Urban Development

Steve Jobs said, "People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” So why do planners keep asking people what they'd like to see? Scott Doyon believes it's time to dig deeper.

January 25, 2013 - PlaceShakers

As the structure of China’s urban shopping malls evolves into large-scale, multi-use “lifestyle complexes”, so too does their role in the social and cultural fabric of metropolitan society.

January 24, 2013 - China Daily

In the first entry in an eight-part series, Aparna Piramal Raje explores the challenges facing an urbanizing India that lacks sufficient planning to ease the country's transition from a nation of villages.

January 24, 2013 - Live Mint

Advocates of inclusionary zoning have something to smile about. A new report from the Rand Corporation confirms that the housing produced by these zoning policies does in fact create or preserve affordable housing in areas of low poverty.

January 24, 2013 - Shelterforce Online

Once controlled by "industrial behemoths", Christine H. O'Toole examines the role that Pittsburgh's three rivers - its genius loci - have played in spurring the redevelopment of the city's downtown.

January 23, 2013 - The New York Times

Last week saw the second major groundbreaking on the west side of midtown Manhattan in the last two months, as the $4.5 billion "Manhattan West" project’s first phase officially began.

January 23, 2013 - A/N Blog

The arts district in downtown Los Angeles is transforming its industrial buildings into trendy boutiques, restaurants and hotels. The concern is that gentrification will drive out low-paid artists who can no longer afford to live there.

January 23, 2013 - The Los Angeles Times

From education to housing to health, Chicago's Gary Comer, billionaire founder of Lands' End, invested millions into the struggling South Side neighborhood of Pocket Town in a mission to transform it into a beacon of hope for the community.

January 23, 2013 - Chicago Magazine

The failure to secure a full-time tenant for the Olympic Stadium, the centerpiece of London's Olympic Park, has cast doubt on one of the selling points of the city's Olympic bid - its post-games impact.

January 23, 2013 - The New York Times

Today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the winner of a competition to build a micro-apartment pilot project in Manhattan. Consisting of 55 micro-units measuring between 250 and 375 square feet, the project will utilize modular construction.

January 22, 2013 - The New York Observer

Now that redevelopment projects in CA are officially dead, a retrospective on one of the state's 'most successful' redevelopment projects reveals an inconvenient truth: demolition for surface parking has undermined much of its accomplishments.

January 22, 2013 - UrbDeZine.com

The old cool: Sealing yourself inside suburban air conditioning. The new cool? According to Howard Blackson, it's the joy to be found outside, connecting with one another and the world we share.

January 22, 2013 - PlaceShakers

Shannon Mattern visits a "a publishers’ enclave" that is seeking to reinvent Korean publishing, architecture and urban planning in the wetlands near the Demilitarized Zone.

January 22, 2013 - Places Journal

One of the cities that's led the growing trend in urban freeway removal is considering another tear down, report Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross.

January 21, 2013 - San Francisco Chronicle

Rachel L. Swarns traces D.C.'s transformation into a younger and livelier city to when a former senator from Illinois moved into a stately mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue, and brought with him urbane tastes and an iPod filled with Nicki Minaj.

January 21, 2013 - The New York Times

As the 100th anniversary of its opening approaches, The New York Times recounts the birth of one of the finest railway stations in the world - Grand Central Terminal.

January 21, 2013 - The New York Times

In this compelling essay, authors Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava take a look at Tokyo's post-war development and explore how lessons learned from its unplanned growth may be useful for other rapidly urbanizing Asian cities today.

January 20, 2013 - Next City

Residents of a neighborhood filled with historic Shanghai architectural style buildings, shikumen, found themselves removed by their government in favor of new, modern luxury condos, hotels, up-scale retail stores, and trendy cafes.

January 20, 2013 - Global Site Plans

Interactive before and after images taken nearly six decades apart show L.A.'s changing urban landscape.

January 18, 2013 - Los Angeles Times

The decade-long transformation of Toronto's historic Maple Leaf Gardens into a new centerpiece for its neighborhood may serve as a model for one of the trickiest types of adaptive reuse, reports Mark Byrnes.

January 18, 2013 - The Atlantic Cities