Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues. • Did you ride your bike to school as a kid? According to this piece on NPR, back in 1969 nearly half of children got to school on foot or by bike. Today, that figure is closer to 13%. Reporter David Darlington talks about what has changed - from concerns about liability to sprawling neighbourhood design to a changing understanding of bikes as recreation rather than transportation. • From the makers of Walk Score and just in time for "Bike to Work Week" comes Bike Score - the online tool for assessing neighbourhood bikeability. The tool uses data including the locations of bicycle infrastructure, amenities and hills. And Canadian cities are featured too! • It's been in international headlines throughout the past few weeks over false reports that it will be changing its name, but this tiny Austrian hamlet has been "Fucking" (or close to it) since the Dark Ages.

Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues. • In 1979, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority unveiled a redesign of its iconic subway system map. The redesign was an attempt to bring clarity to the tangle of colours and lines that crisscross the five boroughs. But as Matt Flegenheimer at the ...

A note to our readers: We've recently decided to publish the Urban Planet column once a week rather than on a daily basis. This column links to blogs from around the world that deal with urban issues. If you miss the feature, you are welcome to follow any of the other Spacing Network blogs, which will continue to run the daily Urban Planet posts. At Spacing Montreal, our objective is to focus on publishing original content about Montreal's urban experience, and to become increasingly bilingual. Thanks for your understanding! Note à nos lecteurs: Nous avons récemment pris la décision de ne publier ...

  Urban Planet is a daily roundup of  blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues. Welcome to the Anthropocene - the era where human activity is the greatest single force shaping the surface of the earth. This video from Gizmodo charts the many ways we are changing the planet and the incredible connectivity we have achieved as a result. (LA Curbed) Image from ...

Weird Wednesdays on Urban Planet takes a look at obscure, absurd, and curious things about cities around the world. Parking garages usually don't make it very high on a city's list of urban beautification projects — most end up looking pretty similar to each other. Kansas City, MO is one of the citys who have broken the mould. The parking garage of city's downtown public library branch has a 25-foot tall "bookshelf" facade made from signboard mylar that features the spines of a number of local stories as well as many famous works.