Urban planning

Despite the enduring popularity of remote and hybrid work, many corporations have embraced plans for new office headquarters, campuses, and buildings, remaining convinced that employees need to return to the office to sustain high levels of productivity and feel connected to their company culture (or just to control their workforce, depending on who you ask).The first phase of Amazon’s second headquarters is scheduled to open in Arlington, Virginia, in the third quarter of this year (though construction of the second half…

After a dramatic competition that pitted US cities against one another, years of contested planning, and claims of unwavering commitment despite the pandemic, Amazon now says its plan for a second headquarters, aka HQ2, is on pause. The company said today that it will delay construction of more than half of the millions of square feet of space in a campus planned for Arlington, Virginia, including a twisting tower meant to become a signature landmark for the city. Amazon, which is still in the process of laying off more…

Carla Francome campaigns for better cycling routes in Haringey, North London, where she moved a few years ago in search of a community—“an area where I could make friends that would go to the park with me on a Saturday,” she says. “And where there are cafés nearby, and everything is in walking distance.” Her activism, which has included support for traffic-reduction measures, has led to the occasional dirty look in the street from fellow residents. But nothing has compared to the stream of vitriol she’s received on…

Years ago, Christopher Kyba was skeptical about astronomy data collected by citizen scientists—after all, it relies on people making naked-eye assessments of the night sky. But when a student wrote to him with a question about measuring the sky’s brightness, he thought of the Globe at Night citizen science project, which launched in 2006 to let students track the stars they could see. He downloaded and pored over the data. “I became a complete convert,” says Kyba, a scientist at the German Research Center for Geoscience…

This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.They are gray and rectangular, and if you laid all 2 billion of them together they would cover an area roughly the size Connecticut, about 5,500 square miles. Parking lots have a monotonous ubiquity in US life, but a growing band of cities and states are now refusing to force more on people, arguing that they harm communities and inflame the climate crisis.For many years, local governments have required the construction of parking…

Electric bikes are becoming increasingly popular around the world. In the U.S. e-bike sales are outpacing electric and hybrid cars combined, according to the Light Electric Vehicle Association."The level of ridership has almost doubled or more every year since 2015," said Mike Radenbaugh, the founder and chairman of Rad Power Bikes. "And we see no slowing of that in the years forward as we look at fuel prices increasing and other challenges to transportation only getting worse."This trend is in large part due to the…

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) speaks with reporters at the U.S. Capitol Aug. 6, 2022.Photo: Francis Chung (AP)In the wake of the midterm elections, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have introduced a bill crafted to ensure emerging technologies keep pace with the needs of people with disabilities. The effort is receiving widespread praise from groups such as the Blinded Veterans Association and Communications Service for the Deaf, and lawmakers are pushing for a swift passage in the lame duck session. The…

In 18 years working in bicycles, Eric Bjorling had never seen anything like April 2020. With no end to the pandemic in sight, people were desperate for things to do. “They had time on their hands, they had kids, they needed to physically go outside and do something,” says Bjorling, head of brand marketing at Trek Bicycles, one of the largest bike manufacturers in the world.So began the pandemic bicycle boom. US bike sales more than doubled in 2020 compared to the year before, according to research firm NPD Group, reaching…

A screenshot of a Strava heatmap of Baltimore.Screenshot: Strava/Alison Mariella DésirIf you see a jogger, you’re probably in a white neighborhood. That’s according to Strava data from major cities like New York City and Baltimore, which show that running paths mirror American segregation. Running requires the perception of safety of multiple kinds, a necessity Black neighborhoods have long been denied. In February 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was murdered while jogging in Georgia, the victim of a racist hate crime. He had run…

What creates a little bit of frustration is that in the scientific domain, there was not enough controversy, because somehow the book was discarded by many. Not by everybody. By many, it was discarded as a doomsday prophecy. And for sure, we were not successful among economists at the time. WIRED: Presumably economists weren't too fond of it because growth is inherent to capitalism. And unchecked growth really, a kind of maniacal, ecologically-destructive growth at all costs that's built into the system.CAP: What the…