Europe
In his latest essay on interpretation of the urban environment, Chuck Wolfe suggests that if we take away context clues cities become matrices -- with blank cells to complete -- where each of us personalizes how space meets time.
The Huffington Post
With about 353 tourists per resident in the historic city center of Venice, many residents are fleeing the crowds and moving onto the mainland, making the city a "monument-attraction," rather than a viable living space.
Global Site Plans
Feature
"How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City," by Joan DeJean, is full of creative insights on the symptoms of urban modernity as well as bold statements about how Paris came to be one of the world's great cities.
Jason Fargo follows the announcement that the FBI will soon set up shop outside of the infamous and despised J Edgar Hoover Building in Washington D.C. by listing six buildings that residents of cities "love to hate."
Guardian
Chuck Wolfe revisits five instances of how we can learn from the urbanism we already have.
The Huffington Post
The proposed Grand Paris Express program, which began construction this summer and is expected for completion in 2030, will serve 2 million people a day at "wildly fast speeds." Then there's light rail in the United States.
the transport politic
Tom Jacobs details the findings of a study out of France that finds evidence of what researchers call "green altruism"—or people treating each other better after period of immersion in a natural environment.
Pacific Standard
Helsinki, capital of Finland's, is working to create a "mobility on demand" system that integrates shared and public transit in a single payment network. The idea is that with such a system in place, residents would no longer need cars.
Guardian Cities
Cracking the upward GHG emissions curve in the transport sector has proved exceedingly difficult. Research from Aalborg University in Denmark suggests that in some industrialized societies this may be changing.
Planning Practice and Research
A new study by the World Bank examines the benefits for policies addressing clean transportation, energy efficiency in industry, and energy efficiency in buildings in five countries and the European Union.
The World Bank
Feature
An interview with artist and critic Jonathon Keats, who recently implemented a project in Berlin where participants will anchor pinhole "century cameras" around the city to record its changes over a period of 100 years.
French companies attempt to boost bike commutes by paying employees who cycle to work.
Reuters
In the second post in an ongoing "Shareable Cities" series, Mike Clay discusses "naked streets"—a democratizing, stripped-down street management concept that removes streetlights, crosswalks, and other signage.
Woodhouse
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced on Monday the long-awaited proposed rule to reduce the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions. It calls for cuts of 30 percent by 2030, with the baseline year of 2005, to be finalized next year.
The Hill
It may seem odd that the continent of high gas taxes and strong environmental ethos would not take to electric vehicles. Focusing on the news that Renault will delay the release of a new EV, AutoblogGreen explores the poor sales of EVs in Europe.
AutoBlogGreen
Paris and New York City are two of the world's more successful pedestrian cities, with each boasting several kinds of data that show the predominance of alternative transportation. An article compares public space in each for lessons.
Project For Public Spaces
A three-year bike-to-school initiative in Europe encourages children to bike to school.
TheCityFix
A blog post by Eric Britton covers Mayor Madame Anne Hidalgo's plans to adopt a 30 kilometer per hour (approximately 20 miles per hour) maximum speed limit in Paris.
World Streets
"Location is the new cookie," says Simon Thompson of Esri, referencing the software in a browser that tracks the websites people visit. Meet the new apps making it happen.
New York Times
If President Obama is waging a "war on coal," as his critics claim, then Europe must be enjoying a love affair with America's high-carbon fossil fuel, and the most polluting variety at that. How could the world's greenest continent turn so brown?
The Wall Street Journal - Business
