Cities & Planning

Fixing Math 'n' Stuff's broken windows is probably cheaper than paying cops overtime.

During the Cold War, the US built a network of tunnels in the Greenland ice sheet. Sixty years later, the base has provided a critical clue about the climate crisis.

Colonization decimated Pacific herring, surf smelt and eulachon populations. Now the Tsleil-Waututh Nation is trying to ‘reset the clock.’

An early view of the Chicago Bears' stadium and mixed-use development project would look on the site of the former Arlington Park Racetrack ...

An energy company called Fervo says it has achieved a breakthrough in geothermal technology.

This past May, the city of Los Angeles rolled out a brand new, state-of-the art feature for bus shelters. It’s called La Sombrita. La Sombrita is a metal screen that’s intended to provide shade for the thousands of people who ride the bus every day. The shade screen is about two feet wide, ten feet

A rendering of a rooftop terrace installed by the Parisian startup Roofscapes. With its zinc roofs and minimal tree cover, Paris was not built to handle the new era of extreme heat. Now, like other...

The City of Kirkland is in the middle of a deep dive on how it could make one of its most popular downtown streets more inviting, more people-centric, and more activated. That street is Park Lane, a 400-foot stretch of quiet one-way roadway connecting busy Main Street and Lake Street with popular businesses on either

Earlier this month, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) started construction on a small stretch of multi-use pathway near I-90 that will have an oversized impact: It will finally connect the main neighborhood greenway throughout the Rainier Valley to the Mountains to Sound trail to Beacon Hill and across the lake to the Eastside. Since

Street parking takes up space and incentivizes driving. New curb management companies are trying to help cities better use this space

Hopes for the first high-quality Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line in Pierce County were formally dashed this week when Pierce Transit told its board of commissioners that it could no longer move forward with plans to create any dedicated space for buses along Pacific Avenue between downtown Tacoma and Spanaway. The line, which was to

One year ago, Spokane shocked the state by passing a sweeping housing reform bill that, among other things, reduced minimum lot sizes and legalized fourplexes anywhere you can build a single-family home. Passed unanimously by a Spokane City Council seen as split 5-2 between progressives and conservatives, the reform arguably catalyzed the passage of HB 1110, which

Cold Call: Time Theft as Avoided Emissions is an unconventional carbon offsetting scheme that draws on strategies of worker sabotage and applies them in the context of high emission companies in the fossil fuel industry.

Sound Transit is advancing some service change proposals for next year. By and large, the proposals are similar to concepts that the agency shared in May. Changes being proposed are relatively modest given that agency partners are still struggling to maintain current service levels under a tough staffing environment. In South King County and Pierce

Photo by Andrey Metelev on Unsplash Batteries and transmission are in direct competition. Both enable electricity arbitrage – the profitable repricing of a resource by matching different levels of …

A short and spicy post. There remains, even in 2023, a substantial fraction of the “future of energy” hivemind who are still convinced that the solution to all our problems is to build …

As I've been thinking more about spaces [https://www.rahulshankar.com/default-spaces/] I'm trying to get smarter about how zoning and land use is structured in the United States and different parts of the world. If I had to define zoning, it would be something like this – The legal apparatus

Circular Economy. A selection of articles, interviews and projects

The rise of remote work offers a family friendly way to cut emissions

This weekend, elected officials and staff with the City of Kirkland cut the ribbon on the new Totem Lake Connector bicycle and pedestrian bridge. The new bridge finally stitches together the nearly 6-mile gravel Cross Kirkland Corridor trail over two oversized and dangerous roadways, Totem Lake Boulevard and NE 124th Street, connecting the city's growing

For many working-class Americans, cars are a burden and a necessity.

The degrowth movement makes a comeback.

Scientists at Purdue have created a white paint that, when applied, can reduce the surface temperature on a roof and cool the building beneath it.

By Amanda Page When I’m asked to offer an example of digital humanities, I point directly to the Scioto Historical website and app. It is a repository of much historical information about Portsmout…

In Paris and elsewhere, cities are exploring the economic and environmental benefits of building-based agriculture and racing to protect farmland at the urban edge.

Urban centers are being hollowed out while their peripheries are booming. This is the emerging shape of the American city.

The world wants a billion new air conditioners? Greener tech will bring the cool

The concept of plants guilds is an extension of the companion plants thought process. Different plants do different things and bring different benefits.

Creating a tree guild provides a natural, selfsustaining, useful landscape that encompasses several plant species, each with its own purpose and benefit to the others. What is a tree guild? Use the information in this article to learn more.