Common Edge

For the past 30 years, I have been educating urban planners on the way Latinos are transforming the U.S. urban landscape-or, as I call it, Latino Urbanism. I have had some success. But I'm beginning to realize that I may have been targeting the wrong prof

Just as the human body needs an immune system to fight diseases, a city needs a fire department to fight fires. Sometimes, however, the immune system goes too far, and its actions actually harm the body. Rheumatoid arthritis, for example, is the result of

We've just spent a good part of the summer listening to play-by-play announcers and color commentators covering the FIFA World Cup. Because Americans know so little about that kind of football, we raptly listened to every word, trusting that the announcer

One of the more promising shifts in the discourse in recent years is a larger critique of the economic systems that architecture and design operate under. In other words: Who sets the agenda? Who defines the perimeters? Who makes the early decisions-the o

At Ise Jingū, Japan's most sacred Shinto shrine, the main buildings are torn down and rebuilt from scratch every 20 years. And they have been for more than 1,300 years. The old timber is felled, the joinery cut by hand, the thatch laid fresh, and the prev

Several weeks ago, the author was asked to present his research in front of a leading economic policy organization. Here's what he said: I've taught history for more than 20 years: at CUNY, at NYU, and right now at Bard College's Prison Initiative. Whenev

An architecture student can now walk into a review with more images than understanding. This sounds harsher than I mean it, but in some ways, it's extraordinary. A young designer can study a site, generate alternatives, test massing, produce renderings, s

Vanity projects, corruption, and cultural blind spots are undermining communities.

Single-use plastic bags are the urban tumbleweed of many cities around the world. They clog storm drains, whirl in the wind, and get caught in branches like dystopian ornaments. On Amazon, $20 buys you a thousand (or one for every year it takes a plastic

The auditorium at the CUNY School of Law was packed. More than 100 Long Island City residents-concerned with public school capacity and playground space, with pedestrian safety, artist and small business displacement, and ghastly chronic flooding-had turn