• In dark ages, hope lies in the city

    On the centenary of Jane Jacobs’s birth, architects and planners lauded her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities . Both loved and reviled upon its release, it has come to be seen as one of the essential books about the city, the importance of lively, diverse neighbourhoods and housing...Read more

  • China chokes on high-density sprawl

    Superblocks with high-rise towers surrounded by giant arterial roads are a threat to economic, social, and environmental sustainability. The Asian superpower has a new plan, but can change come in time?
    Note: This article is part of a collaboration between Island Press and Public Square on a series of articles based on recently published books on subjects related to urbanism. Cities affect our lives in profound, self-reinforcing ways: they can be a source of economic innovation, a pathway for...Read more

  • How variety within limits makes great places

    The most-loved places are comprised of buildings with an endless variety of details within a limited range of architecture, giving distinct and recognizable character.
    The most-loved places around the world vary enormously. At first glance, there seems to be no common thread, because it is the uniqueness of each of these places that makes them notable. Further observation, however, yields at least one common thread: each of them exhibits great variety within a...Read more

  • The real cost of six million people in a suburban swamp

    The recent deluge that inundated Houston and left it looking like Bangladesh reveals the myopia that distorts Joel Kotkin’s latest book, The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us . A stalwart defender of drivable suburbanism, Houston is Kotkin’s poster child, “America’s Opportunity City.” What he...Read more