The collapse of the housing market during the Great Recession illuminates the future landscape of America’s real estate market. A recent article in the New York Times confirms CEOs for Cities’ findings in Walking the Walk: homes in more walkable neighborhoods are worth more than similar homes in…

Last week on Urban Omnibus, Vishaan Chakrabarti penned an exceptional essay on the impact of unchecked materialism on the future of American leadership and prosperity. 

With his timely, tongue-in-cheek title, “Spill, Baby, Spill,” Chakrabarti unflinchingly blames America's lack of self-discipline and introspection for its oil dependency, sprawl and…

In this essay, Vishaan Chakrabarti argues for an alternative policy approach for the U.S. that tackles the fundamental challenges we face in an integrated, purposeful way with dense urban living at the heart of it.

He imagines leaders promoting “time-tested ideas of density and mass transportation, of cities…

With home prices bottoming out in many areas nationally, people are looking for any way to get more for their homes. For some, there is a ray of hope….walkability. A new study says that if you want more dough for your house (tell us if anyone says no) it helps…

This article by Julia Levitt highlights an emerging trend with exciting potential for our cities – the creative infill, re-use and sharing of under-used spaces.

Using the example of the restaurant Everest Momo Shack that shares space with a burrito kitchen, Levitt challenges us to think about…

This story keeps running so I finally have to comment.  It's the story that the Obama Administration is considering backing a plan to shrink deteriorating American cities by bulldozing entire neighborhoods and returning the land to nature. The idea, which originated in Flint, Mich. -- cratered by the auto…

At first glance, cities may appear to be a big source of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. But new research by the nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), which compares greenhouse gas emissions of city and suburban households, yields some surprising results.

CNT looked at emissions of…

Great news from our new Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs Adolfo Carrión.   He told The Washington Post that he wants cities to become economic centers that can pull the country out of a recession and improve American competitiveness in a global market.

"Carrión…

Here's yet another angle on sustainability.  Two British Columbia architects are proposing that cities go wild.  They propose transforming the modern city into a literal urban jungle. The hypothetical result of their approach is a future city that's not only ecologically self-contained, but also much more exciting to live…

Why do cities continue to grow? And why, even in the electronic age, do they endure as wellsprings of intellectual life?

The Boston Globe believes it has found the answer.  "Recent research by scientists at the Santa Fe Institute used a set of complex mathematical algorithms to demonstrate that…

"Over the…

The current hype around the pollution challenges Beijing is facing in the lead up to the Olympics offers an interesting opportunity for a microcosm view of pollution management issues world-wide.

This Wall Street Journal article highlights the economic impacts of excessive pollution.   “Two years ago, with the…