News

Residents and visitors to downtown Portland have long enjoyed taking buses, LRT, and streetcar within a perimeter known as Fareless Square at no cost. While the MAX and streetcar will remain 'fareless', the bus will cost you. New name: Free Rail Zone

In a new working paper called “The Greenness of China: Household Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development,” Siqi Zheng, Rui Wang, Edward L. Glaeser, and Matthew E. Kahn rank 74 Chinese cities in terms of their household carbon footprints.

This new cafe in Oakland does more than welcome cyclists - it caters to them. It is a welcome addition in a neighborhood that has seen more than its share of crime. Check out the pedal-powered video player.

Is twelve feet square enough room to live in? Designer James Stuart thinks so, and is practicing what he preaches in his own 12' cube house in Canada.

Ed Glaeser argues that housing needs to be viewed as a commodity like any other, rather than an investment.

In this editorial, the Times strongly supports the new, more stringent ozone standard proposed by the EPA. It views the new proposal as a sign that the Obama administration looks toward science, not industry, to set environmental and health standards

Private investors are claiming that they can build a $3 billion, 220-mile high speed rail system in Indonesia by the end of 2011. But the plan may be too ambitious to pull off -- or just not a good idea in the first place.

The market for big box spaces plunged during the recession as companies like Circuit City folded. But demand is very slightly picking up, and in some places it never went away.

Long-held plans to build a bus rapid transit system connecting Oakland with nearby cities may also result in the creation of what some are calling the longest "complete street" in the state.

As China's cities grow, the economic policy that determines who is a rural resident and who is an urban resident are in need of some changes, according to this article.

A new manifesto is being circulated in Hamburg, Germany, where city officials have used the concept of the "creative class" to rebrand the city and lure in creative people. The resulting gentrification of the city has many locals upset.

In Singapore, where land is precious, new concepts in building are being proposed to create shared resources for different industries in the same space.

New parking lots and obstructed views of historic buildings would be forbidden under a new set of zoning rules being discussed for downtown Baltimore.

A group of Southern California nudists is criticizing parks officials who buried a dead sea lion near their controversial stomping grounds -- a stinky development in the long battle between nudists and officials over the contested beach.

The "N Building" in Tokyo has a facade made up of digital QR codes- aim your phone at a window, and it will tell you all about the business, what's on sale, and what the people inside are Tweeting.

An artist collective in New York City is on a mission to blot out advertising in public space, covering it over with their art projects.

Steven Dale of Creative Urban Projects in Toronto takes a look at a crazy plan by Santiago Calatrava to build a gondola to Governor's Island in New York that might not be so crazy after all.

Fast Company notes a growing number of green building proposals that look exactly like volcanoes.

The Environmental Protection Agency is releasing new air quality standards that will likely place hundreds of additional counties nationwide in violation.

California stimulus projects and job creation are being delayed by a state office tasked with reviewing federally-funded construction projects to prevent adverse affects on historic sites, according to a new report.