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  • 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 […]

  • Bike lanes to displace 9/11 monument, says NY Post

    Of course, the libtards at the NY Times don't think this story is fit to print, so once again we must applaud the courage of the NY Post, which has published a bombshell report conclusively linking bike lanes to 9/11. There is little I can add to this excellent Gothamist investigation of the New York […]

  • China’s ghost cities and the biggest property bubble of all time

    A couple of months ago, a lot of people were passing around the news about China’s plan to create a megacity that would be home to 42 million people, the so-called “Turn the Pearl Delta Into One” idea. The reporting was generally favorable, painting a picture of economic growth and opportunity — the narrative of […]

  • New ‘Tactical Urbanism’ guide for aspiring guerrilla urbanists

    With a few trees, some sidewalk tables, and lots of community input, a Dallas street was transformed.Photo: Go Oak Cliff Do you have the power to make your city a better place? It might be easier than you think. The Next Generation of New Urbanists (yes, these are young New Urbanists, because New Urbanism has […]

  • The latest battle in the nonexistent ‘War on Cars’

    Photo: IdiolectorSomewhere along the road, the phrase “War on X” became part of standard lazy American political rhetoric (see also: “Whatever-gate”). There are two primary ways the phrase gets used. First, the “this is a serious problem and we’re doing everything we can to stop it” usage, usually government-sponsored. It made a strong debut with […]

  • Where do the greenest commuters live? Not Portland

    New Yorkers on the evening commute.Photo: Mo RizaQuick: Who are the loneliest commuters in the nation? That would be the residents of Southgate, Mich., where 91.6 percent of workers drive alone. The city with the most pedestrian commuters? That’s Ithaca, N.Y., where 41.8 percent of commuters walk  to work (particularly impressive given upstate New York’s […]

  • James Howard Kunstler: The old American dream is a nightmare

    Photo: Charlie SamuelsThe Great Depression gave rise to hobos and Hoovervilles. The Roaring Nineties brought us what New York Times columnist David Brooks termed “bobos in paradise.” Now our current round of layoffs and foreclosures has unceremoniously transferred millions of folks from the “affluent” to the “afflicted” category, exiling them from Brooks’s mythical exurban Eden. […]

  • They just don’t build virtual cities like they used to

    In the NYC Panorama, the Empire State building is only 13cm tallPhoto: John Pavlus The Panorama of the City of New York is one of a kind: Built under Robert Moses himself for the 1964 World’s Fair, its 9,335 square feet encompass “every single building constructed before 1992 in all five boroughs,” or 895,000 individual […]

  • An exclusive with the artist behind Detroit’s new Robocop statue

    An iron pour from Westbrook’s performance at the University of West Georgia’s Art Incend event in October 2008.Photo: Casey WestbrookImagine a 10-foot-high steel bong filled with industrial grade coke that spews fire like Mordor and reaches temperatures hot enough to turn your radiator into a pool of molten slag. In the background, dimly illuminated by […]