urban link archives: quicklinks home

Tuesday April 8, 2008

The long way there


The commuting patterns of Americans are changing: a slideshow of photos by Vincent Laforet.

Thursday March 13, 2008

Friday November 16, 2007

Monday June 18, 2007

Minister rails at China, land of a thousand identical cities


Not just any minister, but the Chinese vice-minister of contstruction...

Wednesday June 13, 2007

Friday June 1, 2007

Friday March 9, 2007

Reach for the skies


Robert Hughes on how a group of architects combined the myths of a glorious past with progress and innovation in Barcelona

Saturday December 16, 2006

OFT blasts government agencies for manipulating the market in public sector information


Data restrictions allegedly cost economy £500m: the Ordnance Survey comes in for particularly virulent criticism.

Intimate strangers


Susie Rea talks to and photographs the people who you see every day but who you never actually meet.

Friday December 8, 2006

Thursday November 30, 2006

Friday November 17, 2006

A one-way street to postcode madness


An up-to-date list of addresses is vital for local authorities - but they have to pay for the data they created themselves...

Tuesday November 14, 2006

Thursday September 14, 2006

Cyclists wearing helmets are 'more likely to be hit'


Drivers drive closer to men [and further away from women] and drive closer to riders who are wearing helmets

Monday August 14, 2006

Edinburgh Council workers running gauntlet of hate


On average, council workers report abuse five times every day.
So how many times a day are they actually abused? Twenty? Fifty??

Thursday June 29, 2006

Tuesday June 27, 2006

Saturday June 24, 2006

Wednesday June 21, 2006

The destruction of Beijing’s "hutongs"


Beijing's historic layout, which dates back six hundred years to the time of the Ming Dynasty, consists of hutongs, narrow alleyways that run in a maze-like fashion around the centre of the city. A third of the hutongs have been destroyed in the last three years...

Monday June 12, 2006

The Viele map of Manhattan

[via kottke]
What Manhattan looked like before it was "filled in, paved over, dug up and forested with skyscrapers".  Images 2006 06 11 Nyregion Thecity 11Viele450

Saturday June 10, 2006

Keep dangerous palms trees off the street, Torbay council told


"Having palm trees is a little bit like keeping tigers" says a Liberal Democrat.

Monday June 5, 2006

Monday May 29, 2006

Drosscape: Wasting Land In Urban America [via theboxtank]
 Photos Uncategorized Drosscape
Drosscapes proposes a way of thinking about and approaching dross, or "the landscape leftovers, or wastescapes"...
Sounds like most landscapes to me...

Saturday April 15, 2006

The Golden Age of Skyscrapers
Witold Rybczynski thinks the 21st Century skyscraper is an entirely different being from the 20th Century's modernist and post-modernist stylings...

Wednesday March 22, 2006

Aryans on the Altar; Swastikas on the Church Bells
Should Berlin's only protestant Nazi-era church be preserved?

Sunday March 19, 2006

Mutiny at the Cafe
When baristas strike back...

Saturday March 18, 2006

Monday March 13, 2006

Public inconvenience
There are 400 public toilets in London, a city of 7.5 million people. Excluding tourists and commuters, that's one for every 18,000 people.

Sunday March 5, 2006

You're nicked ... now please follow me through ladies' lingerie
London's Metropolitan Police to build police cells in Selfridge's Department Store.

Saturday March 4, 2006

Wednesday January 25, 2006

Urban life through two lenses [via Rebecca's Pocket]
"A century apart, but the same place, and the same time: two photographers, two lenses, but the same goal."

Wednesday January 11, 2006

Young 'taking over city centres'
Well, students actually...

Monday December 12, 2005

The Suburban Loft
Not quite the oxymoron you'd expect...

Sunday December 11, 2005

New Orleans cuts its poor adrift
Reconstruction for some, antipathy and hostility for others.
££500 fine proposed if you don't co-operate with council tax inspectors
The only thing worse than Council Tax is... Council Tax Mark 2. I am so glad I don't live in England.

Thursday December 8, 2005

Friday December 2, 2005

Sunday November 27, 2005

Saturday November 5, 2005

Gentrifying Disaster
Hurricane Katrina, the New Urbanism, voting rights and racial politics - a pretty toxic combination.

Tuesday October 18, 2005

Monday October 17, 2005

Hurricane evacuees seek help in poverty-stricken regions
"We were suffering [even] before that damn hurricane came"

Friday October 14, 2005

The Best Burgers in NYC
And who says I never post anything of vital importance??
U.S. poor trapped in urban areas
"Many of the US's most disadvantaged minority households are trapped in pockets of concentrated urban poverty, preventing them from getting the educations and jobs that would enable them to rise above the poverty line"

Saturday October 8, 2005

Uncool cities
The key to urban prosperity may not revolve around attracting the "hipster set" of gays, twentysomethings and young creatives after all.

Tuesday April 12, 2005

Monday April 11, 2005

The Mall Goes Undercover - It now looks like a city street
Nice to see that our american friends discovering Post-Modern retailing.
The Scourge of "Tuscan"
I live about 25 miles north of Orange County in the old middle of Los Angeles (yes, there is a middle) and while there are many things to like about it, there are a few things to abhor: and one of those things is the creeping encroachment of a new visual style in building — hard to call it architecture — that has already covered Orange County and threatens the visual ecosystem of Los Angeles like an errant weed that blew over in a shipping container from some other place and proceeds to choke out all other organic growth. Some call this style “Tuscan”.

Thursday March 31, 2005

Obesity and Urban Design
How to make suburban areas more conducive to walking, biking, and other types of 'active living.'

Monday February 14, 2005

Witold Rybczynski analyses Disney's Celebration - the prototypical new urbanist master planned town.

Thursday February 10, 2005

Saturday February 5, 2005

London Underground Stations
Lovingly hand coloured, not half as dull as you might think. via Londonist.

Friday February 4, 2005

New York Changing
Cityscapes from the 1930s compared with more recent photos.