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Environment
01.23.12: Austin Troy
Thirsty CityOn Places, Austin Troy assesses the massive infrastructure required to bring water to the arid American West — and the huge amount of energy that makes it possible to take a shower in Los Angeles.
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11.10.11: Andrew Ross
Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable CityOn Places, Andrew Ross analyzes the contradictory political and economic forces that once made Phoenix the fastest-growing city in the U.S. — and today a prime casualty of the crash.
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09.22.11: Laura Tepper
Road Ecology: Wildlife Habitat and Highway DesignOn Places, Laura Tepper looks at the emerging field of road ecology and its influence on a new generation of highway landscape design.
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09.06.11: James Barilla
The Road to ExurbiaOn Places, James Barilla recounts the rural pleasures of growing up in a hill town in Western Massachusetts — yet regrets the deep environmental footprint of low-density exurban life.
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08.22.11: Barry Lopez
Dixon MarshOn Places, a short story by Barry Lopez set in the Petersen Mountains on the Nevada-California border.
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08.15.11: Anthony Doerr
Village 113On Places, a short story by Anthony Doerr set in a Chinese village soon to be drowned by the Three Gorges Dam.
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07.14.11: David T. Hanson
Colstrip, MontanaOn Places, a photo essay by David T. Hanson, focusing on the massive coal mine at Colstrip, Montana, and the complicated nexus of energy politics and land use in the American West.
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06.20.11: Adelheid Fischer
Starry NightOn Places, Adelheid Fischer describes the growing night-sky movement, which advocates for the cultural and biological benefits of reducing light pollution — and keeping the Milky Way visible.
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04.18.11: Timothy Beatley
Blue Urbanism: The City and the OceanOn Places, planning professor Tim Beatley makes a case for blue urbanism — a new planning focus on how the design of cities affects the health of the planet's oceans.
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03.24.11: Alejandro Cartagena & Aaron Rothman
Lost RiversOn Places, a portfolio of images by Mexican photographer Alejandro Cartagena, documenting the ecological effects of rapid urbanization.
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03.21.11: Kristi Dykema Cheramie
The Scale of Nature: Modeling the Mississippi RiverOn Places, Kristi Dykema Cheramie explores the ruins of the abandoned Mississippi River Basin Model and ponders the decades-long battle to control the great river.
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02.24.11: Dorothy Tang & Andrew Watkins
Ecologies of Gold: The Past and Future Mining Landscapes of JohannesburgOn Places, Dorothy Tang and Andrew Watkins explore the ecological rehabilitation of the defunct gold mines of central Johannesburg.
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11.04.10: Charles Waldheim
Notes Toward a History of Agrarian UrbanismOn Places, Charles Waldheim sketches a history of agriculture in cities, from Frank Lloyd Wright to ecological urbanism.
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10.21.10: Javier Arbona
Dangers in the Air: Aerosol Architecture and Invisible LandscapesOn Places, Javier Arbona looks at innovative projects that conceptualize air — the atmosphere that surrounds us — as a dynamic and even political component of buildings and landscapes.
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09.09.10: Elizabeth Mossop and Jeffrey Carney
In the Mississippi Delta: Building with WaterOn Places, Elizabeth Mossop and Jeffrey Carney report on the work of the Coastal Sustainability Studio at Louisiana State University, which is proposing long-range solutions to the environmental and social challenges of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
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09.07.10: Richard Campanella
New Fuel for an Old Narrative: Notes on the BP Oil DisasterOn Places, geographer Richard Campanella recalls a long hot summer, and sets the BP oil spill into the complex environmental and cultural contexts of America's third coast.
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06.02.10: Alejandro Bahamón & Maria Camila Sanjinés
Rematerial: From Waste to ArchitectureOn Places, Rematerial: From Waste to Architecture: a gallery of architecture projects constructed from discarded materials, ranging from recycled tires to repurposed refrigerators to the steel supports of a dismantled expressway.
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05.10.10: Timothy Beatley
Green MetropolisOn Places, urban planning professor Timothy Beatley, author of Green Urbanism, reviews Green Metropolis, by David Owen, which argues that Manhattan is the greenest city in the U.S.
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04.22.10: Paho Mann & Nancy Levinson
The Art of Solid WasteOn Places, a slideshow of photographer Paho Mann's images of post-consumer detritus — a.k.a. trash — part of a new public art project at a solid waste facility in Phoenix, Arizona.
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04.08.10: Mimi Zeiger
Two Feet High and Rising: On Optimism, Speculation and OystersOn Places, Mimi Zeiger reviews MoMA's ambitious new architecture and urban design show, Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront, which explores how New York Harbor might be adapted in the face of rising sea levels.
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04.01.10: Richard Campanella
Delta Urbanism and New Orleans: AfterOn Places, the second of a two-part essay by Richard Campanella, on the ongoing struggles of New Orleans to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
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03.29.10: Richard Campanella
Delta Urbanism and New Orleans: BeforeOn Places, an excerpt from Delta Urbanism: New Orleans, geographer Richard Campanella's account of the ongoing environmental and political struggles of post-Katrina New Orleans — and why a great American city remains pathetically vulnerable to further catastrophe.
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11.14.09: Center for Land Use Interpretation
Urban CrudeAn online gallery extracted from Urban Crude, an exhibition created by the Center for Land Use Interpretation, documenting the metropolitan petroscape of Los Angeles.
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10.17.09: Charlie Cannon
Partly SunnyPartly Sunny — an exhibition curated and produced at the Rhode Island School of Design — showcases three dozen projects and programs that are successfully confronting the challenges of climate change.
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09.26.09: William W. Braham
How Much Does Your Household Weigh?How much does your household weigh? Architect William Braham explores the unfolding complexities of sustainable design.
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09.24.09: Barbara Penner
Niagara: It Has It AllArchitectural historian Barbara Penner reviews Inventing Niagara, by Ginger Strand, drawing out the contradictory mix of reverence and exploitation inspired by the famous falls.
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09.12.09: Nicole Huber & Ralph Stern
Urbanizing the MojaveAmerica's greatest boomtown has gone bust. Architects Nicole Huber and Ralph Stern explore the cultural and environmental consequences of the rapid expansion of Las Vegas into the Mojave Desert, tracing a troubled history of mining, militarization, tourism, and water politics.
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10.15.08: Mary Carol Hunter
Managing Sense of Place in Transition: Coping with Climate ChangeREAD MORE
10.15.08: Virginia Matzek, Peter Kareiva
Casualties of Climate Change: Identity and Livelihood in California's Central ValleyREAD MORE
10.15.08: UrbanLab
Growing WaterGrowing Water is a bold proposal by a team of Chicago urban designers for how cities can ensure the availability of an increasingly scarce resource.
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05.28.07: Alexandra Lange
Fantasy IslandThe fantasy of converting Governors Island to a pedestrian playground is closer to becoming a reality.
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