Iraq

With its rich history and wealth of artifacts, palaces, and natural beauty, some wonder if tourism could help Iraq to recover.

This piece from The New York Times looks at the role of private gardens and public-facing landscaping in the city of Baghdad.

U.S. Military bases in Iraq are being consolidated, but their footprint is hard to ignore. Many operate much like small cities, housing as many as 20,000 people and all the services and infrastructure they require.

Water projects and diversion efforts in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria are draining the marshlands near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, known as the 'Fertile Crescent'.

Water policies in Syria and Turkey are draining the Euphrates River dry, and neighboring Iraq is feeling all the hurt from it.

The population is falling -- the population of U.S. troops stationed in Baghdad, that is.

Ninevah, one of the world's most endangered heritage sites, is deteriorating due to recent development and urban sprawl, say officials.

Officials in Baghdad are instituting a new program to sweep beggars off the city's streets -- a number that has risen sharply since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad embodies all of the negative connotations of the American presence in Iraq and provides an example of how not to build an embassy, according to Jonathan Glancey.

For about a month, commuter rail has been rolling in Baghdad. Where once there was danger, now there are commuters.

In the mid-1900s architect Le Corbusier designed a grand sports complex for Baghdad as part of the city's bid for the 1960 Olympics. That bid failed and the project was never built. Now, original drawings and designs are on display.

Daniel Reed, former Planning Director of Daytona Beach, is now the primary planner of Sadr City, 12 miles north of Baghdad.

Investors are moving forward with plans to build an amusement park in Baghdad, arguing the Iraqi capital is in dire need of entertainment facilities. Many worry that security concerns will disrupt those plans.

Robert Pollin & Heidi Garrett-Peltier writing in The Nation show that the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq that could have been much more productively invested in public goods like sustainable infrastructure.