Detroitblog is a great companion to the classic fabulous ruins of Detroit site.
Brussels Farmer plant sunflowers, guerilla gardening style, around the city. Nice.
The BBC asks leading experts for their forecasts on cities of the future. Recurring themes are polarisation between those who have and those who don’t, climate change and energy problems.
StreetWars, a crazy water gun assassination game played in the city streets.
Projecting animated wild animals from a moving car, their speed synchronised to the car wheels, brilliant!
A film about the last days of the government’s utopian “administrative city” in Brussels will be [showing soon][1] at the Arenberg cinema.
[1]: http://www.arenberg.be/dev/newfilm.php?film=23 (Histoire(s) d'une utopie a vendre [site language: French])
David Byrne talks about Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, and the revolutionary work he did there for transportation and urban living.
I love the idea behind the Urban Markup flickr pool.
Wonderful and hypnotic: using recurring elements of French urban life as the focus for [animated photo sequences][1].
[1]: http://www.milieu-urbain.com/ (Milieu(x) Urbain(s) [site language: French])
The bicycle messenger and the city.
Five innovations in urban transportation that you won’t find in America, yet (or Belgium, for the most part).
After this year, the majority of people in the world will live in cities.
Ghost cities of the future.
Someone bring these guys to Brussels.
If you’re anywhere near the Tate Modern in London between now and the end of August, Global Cities looks like an interesting exhibition to explore.
[Urban abandonments][1] – deserted wonders of the modern world
[1]: http://weburbanist.com/2007/08/30/urban-abandonments-part-two-7-more-deserted-wonders-of-the-modern-world/ (Urban Abandonments (Part Two): 7 More Deserted Wonders of the Modern World [site language: English])
The interface at Paris:Invisible City takes a bit of getting used to but it's worth exploring.
I always try to take stairs instead of elevators and escalators when I can, although some places make it near impossible. It seems planners have noticed.
A smart city is a privatised city and nobody knows what will happen to your data.
The smart city will capture, store and remember every microscopic detail of your daily life.
Conventional bikes already are faster than cars for trips of up to 5 km in urban areas, e-bikes increase this distance to almost 10 km.
Nice rundown on the multiple advantages of discouraging city car use.
Reversing the smart city paradigm. Barcelona is moving from the surveillance capitalism model, where data is opaque and owned by subcontractors and third parties, to a model where citizens own their data.
Great article on the Paris catacombs and the "cataphiles" that map and explore them. It's excerpted from a book which I'm definitely adding to my reading pile.
There are so many co-working spaces these days you could probably work for a whole year just by using all the free trials.
Another interesting take on changes to architecture and urban living post-coronavirus.
Someone with a one-hour commute in a car needs to earn 40% more to be as happy as someone with a short walk to work. On the other hand, researchers found that if someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.
Walkable cities have so many benefits.
A visual catalogue of the many small vehicles found in Tokyo streets where the automobile is rarely seen. We could do with more of these around here.
An amusing 80s TV show intervention on the Knightrider Court sign in London.
Concrete is the second-most consumed substance in the world and causes much environmental damage. Despite this, it's needed for essential infrastructure and, paradoxically, will be needed even more to protect against climate change.
Alongside all of this, it has a lifespan of about 100 years, which means much of our infrastructure is hitting that age limit and starting to rot.
This is a fascinating article on our addiction to concrete and the harms that come with it.
This is a fantastic idea: integrating tactile maps on pedestrian crossing buttons to help sight-impaired people get a lay of the land. These exact signal boxes are used here, but I don't think I've ever seen the map module on them. That's a shame.
