Humor

Rep. Michael G. Grimm has introduced what may be this legislative season's most unobjectionable, and adorable, bill: the Pets on Trains Act of 2013.

November 21, 2013 - The Washington Post

It's back to the future for global cities, now that we've realized what a mess the 20th century was.

November 20, 2013 - Future Cities

Thousands of people helped transform San Francisco into Gotham City on Friday on order to fulfill a young cancer patient's wish. Miles Scott experienced a day he'll never forget and those following from afar were treated to a heartwarming story.

November 16, 2013 - NPR

As Russia prepares to welcome to world to the 2014 Winter Olympics, subway riders in Moscow are being treated to a free trip. The only caveat: You'll need to complete 30 squats to earn your ticket.

November 15, 2013 - CBS News

Urban and Regional Planning has landed a spot on Business Insider's list of the "15 High-Paying Jobs For People Who Don't Like Stress", a claim we're sure some of you may take issue with.

November 14, 2013 - Business Insider

Liisa Ecola reviews “If/Then”, a new musical that follows the personal and professional paths chosen by professional planners. There's a good chance this will be the first Broadway musical to feature a heroine who has a PhD in city planning.

November 13, 2013 - DC.Streetsblog

Images of a new apartment development in Qingdao, Shandong province have caused a stir on the Internet in recent weeks. The reason? Builders painted dozens of fake windows along the high-rise buildings' facades. Who were they trying to fool?

November 8, 2013 - Business Insider

Subway conductors, especially in New York, can be a gruff lot. And not without reason: they have a serious and essential job to do in very public, often stressful, conditions. To show their appreciation, two riders devised a way to make them smile.

November 1, 2013 - Gawker

Apparently ghost towns aren't only found in America's Old West and at former nuclear test sites. Lifestyle website Thrillist has collected seven of the world's creepiest ghost towns.

October 31, 2013 - Thrillist

In honor of Halloween, the Geographic Information System (GIS) software company ESRI has mapped the locations of more than 200 of the top-rated horror films of all-time.

October 31, 2013 - ESRI

Haunted houses are benign. If you want real evil, suggests Keith Eggener, look to the sentient houses in fiction and film that are "born bad". From Poe to Siddons, he explores examples of "architecture gone terribly wrong".

October 31, 2013 - Places

Jonathan Hull, a 37-year-old graphic designer from Salt Lake City, has assembled an horrific catalog of America's "demonic, hellish, and Satan-flavored" appellations.

October 31, 2013 - The Atlantic Cities

Could a 1,300-mile bike path along the length of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline quell the concerns of environmentalists? A "tongue-in-cheek" design put forth by SWA group doesn't appear to have won admirers on either side of the debate.

October 31, 2013 - Bloomberg

Once again, the fine people at the real estate web portal Zillow have assembled their top 20 cities for trick-or-treating. This year they've gone one step further and identified the top 5 neighborhoods in each city for enterprising candy collectors.

October 31, 2013 - Zillow

No doubt, a few angry fingers were wagged in Xi'an, Shaanxi province after a superblock of apartments was built where an eight-lane highway was supposed to go. The solution: just build the highway though it.

October 25, 2013 - The Daily Mail

Some cities see citations as the best way to improve bike safety; others focus on educational classes. But in Boston, a crew of rapping puppets encourage riders to "Put Your Helmet On".

October 18, 2013 - The Atlantic Cities

They're used to designing homes and vanity projects for dictators and developers, but have the world's leading architects ever designed for a doll?

October 11, 2013 - The Guardian

Who needs four years of costly undergraduate education in History (sorry Mom & Dad) when you can just consult John B. Sparks' "Histomap" of 1931. Writing in Slate's "The Vault" blog, Rebecca Onion looks at the 5-foot-long guide to world history.

October 4, 2013 - Slate

When the infamous real estate and development board game was created, it took the streets of Atlantic City, NJ as the inspiration for its property names. In a photo tour through the city, Nick Carr notes how these streets appear today.

October 1, 2013 - Scouting New York

What do an upside-down White House, a toilet-shaped museum, and a planetarium shaped like Saturn and its rings have in common? All can be found in futurist website io9's collection of the world's most extreme buildings.

September 27, 2013 - io9