A summary from Eric Klinenberg of his new book: "the number of people living alone globally is skyrocketing, rising from about 153 million in 1996 to 277 million in 2011". It's let down a little by the lazy choices of who to interview at the end, but it's a phenomenon worth watching (and one I'm happily part of).

Kaid Benfield, quoting Presidential archives: "[Eisenhower] went on to say that the matter of running Interstate routes through the congested parts of the cities was entirely against his original concept and wishes; that he never anticipated that the program would turn out this way . . . and that he was certainly not aware of any concept of using the program to build up an extensive intra-city route network as part of the program he sponsored."

On why the New York skyline isn't a product of bedrock depth, but is a result of various economic, societal and geographical pressures.

"Always on your smart phone, or still asking a policeman? Sense and the City: smart, connected and on the move, which runs until 18 March 2012, explores how emerging technologies are changing the way we access and experience London and compares this with past visions of the future." Closes 18th March 2012. Also: "The travel posters of artist and illustrator John Burningham"

bruces: http://t.co/D9oAWQU *The elite among urban "stuffed animals" #GothicHighTech #Chic #NYHighLine

"our own history -- let alone a tour of other parts of the world -- reveals a different reality. Across cultures, over thousands of years, people have traditionally built places scaled to the individual. It is only the last two generations that we have scaled places to the automobile."

From the article: “In the United States, there has been much more of a tendency to adapt cities to accommodate driving,” said Peder Jensen, head of the Energy and Transport Group at the European Environment Agency. “Here there has been more movement to make cities more livable for people, to get cities relatively free of cars.”

A must-read interview with Greg Lindsay, author of Aerotropolis, a book that argues - if the interview is anything to go by, persuasively - that the cities of the 21st century will be designed around airports.

"Each time I turned a corner I found another gem. Among the seemingly numberless secret gardens, winding alleyways, tiny squares and ancient courtyards I found stories of the old city and its characters, many extraordinary and unlikely architectural survivors, and a wealth of evidence to remind one again that the City - built, burned, bombed, rebuilt and rebuilt again - is still a uniquely fascinating, rich and engaging place to wander through."

"I thought I’d take a quick look at the Blackwall Reach Regeneration Project, picking out some of the more significant points." "I think that Architects do themselves no favours by aestheticising something that has to be lived in, without a care for the residents, but the regenerators certainly have nothing like the best interests of the residents at heart." A good read on the area around Robin Hood Gardens.

"Sarah Wigglesworth Architects has devised a scheme that could save east London flats Robin Hood Gardens from the bulldozers. The architect has shown how the blocks could be remodelled into modern family homes." I doubt this has any chance given the priorities of Tower Hamlets and central government, but it'd be nice if it did.

A guest post by James Griffioen pointing out that while there may not be big-box stores in Detroit, the city has plenty of places to get food (and not just junk, either).

"There are three principal conventions of Detroit writing in the major media." This article looks at all of them, with the thread of the ruin photography running through the article.

"These young idealists were once united around a vision of using science and art to create a city of equal citizens. Their architecture fused William Morris with urban high-rise; ancient parkland with concrete. Utopia London examines the, social and political agendas of the time in which the city was rebuilt. The story goes on to explore how the meaning of these transformative buildings has been radically manipulated over subsequent decades. Inspired by the optimism of the past it poses the question; where do we go from here and now?" I didn't bookmark this before; this rectifies that.

"Mumbai's muddled streets are too packed to walk through, so India's commercial capital has come up with a solution. Uplift the masses—not in some fuzzy metaphysical way, but on "skywalks" made of steel." I can't remember if this is the article I read last year, but it's a good summary.

"Once I arrived in the city, I became fascinated by its new system of Skywalks, 36 elevated walkways that are basically extended exits from the urban railroad stations. The city planners’ position was that commuters wanted to be able bypass the swarm of taxis and hawkers that surround the station exits, and have the Skywalks deposit them several kilometers away which would more equally distribute the amount of exiting pedestrians."

'“We spend all this time thinking about cities in terms of their local details, their restaurants and museums and weather,” West says. “I had this hunch that there was something more, that every city was also shaped by a set of hidden laws.”' Possibly flawed, but definitely interesting, and the NYT article sets the research in an interesting context. I'm looking forward to what comes out when he tackles companies.

