Slate

New research can serve to explain why it is more expensive to purchase a house in the summer--and why it might be worth it.

Rob Gifford reviews Michael Meyer's new book "The Last Days of Old Beijing," and how it brings to life a rapidly vanishing element of the Chinese city: the hutong, or alleyways, which are being swiftly demolished and redeveloped.

This slideshow from Slate looks at the elaborate plans for new cities in the United Arab Emirates, and compares them to other built-from-scratch cities in history.

This video from Slate looks at the "stupidest bike lane" -- a stretch of painted bicycling road that runs for less than one block.

In this slideshow from Slate, Witold Rybczynski looks at public libraries from across the country and wonders how they will and should react to the increasingly digital age.

A slowing economy will lead to the era of the 'ghost mall', according to this article from Slate.

Flaws in LEED's rating system make it much too easy to get certified, which begs the question: Does LEED really succeed in making our buildings any greener?

Why many cities attempts to create city-wide wireless networks have failed....and why some cities have been successful.

This slideshow from Slate shows how a cornfield in Pennsylvania developed into a new residential community.

Slate magazine offers a photographic slideshow of the influential New Urbanist community of Seaside, Florida.

What New Orleans can learn from Denver.

A novelist takes on Gehry's gargantuan Atlantic Yards project, proposed for Brooklyn.

Slate publishes a series of articles on human waste, descending to the depths of London's massive and mysterious sewer system and visiting a restored 1865 sewage works, a "sewage school", and the polluted Thames.

The New Urbanist design is expensive, but the concept -- similar to recovery efforts after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake -- shows great promise.

In Indiana, selling a 157-mile toll road to Spanish and Australian investors joins the growing trend of selling pieces of underfunded U.S. infrastructure to foreigners.

Tesco, the world's fifth-largest retailer, is coming to California -- and with its 546 Tesco Express stores in the UK taking up as much land as just six Wal-Mart supercenters, it could bring a new model of retail land use with it.

What would it feel like to commute outside of a two-ton steel cocoon in Los Angeles, on a man-powered vehicle? Turns out, it's rather blissful.

Witold Rybczynski reviews Robert Bruegmann's new book, Sprawl: A Compact History.

A photo essay visits megachurches and uncovers surprising trends in modern church architecture.

Austan Goolsbee explains why a short-term increase in fuel prices is unlikely to change Americans' driving habits.