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Infrastructure
06.10.13: Eric W. Sanderson
Roads to RailsOn Places, Eric W. Sanderson lays out his plan for a modern streetcar revival, supported by municipal investment in urban rail.
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05.30.13: Tom Vanderbilt
The City and the SeaOn Places, Tom Vanderbilt surveys the landscape and politics of New York City after Hurricane Sandy, focusing on both early response and long-range planning.
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11.15.12: Thomas Jorion
The Forgotten LineOn Places, photographer Thomas Jorion documents la petite ceinture, the abandoned railway line that circles Paris, and remains the city's last great wasteland.
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11.13.12: Barbara Penner
“We shall deal here with humble things”On Places, Barbara Penner considers the design, culture and politics of the bathroom — and how "this smallest of domestic rooms is linked to the larger worlds of engineering and infrastructure."
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10.11.12: Richard Campanella
What the Nation’s Best-Educated Amateur Planners Learned from Hurricane Isaac. And Gustav. And Rita and Katrina. And Cindy, Ivan, Lili, Isidore, and Georges.On Places, geographer Richard Campanella analyzes the many lessons that New Orleanians have learned from weathering powerful hurricanes — and he argues that the toughest test is yet to come.
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06.18.12: Ian Baldwin
Rolling to a StopOn Places, Ian Baldwin reviews ReThinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking and Reinventing the Automobile.
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06.11.12: Keller Easterling
Zone: The Spatial Softwares of ExtrastatecraftOn Places, Keller Easterling explores the phenomenal rise of the free zone — an opportunistic urban hybrid that's powered the rise of glittering world cities like Singapore and Dubai.
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05.01.12: Michael Ezban
The Trash Heap of HistoryOn Places, Michael Ezban explores the past and present of Monte Testacccio, the great landfill of imperial Rome — and finds a precedent for contemporary landfill reclamation projects.
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03.21.12: Hadley Arnold & Peter Arnold
Drylands: Water and the WestOn Places, an essay and slideshow by Peter Arnold and Hadley Arnold of the Arid Lands Institute, on what they call "the largest and least understood environmental challenge of the 21st century."
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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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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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06.27.11: Deborah Gans
Below the Sill Plate: New Orleans East Struggles to RecoverOn Places, architect Deborah Gans describes a multi-year effort to rebuild neighborhoods in post-Katrina New Orleans — and the limited results to date.
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04.07.11: Ray Gastil
In Motion: The Experience of TravelOn Places, Ray Gastil reviews In Motion: The Experience of Travel, the latest book by Tony Hiss.
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01.24.11: Karen Piper
Dreams, Dust and Birds: The Trashing of Owens LakeOn Places, Karen Piper narrates the latest chapter in one California's longest water wars: Los Angeles' efforts to undo the environmental damage done to Owens Lake, decades after its waters were diverted to supply the thirsty metropolis.
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10.25.10: Hillary Brown
Infrastructural Ecologies: Principles for Post-Industrial Public WorksOn Places, architect Hillary Brown, founder of New York City's Office of Sustainable Design, proposes principles to guide construction of a next generation of green infrastructure.
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05.20.10: Center for Urban Pedagogy
The Water UndergroundOn Places, watch The Water Underground, a video from the Center for Urban Pedagogy that tracks the complex — and contested — systems of water supply, treatment and waste that serve New York City.
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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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01.25.10: Ian Baldwin
Architect, Park ThyselfThe auto-urban relationship, writes Ian Baldwin, is "fumbling, overheated, unsatisfying for both parties." Baldwin reviews House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage, currently on exhibit at the National Building Museum, and The Architecture of Parking, by Simon Henley.
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01.20.10: Christine Macy
Dams Across AmericaA gallery of images showing the construction of some great U.S. hydroelectric dams of the 1930s and '40s, including Hoover and Grand Coulee — something to contemplate as the current administration struggles to stimulate the economy and smarten the power grid.
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01.18.10: Nancy Levinson
The Public WorksWhy isn't the Great Recession inspiring a new New Deal? The essential dilemma, argues Places editor Nancy Levinson, is that we no longer believe in public sector solutions — or even in the public itself.
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01.10.10: Linda Samuels
Working Public ArchitectureCan we envision a contemporary counterpart to the New Deal of the 1930s? Architect Linda Samuels reports on WPA 2.0, the ambitious competition and symposium created by cityLab at UCLA.
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10.20.09: Thomas Fisher
Fracture CriticalMuch U.S. infrastructure is "fracture critical" — vulnerable to catastrophic and systemic failure; Thomas Fisher argues that our finance, housing and energy systems are fracture-critical as well.
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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: Chris Reed
The Infrastructural CityLos Angeles depends upon vast infrastructural systems that are breathtakingly powerful, yet vulnerable to disruption, even disaster. Landscape architect Chris Reed reviews The Infrastructural City.
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05.19.09: Linda Samuels
Infrastructural OptimismLearning from New Orleans, or why we really need a new New Deal.
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10.15.08: Guy Nordenson, Catherine Seavitt & Adam Yarinsky
On the Water: The New York/New Jersey HarborAs the planet warms, rising seas will endanger coastal communities around the world. Engineer Guy Nordenson proposes a bold plan to protect New York City.
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