Going on sale this week is a new book edited by London School of Economics professor Richard (Ricky) Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, director of London’s Design Museum, entitled “The Endless City”. The book consists of essays by urban planners and specialists examining the similarities and contrasts in the growth of six major world cities: New York, London, Shanghai, Mexico City, Johannesburg and Berlin.
Writing in yesterday’s Manchester Guardian, Sudjic considers the pressures on modern cities; 50% of the world’s population now lives in metropolitan areas, and by the middle of this century that number will rise to 75%. He also speaks in this podcast in Newsweek’s series on innovation.
From the descriptions, the book sounds a bit more aimed at the serious academic community than a popular audience, but would undoubtedly be interesting reading for anyone who has an interest. The Guardian piece seems like a good top-level summary if you just want the basic idea of it.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT.
Since you cannot click a [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and [...]
Thanks to Shelley for alerting me that last night’s edition of the local TV newsmagzine “Chronicle” featured Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, whom I blogged about recently in conjunction with the various atheist billboard campaigns around the country. I was busy helping Charlotte do her homework, so I didn’t watch the show, but WCVB’s [...]
In a related item, Cory Doctorow mentions a new book about another city emerging into global importance, Mumbai.
Sounds like this one is probably more approachable for the layperson, or even as a companion read to “The Endless City”