Urban Planning Blog

While often unseen or overlooked, 1 out of every 100 Delhi residents earns a livelihood as a wastepicker. As a group, these informal garbage men and women collect over half of the city’s waste.

The City Fix shares a video that highlights the plight of the wasterpickers and their almost daily harassment by the police. The city government recently passed laws that favored private trash collection companies over this informal sector of laborers.

Without zoning our cities would be denser, more eco-friendly, cheaper to live in, more able to produce economies of agglomeration, and more immigrants would benefit from American prosperity [source].

Tyler Cowen tries to understand the role of zoning in promoting urban density and makes the above presumption. Except it isn’t always true. Houston, one of the largest cities in the U.S. has no zoning per se (has highly restrictive deed restrictions though) but yet is one of the sprawling cities in the nation. It has no downtown to be proud of and although high-rise condos are springing up inside the beltway, growth outside the ring far outstrips that trend. Also, as some commenters in the above-linked post mention, Houston is unique in the sense that high energy costs means the Houston economy is doing well which leads to more commute times.

On libertarian grounds, it helps to understand more about zoning and it isn’t necessarily one-size-fits-all strategy. As another commenter points out, zoning can vary from being simply designations for land use to micro-managing growth by monitoring every little change in structures. If lack of zoning results in a chaotic urbanscape like Houston, I rather prefer some form of zoning.

Urban civilizations continue to evolve and history is testimony that great civilizations have crumbled either due to onslaught of natural disasters or gradual shift in economic trends. Environmental Graffiti takes a look at 5 such cities in the United States that may be endangered. Like before, climate change and changing economies continue to influence the state of our cities.

I love IKEA’s simple and elegant designs (although I hate their cashiers). What better way to get the word out than to pimp out your local transit train?

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Presenting five designs for sustainable and urban farm towers that might revolutionize agriculture.

A nice gallery of Jean Nouvel’s fantastic architectural works. Jean Nouvel was awarded the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious award in architecture. In fact, he also designs home objects like bathroom faucets and showers that incorporate touch sensor technology that look to be inspired by Playstation.

The plans included the construction of two main boulevards, 120 meters (131 yards) wide and running cross-shaped through the city, lined with a number of gigantic buildings, halls, squares and triumphal arcs.

If Hitler had triumphed in the War, Berlin would have looked quite different. Of course, so would have the rest of the world.

Looking to finding a perfect suburbia for your family? Businessweek lists the 50 most kid-friendly small towns and suburbs in the U.S.

“Serero Architects have won the open competition to redesign any of the Eiffel Tower’s public reception and access areas as a celebration of the 120th birthday of Gustave Eiffel’s original creation” [source]. Don’t worry, the installation is temporary in nature and won’t modify the original structure in any way. But Eiffel Tower, one of the world’s recognizable icons itself was supposed to be a temporary structure [for the World Fair].

Bridges are one of the most beautiful structures in the world - structurally perfect yet aesthetically pleasing. Bridges are one of the few structures are an epitome of form follows function yet results in form triumphing over the mundane function of transporting people and vehicles from one side to another. Here are the ten most beautiful bridges in the world.

Couple of colleagues in a Sustainable Urbanism class had proposed floating homes as a potential solution for homes in New Orleans. This floating villa designed by Swedish architect, Staffan Strindberg, currently situated in the town of Kalmar on the east coast of Sweden may be a tad fancy for residents of New Orleans especially for those whose houses got washed away. But definitely a technology worth exploring, right?

Just because you can doesn’t always mean you should. “This gleaming hunk of urban development is about to rise on an artificial, perfectly square island off the coast of Dubai” [source]. Dubai has been going crazy creating all these islands off their coast probably because coastal properties enjoy greater demand and thus elicit higher prices. But in the long run, these islands are proving to be an environmental disaster as they end up destroying the marine life and coral reefs in the vicinity which are an integral part of the ecosystem. This 6.5 square kilometer mini-city is being designed by noted architect, Rem Koolhaas. Why would you care for the environment when your paycheck from this job alone can let you retire in riches?

GROW, a project that develops innovative solutions on green technologies draws inspiration from ivy growing on the side of a building - resulting in a hybrid energy delivery device of leafy, fluttering solar shingles that provide power via both sun and wind. I would love a day when roof shingles that use solar power are just as cheap as regular shingles.

Unfortunately not all world cities are as exotic as you thought. Forbes compiles the list of the world’s dirtiest cities.