The hottest Urbanism Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Culture Topics

Why does America feel worse than other countries? Crime.

Noahpinion • 48177 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Urbanism
  1. The U.S. stands out among rich countries for its very high violent-crime and murder rates and for visible public disorder that people notice every day.
  2. Progressive ideas and policies—like decarceration, tolerance of disorder, and softer prosecutorial approaches—often suppress serious public debate about crime and may have contributed to higher crime in some places.
  3. High crime reshapes American life: it pushes people into suburbs, keeps riders off trains, blocks housing and transit projects, and broadly lowers urban quality of life.

🏙️ Higher love: The case for building up

Faster, Please! • 1188 implied HN points • 22 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Urbanism
  1. There’s broad agreement that the US needs more housing and that regulations block much of that supply, but current fixes like small infill and accessory units are too modest to meet the scale of the problem.
  2. Cities need to build up as well as out—taller buildings are a key way to increase density and urban productivity rather than just expanding footprints.
  3. Without allowing significant height, America’s most productive cities will constrain growth, so bolder vertical development is required to unlock more housing and economic opportunity.

Underrated ways to change the world, vol. II

Experimental History • 54567 implied HN points • 03 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Pick useful, unglamorous problems and solve them — small, practical fixes (like pricing parking or improving a statistic) often help more people than chasing grand gestures.
  2. Be the person who shows up: being a present neighbor, a good audience, or an attentive organizer creates social bonds and can prevent harm in everyday life.
  3. Do steady, honest work to make systems better — honest brokers, bureaucracy-fixers, and people willing to take modest risks often multiply their impact far more than lone heroic acts.

An indigenous nation just built a better city than California Forever

The Novelleist • 162 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26
🪑 Design Urbanism
  1. We should build more cities, but they must be designed to benefit residents, not just developers or outside investors.
  2. The ideal new city needs real fiscal power — the authority to raise and keep its own revenue so it can fund services and long-term planning.
  3. That fiscal power must actually flow back to residents; real-world examples like indigenous-led towns and autonomous regions show cities can return value to people instead of outside shareholders.

Stop idolizing Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and PrĂłspera

The Novelleist • 130 implied HN points • 10 Mar 26
🌍 World Politics Urbanism
  1. Autonomy for cities is promising but not enough on its own; good outcomes also require the right governance, policies, and attention to quality of life.
  2. Hong Kong shows that having near-identical autonomy and land-rent systems to Singapore didn’t produce the same results, so similar powers can lead to different outcomes.
  3. Don’t idolize Hong Kong, Shenzhen, or Próspera as automatic blueprints; there are other, better examples and deeper lessons to learn when building utopian cities.
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The government is fixing something I complained about (Odds and Ends #91)

Odds and Ends of History • 469 implied HN points • 20 Mar 26
📰 News Urbanism
  1. The government is moving to fix a problem that had been publicly complained about.
  2. Good government often means making hard choices that create winners and losers, and accepting those trade-offs is part of effective policymaking.
  3. Key tech and policy debates are front and centre: huge AI investment may not be a bubble, copyright for AI training is up for discussion, and Britain’s geospatial data is described as a mess.

Why Everyone Loves Japan

Noahpinion • 24059 implied HN points • 26 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Japanese popular culture and products — from anime and manga to food, fashion, and design — have become globally mainstream and shape how many young people express identity.
  2. A huge tourism boom and rising interest in moving to Japan are making the country more familiar and foreigner-friendly, creating a real opportunity to attract foreign investment and new residents.
  3. Japan’s cities offer a unique urban experience — extreme commercial density, walkability, safety, punctual transit, and vertical mixed-use "zakkyo" buildings — that feels like an appealing "alternative modernity" to people from other rich democracies.

The Monday Media Diet with Gillian Morris

Why is this interesting? • 1025 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Communal living can be both a lifestyle and a career; people set up shared homes, co-own apartments, and earn money by writing, speaking, and consulting about community living.
  2. A deliberate media diet avoids breaking news and favors long-form analysis in weeklies, magazines, and focused blogs to get deeper context.
  3. Curiosity about travel, literature, apps, and online oddities shapes life. Long train journeys and places like Puerto Rico offer rich experiences, while serious books and niche apps or rabbit-hole videos feed both intellectual and playful interests.

