Master-Planned Cities in the Spotlight

The Guardian spent last week devoting significant journalism and media resources to the story of master-planned cities, for the "Cities from scratch" series.

"From the foundation myths surrounding Athens and Rome, to the clearance of virgin forests in western New York state to create the “garden city” of Buffalo, to scores of purpose-built capitals – Brasília, Canberra, Astana, Washington DC – building new cities is just something that humans do," writes Wade Shepard.

Shepard's article is written from the assumption that humans are building scratch at a scale unprecedented in history. The pace could even quicken. "We are standing on the precipice of a new city building boom unlike anything we’ve seen before," writes Shepard.

The question: "Will they deliver a bright new urban future or a debt-fuelled bubble of historic proportions?" and thus, "Should we build cities from scratch?"

A few other articles supplement this interrogation. Like the article that shares testimonials from residents of master-planned cities like Canberra, Dubai, and Islamabad. Another article presents interactive images of corners of the world before and after they get a master-planned makeover.