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Kung Fu Tacos and the creme brulee guy in front of SPUR's opening party for DIY Urbanism: Testing the grounds for social change, on view through October 29. [Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]

The Power of Density: Writer Richard Florida argues for the economic benefits of urban density, suggesting that the geographic concentration of related industries and assets can play a powerful role in sparking innovation and economic growth.

Clever Crosswalk Squashes Jaywalking by Making it Legal: Korean designer Jae Min Lim has a simple but innovative idea for pedestrian safety—repaint crosswalks to reflect the way pedestrians actually walk.

Green Revolution Comes to Urban Neighborhoods: Organizations like the LA Conservation Corps are helping to "green the ghetto" by training young adults in low-income neighborhoods skills needed for green jobs. Residents of these areas say they've been left out of the environmental movement due to a common misconception that they neither want nor can afford eco-friendly improvements.

Spit, Glue, and Maybe Even Chewing Gum: The New York Times suggests that some of America's greatest infrastructure systems are also some of the most vulnerable, and it can often take little more than a tiny electrical fire or rusted pipe to bring an entire system to its knees.

SF Adding Parking Meters in Premium Districts: Don't be surprised if there's a sparkly new smart meter in your neighborhood soon. The SFMTA voted Tuesday to start installing 1,340 of the new meters, whose rates will rise and fall with demand, in neighborhoods where parking is at a premium.

Market Street [Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]

The Good, the Bad and the Empty: Students at Walt Whitman Middle School in partnership with the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)made a video examining the link between land-use and neighborhood well-being by asking the basic but thought-provoking question of "Why are there so many empty lots in our neighborhood?" More on CUP here.

Homeless and Empty Homes—an American Travesty: With 3.5 million homeless U.S. residents, and more than 18 million vacant homes across the country, should we be finding ways to turn these empty houses into shelters for people in need?

What Beijing's 62-Mile, Nine-Day Traffic Jam Means for China's Turbulent Future of the Car: Popular Science's Clay Dillow suggests that China's nine-day-long traffic jam, having unveiled the flaws of an auto-centric transit system, has the potential to spark serious urban planning and infrastructure innovations.

Car-Free Community Cropping up in Rural Columbia Suburb: The nation's first car-free, cycle-oriented community is under development in South Carolina. The town, appropriately named "Bicycle-City," hopes to tackle the problems of obesity and climate change all at once.

To Catch Cairo Overflow, Two Megacities Rise in Sand: Cairo has become so overcrowded that the Egyptian government has undertaken the massive urban planning project of building two megacities from scratch in order to house the millions of residents the city can no longer sustain.
 

Opening party for SPUR's student show, Here+Now, now on view at the Urban Center [Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]

Ruling Paves Way for San Francisco Bike Lanes: Bicyclists rejoice as San Francisco's four-year-old bike plan injunction is lifted, allowing the much anticipated implementation of 45 new bike lane projects city-wide.

Time to Return to L.A.'s Core: One symptom of the economic downturn is that it has slowed gentrification, putting some neighborhoods in developmental limbo. This, however, has produced surprisingly sweet results in areas like downtown LA, where there have been just enough changes to energize the area, but not too many as to feel overdeveloped.

London's Do-It-Yourself Approach to Safer Streets: In this video, a UK organization models a DIY community-based approach for reducing traffic and improving street life in London neighborhoods.

Brazillian Activists Paint Guerrilla Pedestrian Lines: A group of Brazilian activists in Sao Paulo, a city notorious for its transit chaos, took pedestrian-safety into their own hands by painting guerilla crosswalks in high speeding zones throughout the city.

The Scary Truth About America's Disappearing Middle Class: A new report suggests that technology, rather than politics, may be to blame for America's shrinking middle class, as computers more increasingly become the principal performer of middle-wage jobs.

The Castro parklet [Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]

Fleeing Phoenix out of fear of Arizona's immigration law: Thousands of immigrants are fleeing Phoenix, AZ before the state's harsh new immigration law goes into place, leaving neighborhoods vacant, and forcing local stores out of business.

Seedbombing for the modern guerilla gardening movement: Guerilla gardeners are arming themselves with "seedbombs," their new weapon of choice in the quest to make the world a greener place.

Bikes and cars: A lesson in Los Angeles: The mayor of Los Angeles broke his elbow last Saturday, when a swerving car knocked him off his bike, serving as a painful reminder that his city still has a ways to go in improving bike safety.

Exploring algae as fuel: Certain strains of genetically engineered algae are showing promise for being used as a green source of fuel.

Atlanta's Buford Highway is a death trap: A highway in an Atlanta suburb exemplifies the serious problems with suburban transit infrastructure that caters to cars and not to pedestrians.

The G-list: Architect Magazine has compiled a list of the "top-five most important green buildings since 1980", in response to Vanity Fair's recent top architecture list which gives surprisingly little representation to green architecture.

Old San Francisco mint to become a gorgeous green museum: The San Francisco Mint, which has been vacant since 1995, will find a new purpose as a cultural hub and historical museum thanks to an adaptive reuse project aimed at greening and redeveloping this famous SF Landmark.