Urban Reads

How your neighborhood was designed by racists. What it’s like to sit behind the wheel of a car for four hours every day. The evils of alternate-side parking. And the beauty of traveling by antique rail car. All this and more, in this week’s Urban Reads. The racist policies that determined the way your neighborhood…

Examining rap lyrics to measure quality of life in Compton. An ambitious housing plan from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. How Boston is changing thanks to one architecture firm. Why Atlanta is putting all its money on the BeltLine. Plus, Bike Month! All in this week’s Urban Reads! Why does all the rap and…

Why a Raleigh neighborhood wants to tear down a modern house. How a suburb in Cleveland eradicated the school bus. Where Millennials are moving (hint: wherever the transit is). Plus Los Angeles’s Instagramming mayor and Vegas’s quest to legalize weed, all in this week’s Urban Reads. Neighborhood politics at their worst: A halfway constructed home…

Keeping bees in Buffalo, pouring concrete in Los Angeles, and using the subway as a data-collection tool in Moscow. Plus, both Time and the Wall Street Journal examine our high-rising ways. Take a peek at this week’s Urban Reads. “As a city, Buffalo has some characteristics that are beneficial for undercover beekeeping. It has a…

What burrowing owls have to do with San Francisco’s housing protests, a luxury apartment for horses in Manhattan, and Boston looks back on the transformation of its civic identity, one year later. Plus, a recap of Gizmodo’s Utopia Week. Climb aboard this week’s Urban Reads. “If you’re wondering why people are protesting you, how we…

How paying people to be parents has created a baby boom in Finland. Decoding the maybe-too-flashy urban renewal of once-dangerous Medellín, Colombia. And why a long-standing rivalry between Boston and New York led to the first American subways. Here are today’s Urban Reads. This Finnish town is paying residents 10,000 Euros to have a baby.…

A beautiful look at the U.S.-Mexico border, how American cities are turning into “play deserts,” and where you’ll find the real roots of the tech industry. Plus a pizza-funded religious community in Florida, a farm on Staten Island, and where rich dogs poop, all in this week’s Urban Reads. NPR walked and drove all 2,428…

London’s plan to grow up might go down, Elon Musk’s quest to make electric cars cool, and funny anti-Rob Ford ads appear in Toronto. Plus: Learning from streets in Vietnam, Paris, and Manhattan. All this and more in this week’s Urban Reads. A large and influential group of Londoners have launched a campaign against 200…

Climb into a sinkhole of bureaucracy in Pennsylvania (no, really, it’s a cave), explore San Francisco’s most storied structure (not the Golden Gate bridge), and jet off to to Myanmar (or is it Burma?). Plus, SCARY CLOWNS! In this week’s Urban Reads. “The employees here pass thousands of case files from cavern to cavern and…

A peek at Crimea’s controversial election day, Philly widens freeways by mistake, and does Austin, Texas, have a drinking problem? Plus, the incredible story behind Rio’s most famous monument, and the truth about earthquakes in L.A. Come along with us on this week’s Urban Reads. 96.7 percent of Crimeans can’t be wrong: What a (likely…

A new movie about Chicago; an unbelievable road diet in Buenos Aires creates 100 blocks of pedestrian space; and a tour of the vibrant city of Accra. Plus, another idea for solving San Francisco’s housing crisis, and everyone’s favorite cokehead mayor hits the late night talk show circuit, all in this week’s Urban Reads. A…

A new plan for U.S. transportation! California tries to fix its water crisis! An ugly building with good politics in Philly! Plus, Italy’s boyish new leader and a walking tour of “crushingly boring” Silicon Valley! It’s all in this week’s best Urban Reads. Obama unveiled a new transportation and infrastructure plan last week. Now he…

Changes in Red Hook, violence in Kiev, and new ideas for Paris from mayoral candidates. Plus Bogotá bans cars for a week, California might divide into six states, and the surprising history of Hollywood. These are all the Urban Reads you need. “The trolleys were a reminder of a different era in Red Hook, a…

Redesigning New Orleans for flooding, new buildings in Williamsburg that don’t suck, and a skyscraper in L.A. that will soon be the tallest west of Chicago. Plus: Google’s urban expansion and dying department stores, all in this week’s Urban Reads. How New Orleans’ new water plan will dramatically reshape the city’s streets and canals to…

Moby wants you to join his perpetual pool party in Los Angeles, and a group of scientists wants China to use “spatial economics” to design more walkable cities. Plus: informal transit in Nairobi, a failed utopia in California, radical ideas for the Vegas of 2034, and a significant prehistoric site that’s currently being uncovered in…

How the Super Bowl failed its transit-riding attendees, an L.A. museum that collects houses, and why Monarch butterflies are dying (spoiler: because of us). Plus a McDonald’s in Queens, Millennials in St. Louis, and biking in Las Vegas. It’s time for your weekly Urban Reads. What was promoted as the “Mass Transit Super Bowl” was…

An emerging maker culture building Cincinnati, a “Green Line” making a Mexican city healthier, and a car-free festival changing L.A.—all that, plus preserving post offices in an age of email and three plans to save San Francisco from a housing crisis, in this week’s Urban Reads. “In America, nearly every city and town has, or…

Martin Luther King’s 1956 tips for riding integrated buses, examining how design has helped an Alabama county, building instant cities in Accra and instant skyscrapers in Mumbai, and how two New York architects are tearing down the work of their former friends. It’s all this week in our favorite Urban Reads. “Do not deliberately sit…

Portland celebrates another safe year for cyclists, Hamburg goes car-free, San Francisco rents its curbs to tech buses, Houston’s got some wacky architecture, and L.A. is the city of the future—or a city in decline? It’s all in this week’s Urban Reads. In 2013, the city of Portland, Oregon, reported zero bike fatalities—again. They also…

The marijuana economy in California, battling obesity in Oklahoma City, the real underground in London, plus buildings that used to be Pizza Huts, and much more, all in this week’s urban reads. Colorado may have just legalized pot, but California has nurtured a thriving industry for years. A peek inside the state’s weed economy [Next…