Reading List 01/03/2026

Construction Physics • 7516 implied HN points • 03 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Urbanism
  1. Large language models are opening a new path for automated building code checks by reading construction documents, and startups claim big accuracy and time savings, but the construction industry’s risk aversion and imperfect AI accuracy remain barriers.
  2. Meranti (lauan) plywood is widely used for RV interiors and other lightweight construction, and heavy U.S. demand may be driving deforestation in Southeast Asia with serious ecological and social consequences.
  3. Big policy and planning interventions—like the old national raisin reserve to control supply and the creation of Nusantara as a new capital—show how governments sometimes reshape markets or build cities to address economic and environmental problems.

A few choice words for SNL (Odds and Ends #89)

Odds and Ends of History • 737 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. There’s a small reader meet-up in Manchester tomorrow night, and both free and premium subscribers are welcome to sign up.
  2. The YIMBY Pod highlights that Cornwall could become a lithium superpower, Oxford Street is getting pedestrianised, and funding for curiosity‑driven astronomy is under threat.
  3. This issue rounds up short reads on culture (including a notably bad SNL sketch and a short AI film), energy and gas price outlooks, the mostly‑fake AI backlash, street and roadwork fixes, government use of mobile data for surveillance, and a handy war‑monitoring website.

Is Singapore Boring?

From the New World • 172 implied HN points • 11 Mar 26
🏝 Travel Urbanism
  1. Singapore is far from boring — it pairs graceful architecture, polite efficient service, and very high average food quality to feel like a polished, world-class city.
  2. Quality is created, not accidental: deliberate systems like open trade, competent governance, and incentives that reward standards produce consistently better products and services.
  3. Societies decline when elites fail to set or earn trust for high standards, and blaming technology or egalitarian ideas is often a scapegoat that hides the real problem of weakened standards and accountability.

Cities should own their land—like Vienna and Amsterdam

The Novelleist • 184 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
🪑 Design Urbanism
  1. When a city keeps ownership of its land, it can treat that land as a permanent public asset instead of selling it off, allowing long-term planning and control.
  2. Progressive property taxes tied to rents and apartment size can generate steady revenue that cities can immediately invest in large-scale housing and public infrastructure.
  3. Public land ownership makes it possible to build master-planned neighborhoods with housing plus shared amenities like courtyards, laundries, childcare, and healthcare, producing more stable and higher-quality living for residents.

The Scottish island that bought itself

The Novelleist • 890 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🌐 International Urbanism
  1. Communities can buy and own the land they live on: on Eigg residents formed a trust to buy the island, sell 99-year leases to locals, and use the income to reinvest in the community.
  2. The trust acts like a tiny government with representatives from residents, the local council, and a wildlife trust, and it runs infrastructure and services. They built a renewable energy grid and manage tourism so money benefits locals instead of absentee landlords.
  3. Scotland scaled this idea with public funds and land-reform laws that give communities first rights to buy land, leading to hundreds of community-owned estates. This creates many small, self-supporting, resident-controlled places that could be a blueprint for better cities.

Reading List 11/29/25

Construction Physics • 8768 implied HN points • 29 Nov 25
🕹 Technology Urbanism
  1. NIMBYism, which is the opposition to housing development, is partly driven by how buildings look. People often prefer aesthetically pleasing structures, and this preference can influence their support for new housing.
  2. Drones are now being used in emergencies to deliver medical devices like defibrillators faster than ambulances can arrive. This could help save lives by reducing the time it takes to get crucial medical equipment to people in need.
  3. Iran is considering moving its capital due to severe water shortages in Tehran. The government is exploring relocation as the city faces a dire ecological crisis caused by climate change and poor management of resources.

Driving like a video game

The Common Reader • 2835 implied HN points • 13 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Drivers often act like they’re in a video game—speeding, weaving, checking phones or eating, and honking impatiently, which feels dangerous and erratic.
  2. The area is car-centric with clusters of shops and services instead of traditional towns, making many libraries, markets and shops reachable within a short drive.
  3. Thrift stores are everywhere and full of bargains so they’ve become a regular part of life, and driving rules and tests feel noticeably more lax than in Britain.

