The National Traffic Scorecard ranks the 100 most-congested metropolitan areas in the United States. Number one? Los Angeles, naturally.
posted on Jun 17, 2008 - View this thread

"Q: What the hell is this site about? This is a site about urban exploration in the Ozarks." Abandoned water slides, underground tunnels, abandoned buildings and half-demolished malls throughout Missouri were all once fair game for this blog, and remain fair game for those who post in Underground Ozarks' forums.
posted on Jun 16, 2008 - View this thread

From the Improv Everywhere people comes the Urban Prankster blog to keep track of delightful shenanigans around the world.
posted on Jun 11, 2008 - View this thread

Another Paul Graham essay, Cities and Ambition. This one's one of his better ones though. His claim: each city sends its inhabitants a distinct message about how they should live their lives. New York City sends the message that you should be richer. Cambridge sends the message that you should be smarter. Berkeley sends the message that you should live better. Consequently, the city you live in has a profound effect on what you strive for, what you value, and how you channel your ambitions. Place matters; choose wisely.
posted on Jun 2, 2008 - View this thread

City of the Future, Taiwan 1960s
posted on May 27, 2008 - View this thread

Too much traffic? Can't find parking? Choking on smog? Worried about climate change? Gas prices too high, but you still have to drive? Send your city planner a link to the Online Encyclopedia of Transportation Demand Management strategies.
posted on May 8, 2008 - View this thread

The world's cleanest cities and dirtiest cities.
posted on May 2, 2008 - View this thread

New York City is the greenest city in America. Eighty-two per cent of Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot. That's ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for residents of Los Angeles County. New York City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were granted statehood, it would rank 51st in per-capita energy use.... But this is not necessarily something people want to hear: In a conversation with a Sierra Club representative involved in Challenge to Sprawl, I said that the organization's anti-sprawl suggestions and the modified streetscapes in the slide show shared many significant features with Manhattan-whose most salient characteristics include wide sidewalks, narrow streets, mixed uses, densely packed buildings, and an extensive network of subways and buses. The representative hesitated, then said that I was essentially correct, although he would prefer that the program not be described in such terms, since emulating New York City would not be considered an appealing goal by most of the people whom the Sierra Club is trying to persuade
posted on Apr 6, 2008 - View this thread

"This is a building where our deeply-troubled public school system once stored its supplies, and then one day apparently walked away from it all, allowing everything to go to waste...All that's left is an overwhelming sense of knowledge unlearned and untapped potential." (Via Making Light.)
posted on Jan 22, 2008 - View this thread

Why humans started huddling together in cities is still shrouded in mystery but if the question is ever settled the answer will probably be found in Çatalhöyük, a settlement of five to eight thousand located in what is now Turkey that came into existence around 7500 BC. The current head archaeologist of the Çatalhöyük Project is Ian Hodder, one of the leading lights in postprocessual archaeology, who summarized his finding in a recent article in Natural History Magazine. The Çatalhöyük Project website is a treasure trove of information about the ancient settlement.
posted on Dec 29, 2007 - View this thread

Shrinking Cities (virtual and real): Analysis and Interventions.
posted on Nov 29, 2007 - View this thread

City of Sound as it describes itself, is a blog about cities, design, architecture, media, music, etc. But calling it a blog really does it a disservice. City of Sound is a category-killer; amazingly dense, thoughtful, erudite, and compelling, it begins to catalog our urban identity. A bit of reminiscent of Metropolis magazine, if it was edited by Robert Rauschenberg. If you've not visited, do yourself a favor. It is a treasure trove.
posted on Nov 17, 2007 - View this thread

Top 101 Cities Lists (in the US)
posted on Nov 6, 2007 - View this thread

The Young Gallery has an exceptional collection of photographs by both renowned and recently discovered photographers. The feast of visuals includes elegantly haunting images of African wildlife by Nick Brandt, Night Views of cities by Floriane de Lassée, salad vegetables by Viktor Polson, nudes and portraits by Patrick Demarchelier and images of Tibet, Mongolians and Tibetans by Richard Gere.
posted on Oct 27, 2007 - View this thread

An interview with Lebbeus Woods -- designer and illustrator of speculative futuristic landscapes and buildings. Woods just set up his own website, which has an amazing quantity of drawings, photographs, and text focusing on his lesser known projects [for those willing to deal with a frustrating flash interface and sound. It's better in IE than Firefox.]
posted on Oct 6, 2007 - View this thread

Photographs of American Cities from the middle of the 20th Century.
posted on Sep 29, 2007 - View this thread

"First we kill the architects..." Photographer Danny Lyon [1, 2, 3, 4] offers ten suggestions for New York City. Suggestion #6: "Leave the World Trade Center excavation exactly as it is and use the space as a freshwater pond planted with pink, white, and yellow lilies..." His essay is only one of many from names you'll recognize in a book called Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. An associated exhibition opened yesterday [museum, NYT review]. Is New York City moving in the right direction? Is your city? [via]
posted on Sep 26, 2007 - View this thread

