World

Global issues, U.N., etc.

City Data Visualization Tool Wins Journalism Prize

A visual city data mapping tool called CityTracking is one of the winners of this year's Knight News Challenge, a journalism competition that seeks out innovative communication ideas for the changing news media.

June 24, 2010 - Knight Foundation

Buildings Alone Do Not Constitute Regeneration

The "Bilbao Effect" is the apotheosis of the notion that a struggling post industrial city can be regenerated through set-piece art and design. But Frank Gehry, the architect of the Guggenheim, suspects the gallery was only part of a larger gestalt.

June 23, 2010 - Financial Times

Study Shows Mixed Use Reduces Car Travel More Than Density

Smart Planet talks with transportation researcher Reid Ewing about a new study he co-authored about how different development patterns can reduce auto use.

June 23, 2010 - Smart Planet

Radar Uncovers Ancient Egyptian City

Radar imaging has revealed the layout of a now-underground ancient Egyptian city named Avaris.

June 22, 2010 - Guardian

Community Gardens in the Corporate World

A new community garden on the Intel corporate campus in Hillsboro, Oregon is just one of many such plots that have been added to corporate sites across the country.

June 20, 2010 - The Oregonian

Locals vs Tourists Mapped Through Photography

Eric Fischer uses Flickr geodata to visualize where photos are taken in cities, and by whom. The result is a colorful divide between tourists and locals in a variety of cities around the world.

June 19, 2010 - The Map Room

Cairo Opens Design Competition for Its New Pedestrian Center

Cairo is revising its downtown area into a "pedestrian friendly plaza." Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif will expand the successful 'daytime pedestrian zones,' and has launched an international design competition to produce a master plan.

June 18, 2010 - ASLA The Dirt

The Nine Cities With the Best Hope of Becoming Carbon-Neutral

Popular Science gives a brief intro to nine cities that are setting the bar for the reduction of carbon emissions. The best U.S. site? The fortuitously-named Greensburg, Kansas.

June 18, 2010 - Popular Science

As Developing Countries Urbanize, Food Booms

A new study shows that agricultural output in the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China will be three times as great as those in the developed world. Increasing urbanization is seen as one of the drivers of this growth

June 17, 2010 - BBC

Goldman's New Headquarters in New York Conveys Sobriety

Goldman Sachs' new headquarters in New York is "modern but nowhere near the architectural cutting edge; neither cheap nor extravagant; and efficient without seeming merely functional." Paul Goldberger dissects the new Henry Cobb design.

June 16, 2010 - The New Yorker

City Logos for the Entire World

GOOD points to a new project that's trying to create and collect city logos for every city on the planet.

June 16, 2010 - Good

Bruce Sterling on Cities

Boing Boing interviews author and futurist Bruce Sterling about global cities and how vastly expanding urban scale is not necessarily a problem.

June 15, 2010 - Boing Boing

Making Buildings More Like Ecosystems

Green building? Feh. Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow looks at the movement towards biomimetic architecture, buildings that create living, sustainable ecosystems of their own.

June 15, 2010 - The Boston Globe

Augmenting Sense of Place

In the first of a two-part series on augmented reality, Mitchell Schwarzer discusses how this new form of information affects our sense of place.

June 15, 2010 - Places

Hanging Out at the Virtual Mall

Mall operator Westfield Group says it is developing a completely virtual "mall" shopping space, and is seeking retailers to rent spaces.

June 14, 2010 - Retail Traffic Magazine

Roadblocks Hinder Infrastructure in Russia's Olympic Host City

The relatively tropical seaside resort of Sochi, Russia will play host to the 2014 Winter Olympics. But building the infrastructure to support those games has become a major challenge for officials.

June 14, 2010 - The Vancouver Sun

Privatize the Ocean?

With the devastating spill of oil in the Gulf, this post from The National Review suggests taking control over off-shore drilling out of the hands of government and putting it into the hands of private interests.

June 14, 2010 - The National Review

50mph Speed Limit Would Cut CO2 By 30%, Says New Study

Reducing the speed limit to 50 mph, say researchers, would create the tipping point where taking transit or modes other than driving will become more attractive and therefore save CO2 emissions.

June 13, 2010 - Wired

We're All to Blame for Gulf Disaster

William Rivers Pitt says it's all too easy to blame BP or the politicians who deregulated the oil industry. Ultimately, he says, all of us are to blame for the Gulf oil disaster and the damage wrought by fossil fuels.

June 13, 2010 - Truthout

Designing Embassies in an Era of Terror

Embassies are a critical diplomatic tool, but their original emphasis on representing a state has given way to defending the diplomats inside.

June 12, 2010 - Sustainable Cities Collective

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.

Planning for Universal Design

Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.

Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

Top Schools

The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

100 Most Influential Urbanists

The who's who of urbanism, according to Planetizen readers.

Urban Planning Creators You Should Know

A short list of voices on social, video, and podcasting platforms.