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IN HIS 1863 ESSAY “The Painter of Modern Life,” Charles Baudelaire introduces his audience to Monsieur Constantin Guys, the “perfect stroller (flâneur).” This cosmopolitan gentleman is driven by curiosity, joy, and a desire for new experiences. A “passionate spectator,” he strolls about urban spaces, observing the crowd. Even though the flâneur is alone, he is at ease. His wandering gives him inspiration. He is “away from home” yet feels “everywhere at home.” He is at once an artist, a man of the world, and a “spiritual citizen of the universe.” Baudelaire’s perfect flâneur is gifted with the ability to both understand and penetrate the world: “Few men are gifted with the capacity of seeing; there are fewer still who possess the power of expression.” Not only does the flâneur capture our world, his art transforms it. “The external world is reborn upon his paper,” Baudelaire writes, “natural and more than natural, beautiful and more than beautiful, strange and endowed with an impulsive life like the soul of its creator.”

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In new work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, urban environment researcher Karen Seto of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and her colleagues first divided the global land area into discrete parcels and, using predicted gross domestic product growth, population growth and urban land area cover in 2000, they projected which parcels had a high or low probability of succumbing to citification over the next few decades. Using that model, 1.2 million square kilometers of land have probabilities higher than 75 percent of becoming citified and nearly six million square kilometers have some probability of going urban.

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The Republicans have been giving urbanites the one-finger salute for decades. Four years ago, Sarah Palin's casual declaration that cities aren't part of "real America" was outrageous, but not surprising. To the GOP, real America is small-town America, exurban America, and the party is not ashamed to make it clear that those are the citizens it represents.

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The vote was largely a matter of course. The plan — dubbed NYU 2031— passed the zoning subcommittee last week with the blessing of Council president Christine Quinn and Councilperson Margaret Chin, whose district covers the area in question, after the University agreed to a 20 percent reduction in density from the original application. The plan calls for 6 million square feet of new construction — 1.9 million of which will be built between Houston, Third, Laguardia and Bleecker streets, in the heart of the Village. The new construction, which will occur over 20 years, includes classroom facilities, faculty housing, retail space, at least four new towers and a 300-foot hotel.

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It established a brand new city in the region.

For some time, China has claimed the islands in the South China Sea and the surrounding waters as Chinese territory. It says that historical findings in the area, namely pottery shards and some old maps, mean the entire region belongs to China, full-stop. 

From the perspective of the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea, however, a number of Southeast Asian countries have legitimate claims to territory in the South China Sea.

In effort to clear up any gray area, China has established its new prefecture, called Sansha and located on Yongxing Island, which is meant administer the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha Islands and their surrounding waters in the South China Sea.

Yes, it's controversial.

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San Bernardino is third in a list of California cities that have filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection — essentially, Chapter 11 for municipalities — in the past month. Compton, just south of Los Angeles, may join the list soon as officials have reported that the city is likely run out of money by the end of the summer. In late June, Stockton, a city of 292,000, became the largest-ever U.S. municipality to file for bankruptcy after three months of mediation with creditors failed to produce a deal to restructure more than $700 million of debt.

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The christening of the arena, part of the Atlantic Yards complex under construction between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, will mark a milestone in a transformation of downtown that began eight years ago, when the Bloomberg administration instituted a series of zoning changes with the goal of spurring development. The city also invested nearly $300 million in local streetscapes and other improvements and teamed with the state to build Brooklyn Bridge Park, a necklace of green along the East River that opened two years ago.

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I’m easy. Okay, not easy like that—you people and your dirty minds. Vernacular signage makes me happy, and so do objects that have been accidentally anthropomorphized. Not long after seeing an upside-down mop in my driveway turn into a smiling woman with gray dreads, I stumbled upon Ner Beck’s small show up at the New York Public Library. It made me happy.

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Some commenters on Doig’s article seized upon Renn’s assertion that Indianapolis had some vague, inscrutable quality that made it family-friendly.

When city officials invoke family-friendliness in their advertising strategies, what aspects of the city are they basing that claim on? Arguments from readers fell into three camps: It could be the availability of urban amenities like zoos, museums and public pools that the whole family can enjoy together. Or it might be a dog whistle alerting homebuyers and other in-migrants to the presence of a prevailing conservative cultural sentiment, reminiscent of a kind of “family values” rhetoric. Or it could be suburban-style development with the space and creature comforts demanded by a middle class that’s slowly moving back into cities.

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In 2003, New York City rolled out a 30-year plan to remake the once-grand beachfront on the southwestern tip of Brooklyn.

From the early 1800s through the early 20th century, Coney Island was widely regarded as the world’s greatest urban amusement park. Though Coney Island’s amusement zone has shrunk with every passing decade since the Great Depression, the area remains a relatively popular destination — nostalgic, easily accessible and cheap.

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If anything, figures like those were precisely what pushed the Natural Resources Defense Council to join forces with teams from professional baseball, hockey, basketball and football and form the Green Sports Alliance in 2011.

On paper, at least, the mission is straightforward: Get stadiums to go green. Convince industries selling products to sports teams to clean up their acts. Turn that message into something beer-guzzling spectators can appreciate. In reality, it’s a tall order, especially when fans seem more interested in their teams’ performance on the playing fields than at the recycling bins.

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New Orleans was changing fast in 2010. The city was still reeling from the storm — many citizens had either decided they were never going to return, or realized they would never be able to. Those that had made their way back, or coming for the first time, were carving away rot as quickly as they could. Others were settling comfortably into it. The Marigny and adjacent Bywater neighborhood — about two miles downriver from the already-restored French Quarter — radiated emptiness and energy in the span of a single block. It was a shell, and the future was up for grabs.

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It’s no secret that in an age of tightened budgets and high unemployment rates, cash-strapped cities are trying to find ways to cut corners. In many cities across the U.S. this year, fireworks displays will be notably absent from July Fourth celebrations.

With the traditional festivities in jeopardy, many communities have turned to corporate sponsors and local fundraisers to help foot the bill.

In New Rochelle, N.Y., a sum of $60,000 was raised through private donations, rescuing the annual fireworks event from cancellation.

Cities have not always been hard-pressed to raise such funds. During the 1980s through the ‘90s, more than 70 percent of public fireworks displays were paid for by government funds. Today, public donations and corporate sponsorships pay for 75 percent of the estimated 14,000 municipal displays across the U.S.

Some cities have gotten creative in their efforts to save money, and have explored scheduling fireworks events for a few days before or after the Fourth, in order to reduce police and firefighter overtime pay.

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