How to Design a City for Women

In 1999, officials in Vienna, Austria, asked residents of the city's ninth district how often and why they used public transportation. "Most of the men filled out the questionnaire in less than five minutes," says Ursula Bauer, one of the city administrators tasked with carrying out the survey. "But the women couldn't stop writing."

Women used public transit more often and made more trips on foot than men. They were also more likely to split their time between work and family commitments like taking care of children and elderly parents. Recognizing this, city planners drafted a plan to improve pedestrian mobility and access to public transit.

Additional lighting was added to make walking at night safer for women. Sidewalks were widened so pedestrians could navigate narrow streets. And a massive staircase with a ramp running through the middle was installed near a major intersection to make crossing easier for people with strollers and individuals using a walker or a wheelchair.

Forget Segways! Skateways!? The closest thing to a hover board this decade

Inventors in Silicon Valley are working on a revolutionary transportation technology. It’s called a skateboard. I recall my first skateboard, it had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it. IT WAS AWESOME! Single kicktail and extra wide body for more Ninja Turtle action. Wicked!

But the new era of skateboarding isn't designed for your typical teen in a Ramones t-shirt (or Ninja Turtles), it's aimed at the growing number of urban professionals who don't want to drive to work yet want to be cool... and have deep pockets - the Boosted board (pictured below) costs a cool $US1995.

How Crowdsourcing and Machine Learning Will Change The Way We Design Cities

Researchers at MIT Media Lab are using crowdsourced data to create an algorithm that determines how safe a street looks to the human eye--information that could be used to guide important urban design decisions.

Inside The Forgotten Chinese Cities Destroyed By The Three Gorges Dam

A designer gathers and displays the artifacts of ancient towns now flooded by a massive dam as a reminder of what China loses as it develops at breakneck speed.

The Three Gorges Dam, a giant hydroelectric dam located along China's Yangtze River, has the biggest installed capacity of any power station in the world. But the project, finished in 2012, hasn't exactly been a triumph over dirtier forms of energy like coal power. Concerns about pollution, landslides, earthquakes, and biodiversity abound. And for about 4 million people, the dam project was mostly a disaster, as it flooded 13 cities, 140 towns, and 1,352 villages. (Everyone was relocated to new settlements built on higher ground, which in an Orwellian feat, were given the same names as their former communities.)

Activist Robot Draws The Bike Lanes A City Should Have

The city of Wiesbaden was proclaimed the least bike friendly city in all of Germany by the country's cyclist club. In response, the Wiesbaden-based creative agency Radwende created a drawing robot that would trace the paths of bike riders, creating a map of a more bike-friendly city.

“It's a beautiful and rich city, with lot's of large SUVs and luxury cars, but riding a bike is only for the fearless, there is no culture of respect to cyclists,” explains Radwende Managing Director Peter Post. “The machine and art piece is a new way to promote biking locally.”

Why Your Local Cell Tower Looks Like A Half-Assed Tree

Cell towers, when they can't be hidden away out of sight on the tops of buildings, have to be disguised. They're pretty sizable pieces of equipment, and have to be made of a conductive material, which isn't necessarily conducive to sneakiness, but the owners of cell towers try their best. But why?

Haunting Photographs Of Modern-Day Ghost Towns

When the Irish housing bubble burst in 2008, construction halted suddenly on building sites, leaving a trail of ghost estates. Ghost estates are developments in Ireland where more than half of the homes are unoccupied or incomplete. These abandoned properties are the subject of a new photography book that will be exhibited in the upcoming Photobookshow in England.

Boston Doctors Can Now Prescribe Bike-Share Membership To Patients

Boston, has taken an aggressive approach to making sure that everyone, regardless of income status, has an opportunity to ride--and is aware that they can. While annual Hubway memberships cost $85, the city offers an $80 discount for anyone on public assistance. That means if you live in low-income housing, your membership just costs $5. And, as of late March, doctors can prescribe memberships for those who qualify.

Urban Sprawl: Get Fat, Stay Poor, And Die In Car Crashes

A new report on metro density says it straight: quality of life improves in compact cities.

How Zombies Help Siemens Design Disaster-Proof Cities