World

A valentine to ten cities around the world that are quietly creating urban paradigms to admire and emulate.

February 14, 2014 - Future Cities

An expansive new 3D film, shown recently at the Berlin Film Festival, collects a series of vignettes that anthropomorphize buildings like the Berlin Philharmonic, the National Library of Russia, and the Salk Institute.

February 13, 2014 - Variety

If you need a little misery-loves-company commiseration on winter, Hazel Borys shares some pics from Winnipeg, the coldest big city on earth. How this winter city deals with the polar vortex is something we may all need to get used to.

February 13, 2014 - PlaceShakers

The number of megacities is expected to double over the next decade, and many of these growing cities are far from resilient. The solution: frugal engineering and local knowledge.

February 12, 2014 - Kevin C. Desouza

"Well-designed green schoolyards model the ecologically-rich cities we would like to inhabit. They do this at a smaller scale and teach the next generation how to live more lightly on the Earth—shaping places where urbanization and nature coexist."

February 11, 2014 - Children & Nature Network

One of the best ways to gain citizens' perspectives of their cities is to see what they see, and how they see it. Here are 30 photos sent in by people from global cities that capture that point of view.

February 11, 2014 - Future Cities

Researchers are building a more complete archive of life in slums, home to one-third of the urban population of developing countries. A new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) rejects assumptions about the benefits of slums.

February 10, 2014 - The Economist

Back in 2009, Olympic officials were claiming that the Sochi Winter Games would be the "greenest" games ever. But besides a large carbon offset, the Olympics' sustainability efforts have been underwhelming.

February 10, 2014 - The Guardian

The former three-term New York City mayor, already president of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group has been appointed to a special United Nations envoy position on cities and climate change by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

February 8, 2014 - Reuters

People watching on the train: we all do it. But some of us do it better. Like October Jones, who uses his commute downtime to animate his fellow passengers.

February 7, 2014 - BuzzFeed

This week's guest 'Shaker, Rob Dalton, talks roundabouts, bollards and buffers to get your feet into a 禪 Zen street.

February 5, 2014 - PlaceShakers

Demographic and economic trends, and improving transport options, including more carsharing services, are contributing to a long-term decline in automobile ownership and use.

February 5, 2014 - The Wall Street Journal

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory recently completed an economic analysis of white roofs versus their green and black counterparts. The debate over the relative merits of white versus green roofs is far from over, however.

February 5, 2014 - Inhabitat

An article by Tom Slater takes on several sacred cows of the current planning discussion, most prominently among them what he describes as “the anaesthetising spell of resilience.”

February 4, 2014 - OpenDemocracy - OpenSecurity

Do transit stations with sleeker designs boost ridership? Evidence suggests that the answer may be yes. But does that mean that we should spend limited transit funds on better architecture?

February 3, 2014 - Atlantic Cities

City Hall isn't what it once was. Here are eight new positions that your local government should be hiring for this year.

February 2, 2014 - Future Cities

Connected communities aren't just about fun and frolic. When the goin' gets rough, they can make the difference between life and death.

February 2, 2014 - PlaceShakers

Nomenclature changes, especially for cities with chronologies spanning centuries and even millennia. Test your knowledge of historic, even ancient, place names.

February 1, 2014 - Guardian Cities

In the eighth installment of the Urban Juxtapositions series profiled in Planetizen on January 16, Chuck Wolfe asks if we are using the right language when it comes to densifying urban spaces.

February 1, 2014 - myurbanist

It's hard to keep up with the endless quest to present the world's knowledge in map form, but luckily we've got Max Fisher as a guide. He's collected 40 more fascinating maps that explain world history, present conditions and future scenarios.

January 31, 2014 - The Washington Post