WebUrbanist: Collective Bloggings about Urban Cultures and Alternative Arts
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - View this thread

This week, the world became more urban than rural for the first time in human history. Trace urban growth over the past century, or with more detail over the last 50 years, and see how the idea of the city has evolved. When you are done admiring the skylines (more from US cities) and singing the songs, reflect on the best and worst of cities: the richest by GDP and personal earnings, the worst slums, the best skylines, the worst polluted, the fastest moving, the most expensive, and the most polite (New York?). What does it all mean? Stuart Brand [video] (slideshow here) and other experts weigh in. [see also my previous post on the names of cities]
posted on May 25, 2007 - View this thread

The city of Detroit is in a bad way. House are cheaper than cars. The city's neighborhoods are in decay. Families are leaving. Even "revived" areas are struggling. Entire portions of the city are starting to revert to prarie and ruins. Can the city be saved or is it time to give up on the Arsenal of Democracy?
posted on Mar 21, 2007 - View this thread

Lost Cities.
posted on Feb 26, 2007 - View this thread

Tales of Future Past* — It's been a looong Monday. Do you want to get off the planet and out of the city to a place where you can really live? Well, here's some food for thought on the way home down life's highways. First, take a break from all this depressing war talk. Then empower yourself by giving yourself some space and maybe taking off for a few days. Drive just a bit slower, turn up the volume and imagine that your mechanic will say the tranny's OK after all. Once you're in the front door, take time to get slightly wired and forget all about politics. Get recharged for tomorrow: have a nice long bath, put your mind at ease, watch Ur Fave shOw, and listen to some soothing music. Now, don't things look a lot better? [*Note the 'Start the Tour' links at the bottom of each page.]
posted on Feb 12, 2007 - View this thread

On walls and pavements in cities around the world you may encounter poetry.
posted on Feb 6, 2007 - View this thread

It took a long time for many achievements of the ancient world to be duplicated. The first city to reach one million people was Baghdad in 775 CE (or possibly Rome nine hundred years before), a feat that would not be duplicated until London and Beijing grew in the 19th century. The largest building in the world was the Great Pyramid for forty centuries until the 19th, and the world's current longest canal is over two millenia old. Some mysteries still remain, such as the formula of Greek Fire, but it looks like a different ancient weapon's secret has been discovered, that of Damascus steel. The key ingredient -- nanotech!
posted on Jan 25, 2007 - View this thread

Is "Apocalypto" pornography? "I am not a compulsively politically correct type who sees the Maya as the epitome of goodness and light... But in "Apocalypto," no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities." Traci Arden
posted on Jan 6, 2007 - View this thread

The City Desk is a blog dedicated to covering the history and traditions of a city that does not exist. Get the dirt on about the tramway that never happened or take a gander at fascinating statistics about the population. Heck, there's even a definitive origin for the term "Black Friday."
posted on Dec 22, 2006 - View this thread

This video (set to The Album Leaf's "Outer Banks") is an absolutely gorgeous bit of time lapse photography, all shot around a cityscape I couldn't recognize. Watching it made me think of this movie, which is another bit of ethereal time lapse urbanscape beauty, this time shot in a city I did recognize (downtown Los Angeles & LAX initially, San Francisco later). Direct download 480p version of second film here. Of course, watching the second film reminded me of this previously posted third film (Rivers of Light, by the Grass Collective) involving cityscapes(downtown L.A. again - flash based preview here), this time in slow motion, and without audio. All links are quicktime, and HUGE, but highly recommended and very, very pretty.
posted on Oct 14, 2006 - View this thread

The Conflux Festival brings together mapmakers, urban adventurers, and performers to "investigate the physical and psychological landscapes of cities," NYC in this case. Tunnels and shortcuts, turning city sound samples into music, guerilla radio on unused FM frequencies, and a nighttime game of pursuit. My personal favorite is tide-propelled commuting on the Tide and Current Taxi. Via Flavorpill.
posted on Sep 14, 2006 - View this thread

Beautiful Subways --worldwide--from palatial to postmodern, folksy to brutalist (pee smells not included--and don't miss Tehran's)
posted on Aug 25, 2006 - View this thread

Joe Nishizawa's new photojournalism book, Deep Inside, is a visual exploration of the amazing, highly mechanized world under Japan's urban areas. This brief interview with the author is accompanied by several interesting photos.
posted on Jul 24, 2006 - View this thread

Dark Age Ahead. Jane Jacobs passes on.
posted on Apr 25, 2006 - View this thread

The 15 Best Skylines.
posted on Mar 26, 2006 - View this thread

Arounder has an ongoing collection of high-quality full screen Quicktime VR panoramas of European cities, focusing on famous artistic and cultural landmarks (in Rome, Florence, Köln, Barcelona, Cyprus), with interactive maps and travel information. A collaboration with national tourist offices by Swiss company Vrway Communication, which also publishes Vrmag, a bi-monthly review of panorama photography, and the FullscreenQTVR directory in collaboration with the well-known panoramas.dk (previously mentioned on metafilter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
posted on Mar 6, 2006 - View this thread

