Cities & Planning

When I was growing up in the suburbs, I was bothered by all the construction going on in the big city nearby (New York). Whenever I visited, there were detours, cranes, cement trucks blocking the streets, never-ceasing jackhammers, sidewalks closed,

Sailcargo doesn’t expect to replace the massive industry. But as companies look for ways to reduce emissions, it can offer a solution that works now. Because it doesn’t use shipping containers—goods...

The industrial designer shares the design process behind his first task chair, and why he aims to build icons rather than circular designs.

Milan’s botanical garden is self-powered—thanks partly to the energy created by its human visitors.

Daoming Town in Sichuan Province, China, is known for its bamboo weaving traditions. "The practice," says Archi-Union Architects, "is more than a rural industry. It is an integral part of the way families in the town spend time together and how neighbors visit with each another." One of the firm'

What would have happened if the Seattle Monorail Project had actually succeeded?

Living in an urban environment for most of my life has certainly impacted the way I look at cars. Carbon emissions aside, I accept that there is a need for them sometimes, even in a city. But in my…

Playgrounds at about 300 schools have been renovated, benefiting students but also addressing the climate crisis

A handy tool to help make your case when whining about a biannual time change, following earlier explorations of the geography of DST effects. Protip: go to landscape mode if you're looking at this on a phone. Measuring if—and how much—DST sucks for you While my earlier map was interesting to explore, it leaves too much room for interpretation. You don't have time for that. Your life is too awful because of a lost hour, or a gained one. You need fast FACTS. So for this map I made up a score to prove that yo

Daylight Saving Time Gripe Assistant Tool: For this map I made up a score to prove that you're right (or wrong) about Daylight Saving Time ruining everything. It's the total number of days with both sunrise and sunset times that satisfy your preferences, minus a penalty for sunrise and sunset times that are too late or early, respectively.

Public transport maps are easy to take for granted but surprisingly difficult to master; conveying a mass of data in one simple design is no easy task. Veteran graphic designer and transit map enthusiast Cameron Booth runs through the dos and don'ts of effective map design.

The first cases of Heartland virus disease were identified in Missouri in 2009. Since then, clusters of cases have been linked to the lone star tick.

Policymakers and homeowners are scrambling to manage so-called 'wildland-urban interface' to mitigate the threat.

Some residents are experiencing a new kind of distress in response to flooding, air pollution and other ecological events linked to climate change.

If your office is where you live now, would you live in your old office?

One of the myriad issues with hydrogen as a clean energy source is infrastructure, as it's very expensive to move around and store an extremely explosive gas..

In 1970, a violent storm uncovered a Makah village that was buried by a mudslide more than 300 years earlier. A newly re-opened museum tells the fascinating story of the ancient site.

I dug crime databases in 16 European countries and came to some surprising conclusions.

The economic power of many U.S. metros is equivalent to other nations around the globe. Source: smartcitiesdive.com Perhaps because I’m fr...

The first ten years of this century Dutch public libraries moved their focus from collections to connections. Building makerspaces within libraries has been a central part of this change.

Big Clive, has a YouTube channel where he opens up electronic products (often dodgy ones that make fraudulent health claims) and explains what makes them work (or don’t work). In this video, …

Great, detailed story on Japan’s effort to revitalize its rail network in the mid-20th Century, from S.Y. Lee’s Substack. It’s a great example of how crucial it is for governments…

“New Olympia was, at best, half-birthed.”

A managed retreat researchers responds to Brenda Cooper’s “Out of Ash.”

Smithsonian shares how mapping technology cuts through the canopy to identify ruins in the Amazon. So the team conducted airborne lidar mapping of six different areas, ranging in size from about 4 …