For many cities, the grid of the streets and transit systems were likely laid down long before the buildings grew up around them, thanks to the rigor of planners and engineers who knew best. But as cities transition in ways that challenge the century-old plan, they need new and quick ways to improvise connections between areas of growth. These are known as "desire lines."
What burrowing owls have to do with San Francisco’s housing protests, a luxury apartment for horses in Manhattan, and Boston looks back on the transformation of its civic identity, one year later. Plus, a recap of Gizmodo’s Utopia Week. Climb aboard this week’s Urban Reads.
Would you get paid to act as a third passenger in a vehicle so the car could drive into a congestion-restricted area? How about signing up to pack people into crowded subway cars? Dress up as a zebra and walk the streets, preventing cars from running red lights?
As one of the world’s largest producer of pistachios, Turkey has plenty of pistachio shells to go around. So, in the tradition of turning food waste into energy
Tennessee lawmakers tried to make Nashville’s buses illegal, a dude pissed in a reservoir and Portland has to flush 38 million gallons of water, and—let’s say it all together—the rent is too damn high. This is your weekly look at What’s Ruining Our Cities.
When it was built in 1977, Citicorp Center (later renamed Citigroup Center, now called 601 Lexington) was, at 59 stories, the seventh-tallest building in the world. You can pick it out of the New York City skyline by its 45-degree angled top.
At this point, we all know that California’s superdrought is bad—really bad
When the sun comes up, the flowers come out. Inspired by the design of Arabic windows known as mashrabiya, these 45-foot wide, flower-shaped sunshades "blossom" in minutes to cover the facades of these twin towers designed for two (anonymous!) Middle Eastern media companies.
More people have committed suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge than on any other structure in the world—someone jumps from the bridge to their death about every two weeks. But those figures could be dramatically reduced if a proposed suicide-prevention barrier is installed later this year, as advocates hope.
Urine trouble, Portland. Thirty-eight million gallons of treated, ready-to-drink water will be flushed into the Columbia River after a teenager peed in a city reservoir.
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