cities
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Building blocks: What LEGOs can teach us about rebuilding cities
In the Lego room at the National Building Room in Washington, D.C., a seasoned designer gets a lesson in creativity from a 5-year-old girl.
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Ultimate tiny house is suspended 40 feet in the air
Via the Dish, this art installation in downtown San Francisco is the ultimate tiny house. It’s seven by eight by 11 feet, and it’s suspended 40 feet in the air. Plus, it’s recycled AND green: It’s made of 100-year-old reclaimed barn wood, and powered by off-grid solar. Among other ideas, the project is meant to […]
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Critical List: Heartland documents obtained using deception; killer whales OK with climate change
Peter Gleick, a water expert and climate scientist, says he obtained documents that revealed the inner workings of the Heartland Institute by soliciting them from the group under someone else’s name. A new study says that exploiting Canada’s tar sands might not exacerbate climate change as much as environmental groups fear. Mexico and the U.S. […]
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Inside New York City’s defunct quarantine hospital
Photographer Ian Ference had to get special dispensation from the New York City parks department to visit North Brother Island, the site of a forced-quarantine hospital that closed down 50 years ago. The island, right off the coast of the Bronx, used to house people suffering from contagious diseases like tuberculosis and smallpox — including […]
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Up with people: What is Obama doing about our cities’ chronic problems?
Puffy ideas from the creative class are not going to solve urban America’s stickiest problems of subpar education, poverty, and mass imprisonment. To do that, we’ll need hard-nosed solutions and strong leadership from the top. How is the president doing?
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Microsoft’s ‘avoid ghetto’ app is kind of gross
Microsoft has come up with an app for people traveling by foot that will route them around areas with high crime rates. This function is being called the “avoid ghetto” feature (not by Microsoft, of course, because they’re not that dense), and it’s, uh, controversial. As a person who sometimes walks around in cities at […]
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Mosstika’s living graffiti is amazing
Street art isn't just gang tags -- it can revitalize and beautify urban spaces, increase community identity, and even be a form of nonviolent protest. The work of Edina Tokodi kind of does all of those, plus it's about as green as graffiti can be: Tokodi's studio Mosstika makes street art from living moss.
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Mexico City’s move: Take this dump and close it!
One of the world's largest dumps won't be belching greenhouse gases any more, thanks to Mexico City's closing of the vast Bordo Poniente Landfill.
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C1ty By NuMb3r5: A formula for growing better cities
Theoretical physicist Geoffrey West says he's found the secret to bringing cities back from the brink. It's all in the numbers, he says. But numbers also may be our downfall.
