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table of contents

Back to the Future of the Creative City: Amsterdam’s Creative Redevelopment and the Art of Deception

Merijn Oudenampsen

Amsterdam’s Creative City policy — far from intending to make the city’s entire population more creative — is predominantly a branding exercise, an expression of a much more general shift towards entrepreneurial modes of city government.

Suburban Nation (book excerpt)

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck

The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream.

Beyond Sprawl

Bank of America

The Bank of America’s ballyhood denunciation of suburban sprawl: “New patterns of growth to fit the new California.

Up Above: The Geography of Suburban Sprawl in Southern California’s Antelope Valley

Matt Jalbert

The perils of sprawl development on the edge of the Mojave Desert, 60 miles north of Los Angeles.

Metropolitan Dubai and the Rise of Architectural Fantasy

George Katodrytis

In Dubai there is little difference between holiday accommodation and housing. Architectural programs are becoming fused and undifferentiated. The morphology of the landscape and sea-scape is becoming fabricated to the point that it may soon be difficult to differentiate between the natural and the constructed.

Crime Rave

Anthony Platt

Law-and-order demagoguery.

The Sausage and the City

Abigail Schoneboom

A playful exploration of sausage imagery in the modern novel and reflects on how the sausage is used as a symbol of the attraction and horror of urban life.

Panama Lost?

Photographer Lorena Endara explores the landscape and processes that shape Panama, as it succumbs to fast food restaurants, Hollywood films, and shopping malls.

Architect Joshua Prince-Ramus on the Seattle Public Library: TED Conference 2006

See an amazing video podcast of rising star architect Joshua Prince-Ramus that the TED conference just posted on the new Podcasting site TEDTalks.

Special from Exuberance.com

National Architects Group Censors Prison Critics

After all the controversy surrounding the graphic pictures of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, you would hardly expect a photo of the prison’s blank exterior walls to cause much of a furor. But that’s the image excluded from the “Exploring Prisons as a Design, Ethical, and Social Policy Issue” panel to be held this Thursday, June 8, 2006, at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Convention in Los Angeles.

Stereography of Celebration: Perspective and virtual happiness

Pascale Pressicaud

Getting to know the real Celebration, Florida would have the same effect as understanding the consequences of visual impair on the author's psychological make up.

Blockology: An Offbeat Walking Guide to Lower Manhattan (book excerpt)

Robert Jay Kaufman

A one-of-a-kind guide that celebrates the experience of exploring Lower Manhattan through its history, people and architecture.

In L.A., Out of Control

Emilio Spadola

This is not an essay about L.A. It's about movies.

Urban Decay

Christopher Leo

Barricading our cities, and our minds.

The Evening of the Alligator

Rick Adams

New York has the number one scare story of all big cities. It is the story of the alligators in the sewers, a well known urban myth. It tells us everything we need to know about our attitudes toward cities.

The “Gore Exception:” A Layman’s Guide to the Supreme Court Decision in Bush v. Gore

Mark Levine, Esq.

The illogical opinion of the Supreme Court, one of the worst and ill-reasoned opinions in US history is, unfortunately, no joke.

A Tale of Two Gated Communities: An African Memoir

Charles Mudede

Seattle and the over-abundant world of the Nordstroms, in whose Highlands palace my aunt lived and worked.

'Burbs, Blockbusting, and Blacks

Matt Jalbert

Morphosis of the post-war American city.

“Ilhas” and “Condomínios” in Porto: anthropological urban structure and the social cohesion problem

Paulo Castro Seixas