http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/urban planning http://io9.com/tag/urban planning

You don't need to be an eccentric billionaire or rugged survivalist to take up residence in a cave. All around the globe, living in an rocky recess is just a fact of life and can be way more homey than any manmade structure. Here are some real estate destinations to investigate should you attempt to cultivate that post-modern caveman chic.

More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5879272&view=rss&microfeed=true

When electric power was in its infancy, there was a debate on how exactly to light up a city. Today we have settled on streetlights lining the sidewalks, but once upon a time, they had giant towers that re-created the moon. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5876985&view=rss&microfeed=true

Cities are dirty, noisy warrens of closely-packed humans. Now scientists from Tel Aviv have gathered evidence that suggests we cope with the stresses of urban life by breathing carbon monoxide, an odorless poison gas found in car exhaust. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5857775&view=rss&microfeed=true

When hurricane Irene failed to flood Manhattan as predicted over the weekend, many called the evacuation an overreaction to media hype - one local told the New York Times he was "embarrassed." But scientists and civil engineers say the city's response made good sense. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5835596&view=rss&microfeed=true

In a recently proposed 10-year development plan, Singapore aims to go from being "a garden city" to "a city in a garden." The proposal marks the latest milestone in the city's decades-long effort to become an eco-city. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5830146&view=rss&microfeed=true

Dwell magazine has a fascinating interview with UC Berkeley architecture professor Nezar AlSayyad, about the peculiar urban design that went into Tahrir Square, the locus of so many protests in Cairo. AlSayyad, who also heads up the university's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, explains that the square - which isn't in fact square at all - is perfectly designed to host a massive anti-government protest. Here's why. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5769002&view=rss&microfeed=true

In the early 1900s, Dr. T. Kenard Thomson proposed increasing NYC's property value by creating a land bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, building an island off the Jersey shore, and constructing a "New Manhattan" directly below the old one. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5673807&view=rss&microfeed=true

A 10-day traffic jam may be clogging the streets of Beijing, but traffic around the world continues to toot along - or not. Take a peek at our video gallery of traffic scenes around the world, from Lagos to Saskatoon. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5620911&view=rss&microfeed=true

The cities of the future will be huge and super-dense — but will they also be alive? Could the increasingly complex systems needed to manage the next generation of megacities become our first true artificial intelligence? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5619183&view=rss&microfeed=true

China and India are two of the most rapidly urbanizing areas of the world. In a fantastically interesting article over at Foreign Policy, Richard Hobbs breaks down the numbers on how big cities will be in both countries by 2030. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5614523&view=rss&microfeed=true

Cisco is a Silicon Valley company that makes routers, and famously helped generate the "great firewall of China" to aid that country's government with internet censorship. Now they're creating an instant, high tech city in Korea, controlled entirely via internet. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5553706&view=rss&microfeed=true

What is the future of Paris? That's a subject currently under discussion by architects and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to create a "Grand Paris" even if it includes redrawing the map altogether. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5170086&view=rss&microfeed=true

Most people saw the massive cityscape in the new Star Trek trailer, and drooled. But not San Francisco activists, who've battled to keep mega-buildings out. Did Starfleet scrap our zoning laws? They ask. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5169270&view=rss&microfeed=true

It's as if we're witnessing the rise of the walled cities in Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age, where neo-Victorians live in isolated, nanotech splendor while other people live in cardboard boxes. This image shows the stark contrast between the slums and the mini-city called Hamilton Court in Gurgaon, India. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5014641&view=rss&microfeed=true

Urban history is littered with the dead bodies of scrapped public transit projects. When eager commuters and car companies turned the automobile into the most popular form of transit in the world in the twentieth century, many cities set aside plans for expanding their public transit systems, such as the electric tram system planned for regions feeding into Melbourne, Australia. In some cases, city planners actually ripped out existing transit systems like Los Angeles' once-enormous cable car network. What would these cities and others look like if their public transit systems had continued to thrive and we lived in a world without cars? We've got five alternate urban histories of public transport for you below. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=380666&view=rss&microfeed=true

Last month in Leipzig, Germany, the world's most enormous drill bit emerged from this wall. It was boring a subway tunnel. Want to see the drill up close? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=346382&view=rss&microfeed=true

A team of architecture firms has released the first sketches of plans to rebuild the New Orleans waterfront. (Final plans will be announced in February.) They include developing trails and buildings a four mile stretch along the Mississippi River, giving people more access to the water and views of its serpentine banks. At the center of the project is this bent warehouse (above), which will be broken in half (below) to create a glass-enclosed parklike area where people can take in views of the river. Images courtesy of TEN. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=335924&view=rss&microfeed=true

The city of Chicago has released a very detailed plan to make the city one of the most bicycle-friendly in the U.S. In their "Bike 2015 Plan," Chicago city planners propose elevated bike lanes, special maps designed to aid bikers, and a 500-mile bikeway network throughout the city. Their goal is to make 5 percent of city trips under 5 miles into bicycle trips by 2015. That sounds small, but it's huge. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=335423&view=rss&microfeed=true

A new campaign wants to rename 42nd Ave. in Portland, OR to Douglas Adams Blvd in honor of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author. The group's site claims that renaming the street will show Portland's commitment to the arts and the environment. Insert your own joke here about how this would be a "mostly harmless" change that would make us thankful for fish or whatever. [Blue Oregon] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=324750&view=rss&microfeed=true