Europe

Mere months after it was completed, London's Shard has passed the title of Europe's tallest building to Moscow's Mercury City tower, a "beacon of pink mirrored glass," writes Oliver Wainwright.

November 19, 2012 - The Guardian

Based on a new metric he's developed for defining the components of a smart city, Boyd Cohen ranks the top cities in Europe that are "working the hardest to be the most advanced urban landscape."

November 16, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Exist

This week brought news that sounds closer to a fairy tale. A new preschool and daycare center in the Danish capital has been designed as a real-life Neverland for children to explore their interests in contributing to city life.

November 14, 2012 - Architizer

A new pedestrian bridge planned for Paris plays with the idea of stability by inducing a "perilous flirt with the Seine," reports Mark Wilson.

November 13, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Design

With a plan to spend $150 million on bike infrastructure over the next eight years, Amsterdam is cementing its reputation as "the capital of European biking," and doubling down on a pledge to "remain a clean and accessible city."

November 13, 2012 - The New York Times

New York isn't the only famous city suffering from the effects of record high water levels. Seventy percent of Venice is submerged. The Daily Mail has stunning images of tourists swimming in St. Mark's Square and wading through waist-high water.

November 12, 2012 - Daily Mail

Will Hunt explores Paris beneath the surface during a 14-mile trek underground with a group of urban explorers, and finds subterranean sights to rival those found on the famous streets above.

November 11, 2012 - Intelligent Life

Sophie Landrin looks at the global rise in the use of cable cars - the kind you find on a ski lift and not on the streets of San Francisco - as a transportation alternative. Several French cities are developing plans to become "wired".

November 9, 2012 - The Guardian

What do recent national politics have to do with transportation planning? For Sarah Goodyear, the connection is clear: it's about having access to good data for solving real-world problems.

November 9, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

"The City That Never Was" is the title of an upcoming symposium, and series of essays, organized by the Architectural League of NY to explore two decades of growth and decline in Spain through the prism of unrealized architectural ambitions.

November 8, 2012 - The Architectural League NY

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is trying to salvage a plan to increase the country's reliance on renewable energy to at least 35 percent by 2020 amid rising energy prices and mounting criticism

November 5, 2012 - The New York Times

You may have heard about smart cars, but what about smart streets? A plan for modernizing European highways has been generating a lot of buzz from civil engineers worldwide, reports Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan.

November 3, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Design

Jean-Francois Mayet, the mayor of Châteauroux, introduced free ridership in a bid to turn around his town's failing transit system. Eleven years later, total ridership has increased 208 percent. Henry Grabar examines whether free transit is scalable.

October 31, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

You read that right, Sweden's trash problem is that it doesn't have enough of it. Due to a spectacularly successful rate of recycling, the country doesn't have enough garbage to power its waste-to-energy program. It's solution: import trash.

October 24, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Exist

Is the idea of "farming up" really taking off? Vertical farming could yield long-term environmental benefits, but still faces many obstacles.

October 18, 2012 - The Wall Street Journal

Young architectural firm, TYIN Tegnestue, proves that good design can be affordable, and that architecture can be used to help solve some of the world's existing social ills, rather than exacerbating them, writes Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan.

October 17, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Exist

Norway takes this responsibility seriously. Not only will it double its carbon tax, in existence since 1991, but it will use revenues to invest in renewable energy and food security in the developing world while expanding its own oil exploration.

October 15, 2012 - Guardian - U.K.

An experiment in Germany engages kids to build micro-cities as playgrounds. The idea is coming to downtown Philadelphia.

October 6, 2012 - Next American City

Amid widespread economic crisis, and raising environmental awareness, Europeans are embracing ride-sharing services in staggering numbers, reports Eric Pfanner.

October 1, 2012 - The New York Times

A first-of-its-kind study measures the unique health problems of individual cities in the European Union, revealing interesting, and sometimes mysterious, results.

September 22, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities