How the housing shortage was tackled in the Weimar Republic – and what we can learn from it today.
Tag: urban planning
The natural disaster in Valencia is the reflection of a great societal failure, the result of the lack of public policies in organizing a sustainable and balanced model of life.
Updated Sept. 19, 2024 at 10:40 a.m. On this day in 1985, an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 on the Richter scale struck Mexico City. What was the toll of the 1985 earthquake on Mexico City? The estimated death toll ranged from around 10,000 to 30,000 people. Tens of thousands more were injured, and […]
A government plan to build a series of highways that pass through centuries-old cemeteries in Cairo has sparked public backlash in recent years, as the Egyptian capital must measure itself against both places like Dubai and Manhattan..
June 3 – June 9, 2024
An anthropologist who has focused on urban geography and violence, Omnia Khalil reflects on how her daily movement was shaped by architectural design in Egypt, a country where sexual harassment is a widespread and serious problem.
As the world’s climate becomes erratic and hostile, we might remold our cities from being expressions of our cold triumphalism to vessels and tools for inclusive, peaceful cohabitation with nature.
Throughout the ages, convents have been adapted and transformed to fulfil the needs of growing cities such as Portugal’s capital city Lisbon. Now more than ever, with an ongoing housing crisis, researchers, politicians and developers are looking at convents to be transformed into housing solutions.
The Seine, the backbone of Paris’ Olympic celebrations, is being reclaimed as a recreational and transport hub. Does it mean Napoleon’s dream of a “Greater Paris” stretching all the way to the sea will finally happen?
How can we make the city both more dense and more liveable? By opening up its rooftops! At a time of land scarcity and global warming, this vast reservoir of largely unused land is the focus of much interest.
In Bulgaria, Roma people are the second-largest minority group, but their community goes largely ignored by politicians as hatred and prejudice grows against them. Italy’s daily La Stampa visits Fakulteta, where 45,000 Roma people live, mostly segregated from the rest of the country.
Deep structural problems were already pushing it to breaking point. And with teleworking becoming the new normal after COVID, Paris’s La Défense business district stands as a melancholic shadow of its old, buzzing self. Can it find a way to reinvent itself?
Before the G20 summit, which took place in New Delhi from Sept. 9-10, Indian authorities carried out a “beautification” of the city. Entire slums were bulldozed, forcing some of the city’s most vulnerable residents into homelessness.
Residents of the most disadvantaged peripheries of the Argentine capital are pushed to collaborate in the absence of municipal support. They build homes and create services that should be public. It is both admirable, and deplorable.
São Paulo is 400 years old, but the outlaying areas beyond the historic center are relatively new. They were born out of poverty and have given rise to resistance and culture, especially through music.
Barcelona architect Ton Salvadó explains how a new way or organizing urban areas might lead to greener, more peaceful cities.
PARIS — This past summer, Parisians bid adieu to Autolib”, a pioneering electric-car-sharing service that came to a premature demise after operating for fewer than seven years. But that doesn’t mean the French capital is turning its back on the overall concept. There is a plan B in the works, though what exactly it will […]
ANDORRA LA VELLA — Perched in the Pyrenees between Spain and France, Andorra — with fewer than 80,000 inhabitants — is as small as it is remote. And yet, the European micro-nation is playing a big part these days in the field of urban studies, the Andorran daily El Periòdic reports. Researchers with the City […]
BUENOS AIRES — This city wants to make itself a kinder, friendlier place for the elderly, with plans to improve urban infrastructure and promote common-sense practices to help reduce accidents inside homes. Taking its lead from the World Health Organization (WHO), which has pushed in recent years for more user-friendly cities and better conditions for […]
“The city is a complex form for which there exists no equivalent in nature…”
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TIANJIN — A stone’s throw from the highly polluted Bohai Gulf, the Tianjin eco-city is like a mirage. Its buildings, surrounded by trees, offer a rare green and airy setting in the surrounding industrial development zone, which is choked, for much of the year, in a blanket of smog. Public lighting is charged through solar […]
TIANJIN — In the frenzy of China’s real estate speculation, what goes up must sometimes come down — right away. Two brand new 31-story buildings and another 65-story skyscraper are set to be demolished in China’s northeast port city of Tianjin after undergoing unauthorized design changes during construction. According to the China Times, the three […]
Here is a preview of our exclusive newsletter to keep up-to-date and stay inspired by Smart City innovations from around the world.
To both improve cities and conquer markets, companies are turning to urban simulators with the interactive power and graphics of video games.
-Analysis- BEIJING — A recent United Nations report predicted that the year 2017 will be the turning point for China’s demography. After reaching its peak that year, the population will start to drop. And yet at the same time, as a recent survey of China’s State Council showed, each major Chinese city has plans to […]
Tehran’s Milad Tower — Photo: Hamed Saber Tehran’s northern suburbs, in the foothills of the Alborz mountains, used to be a summer refuge from the heat of downtown Tehran, mainly for their numerous gardens and abundant trees. The rich used to live there before 1979, and some still do. But over the past 20 years […]
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Le Corbusier, Measure Of A Modern Man
PARIS — It has been 50 years since the death of Le Corbusier, the Swiss-born architect, artist and writer considered by some to be the most influential force in the way modern cities are designed and built. To mark his life and work, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris has dedicated an entire exhibition to […]
BUENOS AIRES — Cycling is catching on in this bustling city of taxis, buses and cars, especially since the bike-lending program EcoBici was launched in 2010. In fact, it’s currently one of the few systems in the world in which the stations are operated by trained personnel and the service is free. But the differences […]
-Analysis- SHANGHAI — The evolution of megacities is a common worry in various countries: Beijing and Shanghai in China, Seoul in South Korea and Mumbai in India all are concerned about how to manage skyrocketing urban populations. But while other countries typically regard population expansion as the result of economic development, and base their future […]
After building Beijing’s Olympic Park for the 2008 Games, a Chinese-American urban planner and Israeli architect continue to help develop green cities in a largely polluted China.
What does “sustainability” really mean? A forward-looking French architect offers his reflections as part of Worldcrunch Impact: Smarter Cities.
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Is China’s Urban Boom A House Of Cards?
BEIJING — “Better city, better life …” This was the theme of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, a nod to the ancient Greek scholar Aristotle who understood what people expect from urban life: to make their living a better living. But what is the reality in people’s lives right now? During China’s golden week — […]