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+38 +1
Cities of Tomorrow: Refugee Camps Require Longer-Term Thinking
Former mayor of the world’s second-largest refugee camp, humanitarian Kilian Kleinschmidt notes “the average stay today in a camp is 17 years. That’s a generation.” These places need to be recognized as what they are: “cities of tomorrow,” not the temporary spaces we like to imagine. “In the Middle East, we were building camps: storage facilities for people. But the refugees were building a city,” Kleinschmidt said in an interview.
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+19 +1
Knocking Down Detroit to Revive it Comes at a Price
Nowhere in America bulldozes derelict homes with Detroit’s ferocity, as the city that has become a byword for U.S. urban decay seeks to engineer a recovery by tearing itself down.
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+17 +1
L.A. Remembers It Has a River
The concrete ditch running through the city is a sad joke even in Los Angeles. A revitalization effort decades in the making is getting under way, but will it repeat the mistakes of the past?
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+23 +1
Skywalking Stockholm: Bridged Green-Roof Parks to Span Downtown
Fusing height, light, density and greenery with regional vernacular architecture, this ambitious urban Sky Walk plan aims to turn the tops of downtown buildings into a extensive series of connected green-roof parks connected by aerial walkways.
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+24 +1
Reclaiming Vacant Public Land through Design
At the end of 2015, 34 community gardens in New York City were protected from destruction. Behind the formation of several of these gardens on vacant publicly-owned land was 596 Acres, a grassroots nonprofit using design and technology for greenspace advocacy.
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+41 +1
Montenegro concentration camp island turning into resort
An island off the coast of Montenegro used as a concentration camp during World War II is being turned into a luxury resort. Mamula, which has a 19th century Austro-Hungarian fortress used for enemies of Benito Mussolini’s forces, still has ruins of prison cells where thousands were held and more than 130 were killed or starved. Despite the site’s solemn history, the Montenegrin parliament approved a project from the Swiss-Egyptian company Orascom...
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+22 +1
Australia's first hydraulic pop-up urinal has arrived to everyone's relief
Like many drinkers on the weekend, you might find yourself busting for a pee but conscious of doing it on the street. Fear no more, if you're in Australia.
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+33 +1
China: No more weird buildings
Chinese architecture will now officially be less weird. A statement from China's State Council Sunday, says new guidelines on urban planning will forbid the construction of "bizarre" and "odd-shaped" buildings that are devoid of character or cultural heritage. Instead, the directive calls for buildings that are "economic, green and beautiful." China's economic boom over the past several decades has coincided with a boom in the construction of unique...
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+44 +1
The car century was a mistake. It’s time to move on.
Each week, In Theory takes on a big idea in the news and explores it from a range of perspectives. This week, we’re talking about car-free cities. Need a primer? Catch up here. We must first remember that all cities were car-free little more than a century ago. Not all cities responded to the advent of automobiles with the same enthusiasm as the cities of the United States. In fact, some cities never did adopt the car. Venice was unwilling to destroy itself in order to build...
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+22 +1
Will the Los Angeles River Become a Playground for the Rich?
The revitalization of LA’s neglected riverfront has gone from social-justice crusade to money-soaked land grab. By Richard Kreitner. (Mar. 10)
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+26 +1
Capitalism’s Capital: The Man Who Built New York
Jackson Lears reviews “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York” by Robert Caro.
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+26 +1
The Cemetery in the City
Austin's Cemetery Master Plan is a revolutionary idea, but it shouldn’t be. How Austin’s Cemetery Master Plan preserves 160 acres of urban cemeteries
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+18 +1
Fascinating maps reveal what our cities sound like
How researchers mapped the spectrum of urban sound.
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+22 +1
Germany's bicycle autobahn: pedaling nowhere?
Construction on a bike highway - hoped to connect communities to make high-speed, emissions-free commuting possible - is underway in Germany. But with funding in question, will this bikers' dream still come true? German autobahns are famous for lacking speed limits - now, bike autobahns may continue the trend. Following in the footsteps of other northern European countries, Germany is building a traffic-free bicycle highway: the Radschnellweg Ruhr, also known as RS1.
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+4 +1
Dubai to build $1bn Babylon-inspired tower taller than the Burj Khalifa
Dubai is planning to build one of its most elaborate structures yet with developers promising that it will dwarf the current world's tallest building – the Burj Khalifa. The new tower, based at the centre of a new development called Dubai Creek Harbour, is set to boast rotating balconies and landscaping inspired by the mythical hanging gardens of Babylon. Chairman of Dubai-based Emaar Properties Mohamed Alabbar, said the huge viewing tower would cost about $1bn (£700m) to build in the Arab...
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+6 +1
The Quest for Inclusive Economic Development
How can cities grow their economies without alienating poorer residents?
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+13 +1
The Psychological Cost of Boring Buildings
Scientists are investigating the emotional toll of ugly architecture.
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+26 +1
How the slum women of Ahmedabad led a housing revolution
The Indian city where Gandhi established his first ashram can be gruelling if you live in a slum: 50C temperatures, poor ventilation, no running water. A group of women had had enough and agreed to work with developers.
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+41 +1
Futuristic 'vertical village'
The organic, curvilinear designs of an Avatar universe may be closer than we think. Indian agroecologist Amlankusum and Paris-based Vincent Callebaut Architectures have released plans for a vertical 'eco-neighborhood' called the Jaypee Green Sports City. The compound, which would theoretically be built outside of New Delhi, is named Hyperions and consists of a set of six 36-storey towers connected by common green spaces, walkways, and shared eco-conscious utilities.
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+20 +1
The Value of a City's 'StreetScore'
An ongoing project from MIT uses an algorithm to predict the safety of streets, helping researchers and urban planners better understand cities.
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