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Tech NewsA Politician Would Like New York Trees to Have Their Own Email Addresses
It’s virtually impossible to get by in today’s modern world without digital communication. Perhaps that’s why a New York City politician has a plan to give 200 trees around the city their own email addresses. The idea belongs to Mark Levine, an Upper West Side Councilmember. In an interview with Gothamist, he explained that“NYC is … Continued
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Tech News
These Are the Best Architectural Images of the Year
The winners of the 2015 Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards were announced last week as part of the the World Architecture Festival—and the results are predictably stunning. The image above, shot by Fernando Guerra, took first prize. It shows the vibrant orange, yellow and green hues of the EPFL Quartier Nord, a new mixed-use building … Continued
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Tech News
Self-Driving Cars Will Be On Roads by 2020 But US Cities Won’t Be Ready for Them
Even though at least seven autonomous car programs swear they’ll be street-ready by 2020, the truth is that US cities are woefully unprepared for this reality. Only six percent of the US’s largest cities include any language about self-driving vehicles in their long-range transportation plans. That’s according to a new report from the National League … Continued
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Tech News
What Happens When Your Dad Is Killed While Staying In an Airbnb
With over one million unregulated listings globally, critics of Airbnb have long said it’s only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt at one of the startup’s rentals. The most nightmarish scenario possible happened to a writer who is now coming forward: On Thanksgiving Day 2013, his father died from injuries sustained at … Continued
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Tech NewsWatch How Designers Re-engineered an Island to Make a Park in New York City
Parks aren’t always built just so we can enjoy the trees. On Governor’s Island in New York City, a truly unique public space will bring nature back to a former military base–and it’s engineered to withstand the catastrophic storms that climate change will bring. It’s called The Hills, and in this documentary, we talk to … Continued
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Tech News
Architects Say This Apartment Complex Is the Year’s Best Building–Here’s Why
What do villages look like in a world where most people live in cities? Can close-knit communities even exist in the megapolis of the future? The Interlace, an unusual apartment building that was just crowned Building of the Year, thinks so. The Interlace is an apartment complex in Singapore designed by Ole Scheeren, a German … Continued
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Tech News
LA’s New Streetlamps Will Keep Cell Service Running After an Earthquake
Cities beefing up their smart infrastructure have tapped the ubiquitous streetlamp to track traffic data and measure pollution. Now, in Los Angeles, some streetlights will help keep the communications network intact after an emergency. LA is the first city in the world to install Philips-branded SmartPoles, which are outfitted with 4G LTE wireless technology by … Continued
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Tech News
Workers Discover 19th-Century Burial Vault With a Dozen Human Skeletons Under NYC [More Photos]
Crews working on water mains below New York City’s Greenwich Village made an appropriately spooky find for the week after Halloween: A 19th-century burial vault containing the remains of least a dozen people. NYC’s Department of Design and Construction reported the discovery yesterday as they began excavating the site, which is on the east side … Continued
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Tech News
The Pedestrian Fast Lane Is No Life At All—Let’s Slow the Sidewalk Down
Everyone has experienced it. Striding along in a purposeful hurry, your progress is thwarted by a slow-moving pedestrian, dawdling along the pavement. Perhaps they’re talking into their mobile phone, looking lost or just plain taking their time. It can drive you mad. The question is: should it? According to unsubstantiated research commissioned by UK retailer … Continued
Nick Tyler -
Tech News
No One Really Knew How Many Ghost Cities Existed in China… Until Now
China’s “ghost cities,” where towns are built at high-speed but struggle to find residents, are a well-known phenomenon. But while there are lots of pictures of these uncanny cities online, it’s really difficult to figure out how many actually exist. That’s due in part to the fact that development has been so rapid and so … Continued
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Tech News
Do Trees Really Help Clean the Air in Our Cities?
It may sound like a no-brainer to say that trees improve air quality. After all, we know that trees absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂), and that their leaves can trap the toxic pollutants nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), ozone, and harmful microscopic particles produced by diesel vehicles, cooking and wood burning. Yet some recent studies … Continued
Rob MacKenzie -
Tech News
Boston’s Most Controversial Buildings Prove That Concrete Can Be Beautiful
Boston, city of charming Colonial-era brick rowhouses lining narrow cobblestone streets. Not exactly the place you’d expect to incubate a modern design revolution. And yet, when Brutalism first came to the US, the hard-edge architectural movement took its firmest hold here. The new book Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston by Mark Pasnik, Chris … Continued
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Tech News
The Uncertain Fate of the Fastest Ocean Liner Ever Built
The SS United States is the world’s fastest passenger ship, and the biggest ever built in the U.S. Despite last-minute donations and plans to transform it into startup offices and awesome restaurants, advocates are still fighting to save it from the scrapyard. It’s an old ocean liner—relics of the past, they’re ships designed to ferry … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
Tech News
These Are the Best Cities for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
Everyone knows you’re better off avoiding large cities in the event of a zombie pandemic. But if you’re going to take the risk of living in a city anyway, which one has the best chance of making it through the apocalypse? Job-hunting site CareerBuilder and Economic Modelling Specialists International (which CareerBuilder owns) tried to predict … Continued
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Tech NewsHow Bad Data Caused the Fires That Leveled The Bronx in the 1970s
“The Bronx is burning.” Throughout the 1970s, hundreds of buildings went up in flames in New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. But nowhere were the fires more prevalent than The Bronx, where on a single night in July 1977, 400 blazes were raging. And flawed urban planning data was to blame. The photos and films from … Continued
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Tech News
Why Scrapping the One-Child Policy Will Do Little to Change China’s Population
China is scrapping its one-child policy and officially allowing all couples to have two children. While some may think this heralds an overnight switch, the reality is that it is far less dramatic. This is, in fact, merely the latest in an array of piecemeal national and local reforms implemented since 1984. In fact the … Continued
Stuart Gietel-Basten -
Tech News
China Is Ending Its One-Child Policy
China is to scrap its one-child policy, first implemented in 1979, according to reports from the state-run new agency Xinhua. The news emerges at the end of a four-day meeting of China’s ruling Communist Party. All Chinese couples will now be abbe to have two children, not just one, according to the news agency. The … Continued
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Tech News
St. Louis’s Riverfront Was a Thriving Neighborhood Before the Arch Was Built
Today is the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Gateway Arch, one of the most striking and distinctive monuments in human history. But like all feats of engineering, the Arch came with a price—the obliteration of one of St. Louis’s oldest neighborhoods. I admit, as a native of St. Louis, I hadn’t thought much … Continued
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Tech News
The Shells of Former Pizza Huts Continue to Shape Our Cities
Like many children of the ‘80s, Pizza Hut occupies a special place in my heart. Those red-roofed, linoleum-floored restaurants are woven into my early childhood memories as palaces of delectably greasy pizza, texture-perfect breadsticks, and carefree Saturday afternoons. I haven’t been to a Pizza Hut in over a decade, and apparently, I’m not alone. Pizza … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
The Experimental Jungle Room Where NYC’s Underground Park Is Taking Root
When you walk into the Lowline Lab, the first thing you taste is oxygen. The Lab is hidden in an old warehouse, two blocks away from where the Lowline, a proposed underground park, is slated to open in 2020. The Lab is its prototype–part testing ground and part public sneak peek at the paradise that … Continued