Asia-Pacific
Checking in with Toyota's plans for an interconnected smart "city of the future" means considering how their approach might differ from other attempts at similar projects.
Smart Cities Dive
The City by the Bay has joined eight largely rural counties in California by advancing last Tuesday to the least restrictive tier of the state's new reopening criteria by reducing coronavirus transmission to nearly New York levels.
The Mercury News
Manchester researchers are part of a network of European cities collaborating on strategies to support the aging population in cities worldwide.
City Monitor
Hong Kong, hailed as an early success in containing the virus, is seeing a resurgence that threatens to exceed the initial outbreak. While minimal by U.S. standards, the government is enacting its strictest restrictions to date to extinguish it.
Bloomberg News
The latest video from City Beautiful looks at the legacy of planning from the Soviet Union.
City Beautiful
Feature
As the pandemic has made clear, a healthy, prosperous future will depend on the development of the kinds of density that encourage strong social infrastructure.
Separate coronavirus studies from the University of California at Berkeley and Imperial College London published June 8 in the journal Nature show the life and health-saving value of domestic stay-at-home orders, global lockdowns, and other measures.
The Washington Post
Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong were credited early in the pandemic with having successfully contained the coronavirus without resorting to lockdowns. However, Singapore lost its standing in that elite group. Crowding vs. density may explain why.
NPR - Goats and Soda
While the U.S. leads the world in COVID-19 infections and deaths, a small group of nations defied the odds and has shown remarkable success in containing the coronavirus. NPR investigates what they share in common, with a focus on New Zealand.
NPR
Some cities are leasing entire hotels to provide rooms for people who have tested positive for COVID-19 or been exposed to infected people, to allow for safe and supportive isolation away from family or household members who risk being infected.
Medium – Bloomberg Cities
On Monday, the 73rd World Health Assembly convenes virtually for two days. NPR's Scott Simon speaks with a WHO spokesperson about how long we can expect to live with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
NPR Weekend Edition Saturday
The United States currently tests about 145,000 people daily. A Harvard study calls for a minimum of 500,000 daily, but that's on the low end if the country wants to prevent shutting down again due to a second wave of the coronavirus.
The New York Times
Evidence from Wuhan, China, the used car auction market in the United States, and the Trump administration reveal some of the potential futures for the car industry.
Bloomberg
Materials procured overseas are taking longer to arrive in the United States, and the delays are causing a ripple effect in the construction industry.
The New York Times
"Who do you learn from?" is a question that transportation planners, particularly in the United States, should ask themselves.
Pedestrian Observations
A legal battle is being waged between the coal-exporting states of Utah, Wyoming, and Montana and coastal cities in California, Oregon, and Washington that pits the power of local land-use authority against the protection of interstate commerce.
Los Angeles Times
When it comes to containing the spread of the deadly coronavirus, China and Italy are demonstrating the use of lockdowns and quarantines. South Korea has gone a different route, using widespread testing administered in drive-through facilities.
The Washington Post
The lives of Seoul's poorest residents in squalid below-ground housing are brought out of the shadows in the film "Parasite."
The New York Times
Oil prices crashed Monday due to a disagreement between two of the world's largest oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia, amidst a slump in oil demand due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Oil will flood the market as demand drops.
The Washington Post
In Manila and the San Francisco Bay Area, the severe impacts of rising sea levels are indisputable. But the only similarities are that both places face very uncertain futures.
The New York Times
