cities
-
![]()
![]()
What can we learn from the world’s most efficient fake city?
This EXTREMELY METAL VIDEO shows the evolution of what is probably the world's most efficient Sim City: 6 million inhabitants and no congestion. It's got optimal population density, operates by subway alone, and has essentially beat an unbeatable game by lasting for 50,000 in-game years. The innovative gridding system that made all this possible was […]
-
![]()
![]()
Osama bin Laden couldn’t destroy the free city of New York
This is not what “victory” looks like. Victory is everyday New York.Photo: Sarah GoodyearFor New Yorkers, the 9-11 attack was personal. For weeks after the towers came down, the public spaces of our city were filled with heart-breaking reminders of the event: Walls covered with the pictures of those who never came home. Firehouses draped […]
-
![]()
![]()
Detroit mayor celebrates demolition of 3,000th building
Who's ready to party like it's 12/12/2012? Detroit mayor David Bing, that's who! In an announcement made via Twitter, his office proudly declared that the city had demolished its 3,000th building of 2010. That's 10 times the rate at which the city demolished buildings in 2009. Bing's stated goal is the erasure of 10,000 blighted, […]
-
![]()
![]()
Home tweet home: Twitter chooses the city over sprawl
I spent the last couple of days at a conference about climate, cities, and behavior. One topic that kept coming up among the municipal officials there — from places like New York, Denver, Vancouver, Richmond, and San Francisco — was the importance of walkable downtowns to attracting business and investment. Amenities like good transit, bike […]
-
![]()
![]()
City birds have bigger brains than country birds, says study
Will the intrusion of cities into the natural environment cause birds to become brainier? That appears to be the case, say a passel of ecologists in the April 27 issue of Biology Letters. (This story has no implications for humans. Really. It just illustrates a principle that might possibly generalize to other animals. Including apes? […]
-
Developer to make sprawl slightly less bad by putting solar panels on it
Oh man, one more of these and it's a New York Times trend story: First it was sprawl developers who had to give away cars in order to sell their McMansions in the eighth circle of exurban hell, now it's some developer in Phoenix who wants to attract baby boomers to purchase 11,200 new homes by […]
-
The solution to the parking problem is charging through the nose for it
Normally, when a resource is scarce, we let the market set its price. So why not do the same with parking? That's what the city of San Francisco has decided to to, because it is populated with geniuses who own iPads and still manage to get a tan. By using “demand pricing” — in which […]
-
![]()
![]()
Take a ride on a Barcelona streetcar in 1908 [VIDEO]
Sometimes, on a Friday, all you want is to look at something that is just plain wonderful. To that end, I submit this film, shot from a Barcelona streetcar back in 1908. It’s a delightful artifact of a time when streets functioned very differently than they do today — with bicycles, pedestrians, horsedrawn carriages, trams, […]
-
![]()
![]()
Suburbs and cities: Stop the name-calling, already
What’s in a name?Photo: Ryan BowmanWhat is the difference between a city and a suburb, anyway? It’s an important question because so many times, the debate about the allocation of resources in our country is framed this way, as if there were some kind of obvious dichotomy between suburbs and cities, some bright line that […]
