urban design

Gotta catch ’em all? It’s a lot easier if you’re white.

Augmented reality is as unjust as real life.

New York City hopes a 10-foot wall can save it from rising seas

Now New York really is New Amsterdam.

This contest wants you to turn racist, classist city planning into a fun game

Robert Moses did some terrible things to New York City. These folks want to have a little fun with his life.

The story of “ghost bikes”: How a bike memorial in St. Louis sparked a global movement

These white-painted bicycles show up in cities and towns all over the world. Here's where they came from, and what they mean.

Gloomy alleyways are getting a much-needed makeover

Seattle activists are turning dingy alleys into cool hangouts.

Meet the skyscrapers of the future: Band-Aids, balloon forests, and underwater spheres

This theoretical skyscraper, the winner of eVolo’s annual skyscraper design competition, would collect, purify, and store water in the Himalayas, helping to conserve and regulate it. It looks like a half pack of cigarettes in fancy holders, but it’s not even the weirdest-looking skyscraper, not by a long shot. Below are some of the strange […]

What can trick-or-treaters tell you about the health of your neighborhood?

When my brother and I were little, around this time of year we loved to watch The Halloween Tree, an animated feature based on a Ray Bradbury book of the same name. The movie opens with Bradbury himself narrating: It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small […]

Our new favorite city is inside this guy's brain

Okay, so this is more amazing folk art than realistic urban design, but think of it as your Friday 10 minutes of Zen. Jerry Gretzinger has been making and remaking his incredibly detailed maps since 1963, and he's basically generated an entire alternate universe. In this mini-documentary, he details his complicated creative process, which is […]

Seeing cities as the environmental solution, not the problem

The best way to save wilderness is through strong, compact, beautiful communities that are more urban and do not encroach on places of natural value.