Afghans Built This City

Laborers From Across the Border Have Left an Indelible Mark on Urban Pakistan

Rahimullah waits. In order to get picked for a day’s work, it’s best to get started early. He’s said his morning prayers. Had breakfast. Eggs, bread, and tea. He’s walked for 40 minutes to find a good spot on one of the busiest roads in the city. Rahimullah will likely be picked for a day’s work to fix plants on the sidewalk of a suburban housing area. Peshawar, a city of 4 million people in the northwest of Pakistan, seems sleepy right now, but that will soon change.

Cities, they say, …

by Sanaa Alimia | May 18, 2023

In the Amazon Jungle or a California Subdivision, Sometimes Less Infrastructure Is More

Using Localized “Min-Frastructure” Prevents Costly Runaway Urban Sprawl

By Roger Sherman | May 2, 2017

The need for more infrastructure is one of the few areas of genuine bipartisan consensus in the United States. But my experiences working in two rapidly urbanizing regions outside this …

It’s Time for the Central Valley to Grow Up

Bridging the Region’s Urban-Rural Character Requires Unity and Planning

By Reed Johnson | February 16, 2017

“Are we urban or are we rural?” moderator Dan Morain asked at the start of a lively Wednesday panel discussion on the future of California’s Central Valley.

“Both” was the answer …

The Walls Are Too High in the Kingdom of Ventura

Growth Restrictions Have Saved Open Space in California, but Wealthy Elites Also Use Them to Keep the Middle Class Out

By Joe Mathews | August 11, 2016

Ventura County is the most glorious and verdant of California kingdoms.

Just ask its princes and princesses—those fortunate enough to be able to afford to live and vote there. Most of …

Even “The Girl From Ipanema” Can’t Save Rio’s Olympic Train

Why the Faltering Subway Line Exemplifies Brazil's Broken Promises

By Stephen Kurczy | August 4, 2016

When the self-proclaimed greatest legacy infrastructure project of the Rio Olympics is a new metro line that stops eight miles short of the actual Olympic Park, you already know there’s …

Cruising South Central Avenue

Photographs Capture the Beauty and Change of One of L.A.'s Most Dynamic Corridors

July 11, 2016

South Los Angeles, a big and diverse place of 30-some neighborhoods, used to be known as South Central. And South Central’s name, while reflecting the geography of South L.A. as …

urban development