Grist

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson raises the issue that there are not enough minorities representing the communities that planners and designers strive to make better.

Christine Grant was fortunate enough to win a fellowship that allowed her to spend six months in the world's most bike-friendly cities. In this article she shares with us the 10 essential lessons she learned along the way.

Writing in Grist, Greg Hanscom's position is that under Obama's guidance, the Federal Government has shifted away from subsidizing sprawl and towards reviving cities. Agree?

Long Beach is leading California's bicycle revolution in many ways, perhaps most creatively in establishing bike-friendly shopping districts.

Greg Hanscom, cities editor at Grist, picks his top stories for 2011, including Occupy Wall Street, bright flight and the "urban renaissance that isn't (yet)."

Writing in Grist, Chuck Wolfe provides a counterintuitive look at what to do about potholes and how they could become "the universal darlings of walkable urbanism".

Walmart talks big about climate action, but its land-use strategy is anything but climate-friendly: It builds massive new stores on virgin land in sprawling areas, then abandons them in favor of still newer, still bigger stores, says Stacy Mitchell.

Grist profiles Dylan House, a Brooklyn architect and "change agent" that is involving underserved community groups in charrettes to plan their urban spaces.

Proliferating faster than bike lanes or bike parking racks may be the chevron symbols in the pavement with bicycle icon informing cyclists and motorists alike to "share the road". But can too many sharrows be a bad thing, asks Grist's Elly Blue.

Grist profiles a British street artist who specializes in creating images on dirty urban spaces (like tunnel walls) by simply washing away the grime.

Greg Hanscom at Grist asks, if, as polls say, so many Millennials want to live in the city, why is the downtown resurgence a trickle rather than a flood?

A new GM ad implies that bikes aren't a sexy mode of transport for college kids.

Tallahassee, Florida planners came to a realization - while their transit system was set up to efficiently get commuters downtown, only 14% of them actually worked downtown. So they actually changed where the buses go.

Vancouver is working to incorporate more density in traditional single-family neighborhoods by allowing additional dwellings in the backyard, adjacent to alleys.

Blue argues that bicycle advocates need to consider the economic perspective of all individuals that use bicycles as transportation. Not all who bicycle do it by choice, says Blue.

Elly Blue at Grist suggests that a market for independent bookstores could be returning along with a rise in bicycling and walkable neighborhoods.

A new breed of developers in China are increasingly trying to make the country's new cities into pleasant, walkable and even environmentally sustainable.

Candy Chang is using public art installations to spark community involvement and input on land use.

Student designer Alexander Vittouris won a design award for his bicycle made out of bamboo. What's so special about that? Vittouris shaped the frame as it grew so it needed no assembly.

This top 10 list from Grist highlights the global cities best prepared to handle climate change.