German Cities Are Solving The Age-Old Public Toilet Problem - Fast Company

Building Roundabout: A Pro-Social Platform for Local Communities

A conversation with the team behind New_ Public's Roundabout.

A City in Common: A Framework to Orchestrate Large-scale Citizen Engagement around Urban Issues

As part of the Digital Library's transition to Open Access, new features for researchers are available in the Premium Edition. Click here to learn more.

Do we actually know how to make cities safer for women?

Women-only buses, catcalling fines and gender-sensitive design — we've tried them all.

Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

As banks, technology giants and would-be disruptors such as Square scrummage over the payment system of the future, German consumers seem perfectly happy with the payment system of the past. Germany remains one of the most cash-intensive advanced economies on earth.

The 'Digital Town Square' Problem

Privately owned public spaces like Twitter are often viewed as “public town squares.” But it's unclear exactly how private companies' influence on the so-called public spaces they control affects actual civic outcomes.

Smart Climate City Strategy

This post is also available in: German

Ode to the Shanghai Metro - Phoebe Lemon

Wayfinding has many applications, and arguably the most important one is public transportation systems. Granted, there are many different ways to design such a system, and the politics and culture of the environment in which it will be integrated certainly plays a large role. Interestingly, often when we discuss transportation systems on the global scale, individuals are so quick to praise New York or London’s metro systems, Europe’s “high speed” rail system, or how “Uber is the most original new technology cities have seen”. All of these statements are subjective, but somehow they’ve become accepted fact, especially in the West, and I argue that anyone who gives European/American public transport that much praise is blissfully living in a bubble. As an international student who grew up in America and has visited most of its major cities, lived in China for two years, and is now studying in the Middle East, I’ve had the opportunity to use almost every public transportation system to exist. Old fashion taxis, the Maglev, high speed trains, shared bikes, shared mopeds, carpools, the bus, the metro, I have used them all, but nothing quite compares to the way China does public transport.

under the hood

This week I’ve been thinking about what it’s like for a new generation to make things with computers. When we were talking in Berlin, Luce made a point that...

Communal Luxury: The Public Bathhouse

Throughout history, people have bathed in public rather than in private. Should we bring back the public bathhouse for the sake of sustainability?

What's Wrong With This Idea?

One of my favorite questions is: “What’s wrong with this idea?” It drives the conversation away from why the idea is great, and toward finding its flaws. That is invaluable in technology.

Rethinking the Smart City: Democratizing Urban Technology - RLS-NYC

Following the celebration of the “creative city” (as described by Richard Florida), the “smart city” has become the new flavor of the month—and a brand. It makes clever use of resources, and it attracts money, corporate power, and private industries. Offering us cheap, effective solutions to social and political problems, the smart city is functional, […]

Why Cities Boom While Towns Struggle

The jobs gap is also a jobs map: Places that succeed have a critical mass of creativity.

A City Is Not a Computer

This seems an obvious truth, but we need to say it loud and clear. Urban intelligence is more than information processing.

CityNerd — Is It An Actual Thing? And Can Cities Fix It?

If you're like a lot of people, the whole idea of the "male loneliness epidemic" elicits a huge eye roll more than anything. Well, today we're digging into the research on why this is an emerging issue, and whether urban planning is part of the solution.