
The New York Times

Television Series Tackles Weighty Issue

Sarah Henry spotlights "The Weight of the Nation," a new series airing this week on HBO that explores obesity and its enormous economic, emotional, social, and health costs.
16 May 2012 - 6:00am
Grist

What's Left for Venice in Its Golden Years?

Josh Stephens muses on the modern state of an erstwhile global capital that has kept its aesthetic charms, but lost its anima.
16 May 2012 - 5:00am
Next American City

In Praise of Cincinnati's Progressive Urbanism

Alan G. Brake celebrates the Queen City's utilization of public space, place making, and mixed-use development to build its competitive advantage, despite America's "deep-seated anti-urban streak."
15 May 2012 - 2:00pm
The Architect's Newspaper

Haggling Over High-Speed Rail Funds

Burgess Everett and Adam Snider look at the growing debate over where to allocate limited high-speed rail funds: on the East Coast, where rail already has a foothold, or out West, where California has the land and starter funds to make it happen.
15 May 2012 - 1:00pm
Politico

Urban Equity to be Focus of New Academic Center

Launched May 1 within the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York, the new J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City will pursue the ways in which design can make "American cities more just and inclusive places to live."
15 May 2012 - 12:00pm
The Architect's Newspaper

What Are the Most Bikeable Cities?

The folks behind Walk Score, the incredibly popular walkability measure, are beta testing a new metric that judges the bikeability of cities, writes Jess Zimmerman.
15 May 2012 - 11:00am
Grist

Will "Rebel Cities" Revolt Against Global Inequality?

In this interview with Marxist scholar David Harvey, Aaron Leonard discusses the author's new book, "Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution."
15 May 2012 - 10:00am
rabble.ca

List of Top Buildings That Changed America Unveiled

The subject of a television series to be aired in 2013, PBS has unveiled its list of the top ten buildings that have "changed the way Americans live, work and play," reports Karissa Rosenfield.
15 May 2012 - 9:00am
ArchDaily

Amman's Subjective Cartography

How do you navigate a city with no street names? This is the question Amanda Erickson sets out to answer in an article on photographer Regina Mamou, who spent a year studying how the people of Amman get around.
15 May 2012 - 8:00am
The Atlantic Cities

In Race to Be the Tallest, Who Has Final Say?

As developers around the world seek to steal the coveted title of "World's Tallest Building", Carl Bialik looks at what defines a building, and who gets to decide.
15 May 2012 - 7:00am
The Wall Street Journal

High-Speed Train Will Require High-Speed Spending

Guidelines attached to the federal funds intended to help pay for the first phase of California's bullet train will require the fastest rate of transportation construction known in U.S. history, reports Ralph Vartabedian.
15 May 2012 - 6:00am
Los Angeles Times

Towards a More Nuanced Understanding of Density

Arguing for the value of historic low and mid-rise, but also dense, areas of Brooklyn, Washington D.C., and New Orleans, Edward T. McMahon asks us to reconsider the pursuit of density as an end in itself, and the high-rise as its fullest expression.
15 May 2012 - 5:00am
Citiwire.net