Cities: The Latest Architecture and News

Aside from the environmental and health benefits provided by biking, cycle cities are proving to be profitable, which has begun to attract support from many US business leaders. Not only do bike-friendly streets increase the visibility and desirability of real estate, they also reduce the need to waste money (and space) on ample parking. In addition to this, as the Guardian’s Michael Andersen points out, bicyclists are the “perfect customer: the kind that comes back again and again.” Learn why else biking is good for business here.

Traffic imprints found in Philadelphia’s record snowfall has revealed some clever opportunities for public space. As reported by This Old City, snow formations have carved examples of unused streetscape that could be easily reclaimed as pedestrian space. This would not only improve traffic safety, but would also enhance the city’s walkability and desirability. Learn more and see examples here.

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has been appointed to be the U.N. special envoy for cities and climate change. Upon receiving the news, Bloomberg tweeted: "Cities are taking measurable action to reduce emissions, emerging as leaders in the battle against climate change... I look forward to working with cities around the world and the UN to accelerate progress [to combat global warming].” You can read more here on USNews.

In a recent article for the Atlantic Cities, Richard Florida examines some new research from MIT that criticizes the idea that slums are a natural stage in the modernization of cities, showing that many slums continue to persist and even grow in cities/countries experiencing increased prosperity. Rather than economic growth, argues Florida, accountable governments and institutions make much more of an impact on slum development. You can read the full article here.

Earlier this week, the Guardian launched its new Cities website, which - as discussed by Oliver Wainwright in his opening article will be "an open platform for critical discussion and debate about the issues facing the world's metropolitan centres". In this introduction, Wainwright offers a fast-paced rundown of some of the major challenges facing cities, from technology to transport, housing to high streets, and economic to environmental disasters. You can read his full article here.

In this article on the Atlantic Cities, Richard Florida delves into recent research by Edward Glaeser, the author of Triumph of the City, which investigates the emergence in recent decades of mega-cities in developing nations. Though cities have long been connected to prosperity he points out that in these new cities, residents remain poor. The answer it seems is linked to our globalized economy, as well as the under prepared governments in these countries. However Glaeser and Florida don't see this as a reason for panic, or to abandon urbanization, but rather to ensure that urbanization is supported more effectively by government. You can read the full article here.

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“A New Online Marketplace for Mobility,” an innovative proposal by city planner Philip Parsons and mobility expert Federico Parolotto that aims to optimize mobility in megacities, has been named the first participant in the Audi Urban Future Award 2014. Selected from a shortlist of three, the winners will now assemble a team of urban designers in order to pursue their visionary idea. Read more about their winning proposal, here.

An interesting article on io9 unveils a curious law that can apparently predict the size of cities - a law developed by a linguist. The original version of Zipf's law states that in any language, the most common word was used twice as much as the second most common, three times as much as the third and so on. It seems though, that this law also applies to the populations of the cities in a given country. And the most interesting part? Nobody really knows why. You can read the full article here.

The Rockefeller Foundation has named the first group of cities selected in the “100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge.” Each city has been chosen for demonstrating “a commitment to building their own capacities to prepare for, withstand, and bounce back rapidly from shocks and stresses.” More than 1,000 registrations and nearly 400 formal applications from cities around the world were submitted. After careful review of each city's challenges, these 33 where chosen: