On an island near Shanghai, China formed by the accumulation of, silt shared with a protected bird habitat, will rise a city that is free of greenhouse gas emissions and gas-powered vehicles with an emphasis on energy-efficient design, waste reduction strategies, and renewable energy.

Dongtan, a 21,250-acre eco city, is being developed by Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation as a leading example of green development in China.

Transportation
- All vehicles within the city will be

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Every major city nowadays has a coworking space, but what about a coworking district? That’s the plan with the nascent Adams Morgan Works program.

With 30 million people and counting working at home as we transition to a knowledge-based economy, coffeehouses and coworking sites are becoming increasingly popular, most of which thrive in natural cultural districts. Thus in Adams Morgan, Washington DC’s preeminent natural cultural district, a movement is underway to transform a rather dead day

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What’s a city that launches the world’s largest bike sharing program, Velib (‘free bike’... for the first 30 minutes), do for an encore? It announces the world’s largest electric car sharing program, Autolib. However, unlike the wildly successful bike sharing program, it’s unclear if this will result in more or less people driving. We’ll soon find out.

The highlights:
- 3000 (previously 4000) electric cars
- 700 pick-up points
- Drop off anywhere (a computerized system will let you know of

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The previous entry was for the beer crowd. Today’s is for the wine set.

First of all, yes, there is such a thing as an urban winery, like the Signal Hill Winery with downtown locations in Cape Town, South Africa, and Beaune and Bordeaux in France. The primary advantage? According to winemaker Jean-Vincent of Signal Hill, being at a regional center without a committed vineyard allows him to select only the best grapes from the best microclimates.

However the upcoming NYC City Winery (in the

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A neighborhood microbrewery is a good indication that you’re living in a progressive area, but a crowdfunded one? Let’s just say if that were the case, there’d probably be a lot of reason to get together, hoist a beer and celebrate every milestone one could think of. BeerBankroll is planning to be the business model behind that brewery (but thank goodness not the name of the brewery). In the land of the neighborhood pub, it’s not surprising this is a UK joint.

Goal: Establish a local brewery

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Ok, since Fast Company Magazine’s choice for their Fast Cities 2008 U.S. City of the Year (Chicago) and Global City of the Year (London) isn’t very earth shattering news, perhaps its more intriguing to look at their list of twelve Fast Cities, which aren’t so obvious. Fast Company btw, is the business magazine for the creatives (and why I’ve read every article of every one of their 126 issues).

Beijing, China - A booming economy and arts scene - you won’t think of China the same way after

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While the market has already assumed a digital infrastructure will succeed our asphalt one, city government leaders still haven’t accepted that by making the same financial commitment to free public wi-fi. It’s largely a generation thing and it’s inevitable the investment will come eventually, but for the cities with progressive leaders that implement them now, they’ll realize an economic and cultural windfall as a reward for ‘letting go’.

Santa Monica is one of those cities, with their City

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If you’re looking for a benchmark restaurant that represents most everything that a restaurant should be (as far as omnivores go), The Linkery in San Diego is a necessary destination. It starts with a founder like Jay Porter, “It would be a place that would, as a business, provide a community space that would bring people together. And it would celebrate really good quality food and drink and beer in a simple way… hopefully it could be a place that could become a center for something that adds

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Emerging generations want more pedestrian areas, less traffic-congested streets. In Manhattan, pedestrians are literally running out of sidewalk room. This August, New York City is conducting a ground-breaking historical experiment called Summer Streets, to provide a bold answer to this growing demand.

On August 9, 16, 23, three Saturdays between 7am - 1pm, the following streets will be pedestrian only, closed completely to auto traffic:

- Downtown Routes - 6.9 miles:  Park Avenue between

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In the previous entry we looked at Elizabeth Currid’s The Economics of a Good Party and the process by which arts and culture added to the economy. Today, we look at Elizabeth’s answer to the question, “How does the social community (ie the patrons, the attendees, the participants) influence the emergence of arts and culture that then translates to economic impact?“ Her four ways:

1. Access to gatekeepers both formally and informally - Gatekeepers are defined as the purveyors of taste, so if

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