The Tokyo skyline [Windows or Real media] drawn from memory by savant Stephen Wiltshire.
posted on Feb 5, 2006 - View this thread

Cities is a cross between Urban Dead and Kingdom of Loathing.
posted on Jan 16, 2006 - View this thread

Transit in Detroit details an urban planner's initiative to cut the costs of the city's traffic congestion-relieving highway expansion by proposing a transit system combining light rail and bus-rapid-transit. [More Inside]
posted on Nov 25, 2005 - View this thread

The CommonCensus Map Project is redrawing the map of the United States based on your voting, to show how the country is organized culturally, as opposed to traditional political boundaries. It shows how the country is divided into 'spheres of influence' between different cities at the national, regional, and local levels.
posted on Oct 17, 2005 - View this thread

Ed Bacon, friend to skaters, died Friday. He presided over a successful urban renewal campaign (a rarity), yet leaves behind a complex legacy in the city he loved. [bugmenot]
posted on Oct 16, 2005 - View this thread

In the summer of 1995 there was a week-long heat wave in Chicago. Over 700 people died. Most of them were the elderly, poor, and African-Americans. Link above is a Slate article by Eric Klinberg who wrote the definitive Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (2003) in which he concludes that "a city, in its decision to operate like a corporation, experienced the breakdown of massive social services" and the resulting "widening cracks in the social foundations of America's cities".
posted on Sep 9, 2005 - View this thread

Ipod Subway Maps
posted on Aug 14, 2005 - View this thread

The Obscure Cities :Imagine another world (french site), a heartbeat, a breath away, and yet at the same time more distant than the farthest star. You can walk to it without even noticing, just by going through a door in some crooked building, or by day dreaming after having seen a curious painting or read an unusual book. It is a world of quaint vehicles (french site, flash), wondrous architecture and strange customs. {main link via vacapinta}
posted on Jun 18, 2005 - View this thread

Is a "virtual" Philly even better than the real thing? Well, GeoSim Systems thinks so. Except for the aroma of freshly-grilled cheesesteak, at least. Their "Virtual Philadelphia" is the most detailed urban imaging system I've seen yet, and you can read about the monumental process of turning photographic images (taken from both aircraft and street-level) into this incredible rendering in a February 17 NY Times article (reg req). And - as expected - Google wants to get in on the action and do the same thing in San Francisco. via BB
posted on Jun 10, 2005 - View this thread

Rise of the Creative Class followed by the Flight of the Creative Class. Following up on The Rise of the Creative Class (2002), Florida argues that if America continues to make it harder for some of the world's most talented students and workers to come here, they'll go to other countries eager to tap into their creative capabilities—as will American citizens fed up with what they view as an increasingly repressive environment. He argues that the loss of even a few geniuses can have tremendous impact, adding that the "overblown" economic threat posed by large nations such as China and India obscures all the little blows inflicted upon the U.S. by Canada, Scandinavia, New Zealand and other countries with more open political climates. Florida lays his case out well and devotes a significant portion of this polemical analysis to defending his earlier book's argument regarding "technology, talent, and tolerance" (i.e. that together, they generate economic clout, so the U.S. should be more progressive on gay rights and government spending). He does so because that book contains what he sees as the way out of the dilemma—a new American society that can "tap the full creative capabilities of every human being." Even when he drills down to less panoramic vistas, however, Florida remains an astute observer of what makes economic communities tick, and he's sure to generate just as much public debate on this new twist on brain drain.
posted on Jun 1, 2005 - View this thread

Onancock Some towns just have bad names.
posted on May 28, 2005 - View this thread

Mirapuri - City of Peace and Future Man
posted on Apr 5, 2005 - View this thread

Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull-House and Its Neighbourhoods 1889-1963. Scholarly urban history project.
posted on Feb 19, 2005 - View this thread

Art in Cities. Pretty cool.
posted on Feb 9, 2005 - View this thread

While looking for photos of Sacramento, CA I came across The World City Photo Archive. Find your favorite city from around the world (organized by country) or check out photos of landmarks.
posted on Jan 13, 2005 - View this thread

Are these huge gated communities OUR urban future? Enormous gated communities in Latin America - complete with schools, clinics, and a wide array of recreational possibilities - are now billing themselves as Latin America's best example of New Urbanism.
posted on Dec 24, 2004 - View this thread

The Names of Ancient Cities Still Stir the Imagination. While the City of 333 Genies has almost vanished in the sands and the Mirror of the World is tarnished with age, the City of Men's Desire abides. In 1000 years, will the Big Apple be as vital as the Eternal City or as forgotten as the City of Venerated Houses?
posted on Dec 7, 2004 - View this thread