POLIS

Hanoi's Ancient Quarter, founded in 1010 A.D. and built around a plan from the 15th century, is seeing an entrepreneurial boom. Planners are struggling to maintain the unique character of the community in the process.

Diana Limbach Lempel talks about the importance of allowing cities room to change, to experience entropy and remain elastic.

A new film, "Creativity and the Capitalist City: The Struggle for Affordable Space in Amsterdam", explores the issue of gentrification in the city. polis has a review.

Natalia Echeverri profiles Asheville, NC, a town that that has transformed itself into a grassroots-oriented, local creative hub. One highlight? A recycled "design-build" studio constructed in 10 weeks.

Peter Sigrist takes us through three other tools for open sourced, democratic governance processes conducive to mobilization, collaboration, and funding--each integral for the crowdsourced city.

Beckholmen, an island off Stockholm, has been an industrial and shipping center since the 1600s. Today, the city is looking at ways to revitalize the island while preserving the industry that has dominated it for so long.

Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, was planned by the Russian government in the 1950s with extensive infrastructure and lush city parks. That infrastructure is deteriorating, while more of the nomadic population move to the city to survive.

Kids make up a big part of city populations. But often the built environment doesn't reflect a world planned with children in mind. This post from Polis looks at an effort to put children's needs back in the minds of planners.

President Mubarak of Egypt is allowing developers to create American-style suburban developments in dry desert land outside Cairo.