Places

About
Foundation
Partner Schools
Print Archive
Peer Review
Submissions
Donate
Contact


Departments

Audio
Essays
Fiction
Gallery
Interviews
Opinions
Partner News
Peer Reviewed
Poetry
Projects
Reviews
Video


Topics

Architecture
Art
Books
Branding
Business
Cities / Places
Community
Craft
Culture
Design History
Design Practice
Development
Disaster Relief
Ecology
Economy
Education
Energy
Environment
Film / Video
Food/Agriculture
Geography
Global / Local
Graphic Design
Health / Safety
History
Ideas
Illustration
Industry
Infrastructure
Internet / Blogs
Journalism
Landscape
Literature
Magazines
Media
Motion Design
Museums
Nature
Peace
Photography
Planning
Poetry
Politics / Policy
Popular Culture
Poverty
Preservation
Product Design
Public / Private
Public Art
Religion
Reputations
Science
Shelter
Social Enterprise
Sports
Sustainability
Technology
Theory/Criticism
Transportation
Urbanism
Water



Design Observer

Archive
Books + Store
Job Board
Email Archive
Comments
About
Contact
Log In
Register


Politics / Policy


02.14.12: Jonathan Massey

Housing and the 99 Percent
On Places, Jonathan Massey traces a history of American home ownership, from the boosterism of the 1920s to postwar suburbia to the housing bubble to current foreclosure crisis.
READ MORE

01.23.12: Austin Troy

Thirsty City
On 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.
READ MORE

12.08.11: Reinhold Martin

Occupy: The Day After
On Places, Reinhold Martin explores how Occupy Wall Street might challenge the structural inequities of finance capitalism, and how architects and urbanists can contribute to the next phase of the movement
READ MORE

11.17.11: Lisa Findley & Liz Ogbu

South Africa: From Township to Town
On Places, Lisa Findley and Liz Ogbu describe the ongoing struggle to transform the once segrated black townships of South Africa into diverse and thriving towns.
READ MORE

11.14.11: Robert E. Lang & Arthur C. Nelson

Megapolitan America
On Places, planners Robert Lang and Arthur Nelson argue that the United States can now be understood in terms of a new geography of large and powerful "megapolitan" regions.
READ MORE

11.07.11: Reinhold Martin

Occupy: What Architecture Can Do
On Places, Reinhold Martin explores the role of architecture in the Occupy Wall Street movement — and in the larger challenges of constructing a better and more equitable society.
READ MORE

09.14.11: Aron Chang

Beyond Foreclosure: The Future of Suburban Housing
On Places, Aron Chang argues that the foreclosure crisis highlights the need to transform suburban housing — to make it responsive not to dated demographics and wishful economics but to the actual needs of a diversifying and dynamic population.
READ MORE

06.23.11: Kian Goh

Queer Beacon
On Places, architect Kian Goh explores LGBT public spaces in contemporary New York, where activism confronts gentrification.
READ MORE

03.21.11: Kristi Dykema Cheramie

The Scale of Nature: Modeling the Mississippi River
On 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. 

READ MORE

03.14.11: Mimi Zeiger

The Interventionist's Toolkit, Part 2: Posters, Pamphlets and Guides
On Places, in the second of her series on The Interventionist's Toolkit, Mimi Zeiger reports on the ingenious use of print media to spur urban activism — and even revolution.
READ MORE

02.27.11: Mohamed Elshahed

Tahrir Square: Social Media, Public Space
On Places, Mohamed Elshahed argues that the physical occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo was just as vital as online social media to the early success of the January 25 Revolution.
READ MORE

12.15.10: Jon Calame

The Roma of Rome: Heirs to the Ghetto System
On Places, historic preservationist Jon Calame documents, in words and images, the state-sponsored enclaves — or ghettos — that house the Roma, or Gypsies, of Rome.
READ MORE

11.23.10: Jason Reblando

New Deal Utopias
On Places, photographer Jason Reblando documents the Greenbelt Towns created by the New Deal of the 1930s — an earlier era's response to tough times.
READ MORE

11.18.10: Barbara Penner

Flush with Inequality: Sanitation in South Africa
On Places, just in time for World Toilet Day 2010, Barbara Penner explores the complex political, social and environmental meanings of sanitation in post-apartheid South Africa.
READ MORE

11.15.10: Thomas Fisher

Frederick Law Olmsted and the Campaign for Public Health
On Places, Tom Fisher explores a forgotten chapter in the illustrious career of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted: his brief but exemplary period as head of the U.S. Sanitary Commission.
READ MORE

02.12.10: Thomas Fisher

How Haiti Could Change Design
How might the Haiti earthquake change design practice? On Places, Thomas Fisher argues that designers need to develop practices that not only respond to crises that have happened but also proactively intervene in disaster-prone areas, with the goal of limiting damage in the future.
READ MORE

02.04.10: Timothy Mennel

Working for the People
Completing his doctorate in geography, Timothy Mennel produced not a typical dissertation but Everything Must Go: A Novel of Robert Moses's New York. On Places, read an excerpt, in which Moses and Frank Lloyd Wright take a drive through Harlem and the Bronx.
READ MORE

09.09.09: Jonathan Massey

Five Ways to Change the World
Architect and educator Jonathan Massey suggests five ways to influence the built environment — and make the world a better place.
READ MORE

DESIGN OBSERVER JOBS