Cities & Planning

In the 19th century, we learned to create buildings using steel frames. These could soar well above buildings framed in the incumbent wood, brick or stone. And in the same century, elevator technology became practicable, so the masses wouldn't have to work out those quads going up endless stairs. Architects

Submitted by SounderBruce, who says: Of Seattle’s many, many unsuccessful attempts to build a rapid transit system, none sting more than the century-old Bogue Plan. Rejected by a landslide of 10,00…

The comprehensive 1912 Bogue Plan might have very well prevented our most-common complaints about the city: traffic, lack of mass transit, crowding.

Seattle could have been a streamlined metropolis, but the people of the early city gave...

On March 5, 1912, some 40,000 Seattleites filed into voting booths across the city to decide whether its future would be directed by a 273-page comprehensive plan designed by civil engineer Virgil …

It’s fairly well known around Puget Sound that King County voters twice rejected a ballot measure in the late 1960s and early 1970s that would’ve built a heavy rail commuter line connecting Seattle with the suburbs.

Livability would flourish in surrounding neighborhoods if cars were removed from one of Seattle’s deadliest and most polluted streets. Today’s Aurora Avenue in Seattle is a wall, a loud…

'Solar schools’ could help the city in an age of intensifying extreme weather events.

Line extensions into neighborhoods like Belltown and the Central District are part of a set of solutions that would improve Seattle’s streetcars. Seattle has had a troubled recent history wit…

Opening up schoolyards to the public would give 20 million more Americans access to a park.

The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the social services of Stockholm: Billionaire Marc Lore has outlined his vision for a 5-million-person "new city in America" and appointed a world-famous architect to design it.

German auto manufacturer Opel has designed a vehicle with an unlikely target market: Not just urban denizens seeking more mobility, but also "Youngsters from 15 years of age." Those teens with Germany's AM license--essentially a scooter license--can legally drive the Opel Rocks-e, which they're billing as an SUM (Sustainable Urban

To preserve biodiversity and ecosystems, protected areas should be connected into a gigantic World Park.

Seattle is in a housing crisis, not a land crisis. We have plenty of land in this city. So much land we have the luxury of having more than 165,000 homes dedicated as single structures on a large l…

While Germany mulls over better solutions for a climate-friendly future, one northern village has already made the transition. And its residents say the benefits are worth every penny. DW pays a visit to Sprakebüll.

People are driving less. This trend is expected to continue.

A crochet teacher and her students beat plastic with recycled fabric

Forests are far superior to tree plantations at carbon removal. Unfortunately, the world is planning for tree plantations.