The building boom in the Middle East– spearheaded in large part by Western design firms–is the latest chapter in that region’s centuries-old struggle between its cultural identity and its utopian dreams. (via Cities of the Imagination)

Richard Florida speaks with Alan Ehrenhalt about the subject of his new book, The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City: the reversal of the last century’s great shift in people and economic activity to the suburbs (via How and Why American Cities Are Coming Back)

Open International Design Competition for Transforming Cities with Innovation (via ONE Prize 2012: BLIGHT TO MIGHT)

If Michel Ecochard were alive today to see his beloved Beirut, he would arguably want to drop dead on the spot. (via Beirut’s demise began well before the Civil War)

As chaos persists in the city’s streets, Cairo’s subway remains a model of efficiency, order and dependability for the three million people who ride it every day. (via Cairo’s Subway Is Efficient, Orderly and Dependable)

Nate Berg looks at a new study analyzing the cost benefits of large-scale green infrastructure projects, which demonstrates that governments are wasting billions of dollars a year by not going green. (via Green Infrastructure Could Save Cities Billions)

Areas that feature historical structures are the main focus of urban transformation projects, a very popular issue nowadays in Turkey. (via Urban transformation: restoring ‘factory defaults’)

How to think about preserving culture while the city swells. Some principles: Pay attention to NIMBYs, who are sometimes right. Not all density is good (or bad). And we can’t have too much sense of place and history…The ghosts of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses in their eternal struggle. By Knute Berger (via The Mossback Manifesto on urban density)

In the future, commercial real estate in a severely built-up city might not move outward or upward – but in between, or all around. (via Need More Office Space?)

In an ambitious project, the states of North Carolina and South Carolina are trying to set the record straight. After years of historical research and old-fashioned survey work mixed with global positioning technology, they are moving the boundary back to where it belongs. (via Untangling a Border Could Leave a Mess for Some)