"In these maps, activity on the Foursquare network is aggregated onto a grid of ‘walkable’ cells (each one 400×400 meters in size) represented by dots. The size of each dot corresponds to the level of activity in that cell. By this process we can see social centers emerge in each city." "we can show how Paris contains a much more contiguously walkable structure than both New York and London." Interesting (and pretty) stuff.

"As a puzzled, stressed and curious newcomer, whether I quickly and fully embrace a system, or whether I avoid it for a long time is an interesting measure of how “usable” the system is." An interesting look at some issues that put people off buses. (I'd say London does reasonably well on these, assuming you speak English, but it's far from perfect even so; nobody knows about the five bus maps you can get, for example.)

"I wanted a nerdy planning-related poster for my wall (other than the periodic table of city planning), so I made one this week. I scoured Google Earth and measured that quintessentially American grid in about fifty downtowns around the country." There's a surprising variation in block sizes across the cities.

"What we have here is a readymade zone – an area held slightly apart from the rest of the city, with unusual hazards and unusual advantages. This area is ripe for experimentation." Some interesting propositions.

Iain Sinclair tries to be funny, Zaha Hadid tries to clam she's seen it already, but Tony Travers' understated summary seems closest to the mark. (It's odd how 2030 doesn't have the ring of the future that 2010 did in 1990; I blame the millennium.)

Will Wiles scanned a magazine supplement late last year, and now the Observer has gone back to the original authors to follow up their predictions with what actually happened.

"instead of doing what a lot of internet-types are doing which is to see the city from above (maps and all) or from below (infrastructure and all) or even the surface of it (advertising and LED walls), I was going to focus on what makes my experience of cities (having lived in large ones like Amsterdam, Paris, London, Milan, Montreal) unique and enjoyable. A user’s experience."

Anna Minton in the Guardian: "Urban regeneration has seen entire districts pass into the hands of private companies – and their security guards". Most of the recent photography horror stories seem to start with a jobsworth security guard getting annoyed with someone taking a picture of a building, which should be legal, but in these half-private spaces, isn't.

"The Observer devoted its colour supplement to speculation about what London might be like in 20 years - in 2010" and Will Wiles has preserved it so you can compare it with what came to pass. For example: "The second vision... mostly consists of the removal of things that they don't like [such as] 'high-rise housing' in general." Well, not entirely wrong. "Mostly, these are replaced with open space." Um.

"I've been listening to and reading all sorts of incredibly smart people talking about urban computing and cities for a while now. ... What if we thought about the countryside instead?" Good stuff here from Russell.

"I suspect the war on pigeons is mainly to do with the trend for turning city centres into continental-style open spaces with pavement cafes and staged events. The messiness of nature must not intrude on this well-managed, tourist-friendly urbanism."

Will Wiles on Sim City, broken cities, badly fixing them ("the pleasure of being Robert Moses") and the conservatism that's come to life ("a common misconception about London is that it's "finished", that vast areas of it don't need anything to be done to them, and that's a crazy idea").

A review of 'Anthony Flint’s well-carpentered but breezy “Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City.”'

"A creative city is not goal oriented. Not only does it make little plans, it makes millions of little plans. It is adrift looking for its next opportunity. It is not made by an architect, but cultivated by its people."

A good piece on photography. "For many nonprofessionals whose interests lie in design and architecture, photography is an essential research tool that helps record and understand our built environment. Beyond this professionally specific group, it is as important as ever for every citizen to feel engaged with their towns and cities."

"One Sunday in recent memory, accompanied by a, e, e, o, and no doubt numerous other vowels that failed to make their presence known to us as we walked with both purpose and purposelessness from the Barbican on to admire the various works of Berthold Lubetkin that are scattered around the broken city." Nice photos, including one of the MIlton Court highwalk open wound. Wonderfully irreverent.

A terrifying, saddening read. I'm glad to see that this is getting a lot of traction on delicious. I know it's become somewhat fashionable to kick Dubai, but I sense that Johann Hari could have written most of this at any time in the last five years.

A really good post noting that "there is nothing unique about the frequency with which cyclists as a class break the law when compared with drivers" which goes on to explain what drivers also do and why cyclists make the decisions they often do.

By Tom, after talking about NY state stopping the city's proposed congestion charge. "The positive network externalities generated by cities depend on density." "Suburban settlements tend to lose value as they grow denser, however."

Jonathan Meades on "The Endless City", a collection of articles on urbanism. He doesn't like it very much.