The Housing Ladder's Broken Promise

Progress and Poverty • 2347 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Urbanism
  1. Housing cannot be both widely affordable and treated as a perpetually appreciating investment; treating homes as investment vehicles pushes prices up and locks many people out.
  2. If the conflict is left unresolved the system can break in several bad ways—sudden crashes that wreck the economy, slow neo-feudal stagnation where landlords extract huge rents, or demographic decline as people leave or fail to form families.
  3. A practical off-ramp is to unlock supply and curb land speculation: make it easier to build (YIMBY reforms) and shift taxes onto land value (Georgist ideas) so housing becomes more affordable without unfairly wrecking current owners.

Is it Really So Much Better Now?

Chris Arnade Walks the World • 1939 implied HN points • 03 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Technology has made many things safer, cheaper, and more convenient, but when systems break down the loss of direct human connection turns processes into frustrating, impersonal experiences.
  2. Relying on efficiency and automation in places like healthcare, travel, and end-of-life care strips away the nuanced, comforting human interaction that machines can’t replicate.
  3. Widespread food delivery in the U.S. is partly a response to cultural and zoning choices that limit nearby affordable dining options, so people pay for convenience even when cooking might be cheaper or healthier.

Some actual good news for once!

Odds and Ends of History • 469 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
🎙 Podcasts Urbanism
  1. Cornwall could become Britain’s lithium and geothermal powerhouse as new projects develop there.
  2. London is finally set to get a pedestrianised Oxford Street after years of institutional gridlock.
  3. UK astronomy funding is under threat, and cuts to curiosity-driven fundamental research could seriously damage the country’s leadership in astronomy.

In California, Decline Is a Choice

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 862 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. An entrepreneur aims to build an entirely new city in Solano County to house about 400,000 people with walkable neighborhoods, schools, and offices.
  2. He argues California’s problems are largely self-inflicted—heavy regulation and a 'degrowth' mindset have stifled building and driven companies away.
  3. The project faces major hurdles like regulatory red tape, political and public skepticism, and financing challenges, but he has secured investors and remains determined to try.

HS2's gravel nightmare

Odds and Ends of History • 268 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
🎙 Podcasts Urbanism
  1. Britain’s attempt to reform how it builds nuclear plants could be undermined if the country re-aligns its rules with the EU, because European regulations may block or complicate those domestic changes.
  2. The HS2 project and a local council adopted an extreme, complicated solution for a relatively minor gravel problem at Dobbins Lane, creating unnecessary drama and controversy.
  3. A new framework called 'Power Failure' argues we need to rethink how power operates, offering fresh explanations for why governments and institutions often fail to act effectively.

Europe needs better rockets

Odds and Ends of History • 268 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26
🎙 Podcasts Urbanism
  1. A single planning objection can kill local projects like a neighbourhood battery. This shows how complaints can waste council resources and block useful energy infrastructure.
  2. Europe needs its own independent rocket launch capability so it can reliably access space for industry, science, and future growth.
  3. Reliable, abundant energy is what makes modern life possible. Arguing for technologies like nuclear can help counter degrowth ideas and protect prosperity.

Good cities can't exist without public order

Noahpinion • 18000 implied HN points • 23 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Urbanism
  1. Good cities need safety and order for people to feel comfortable walking around. This makes neighborhoods lively and helps build a strong community.
  2. High crime can lead to people opposing new housing and transit options. This fear can contribute to NIMBY attitudes, stopping cities from growing and improving.
  3. Cities in Europe and Asia, along with places like New York City, show that having a strong police presence helps keep areas safe and makes urban living more appealing.

NIMBYs vs Bristol Zoo

Odds and Ends of History • 335 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
🎙 Podcasts Urbanism
  1. Local NIMBY disputes, like the fight over Bristol Zoo, show how community opposition can strongly shape, delay, or block development and often plays out in parish council meetings.
  2. Proposals to reform the Civil Service focus on speeding up decision-making and improving delivery so government can move faster and fix things more effectively.
  3. Policymakers and economists are pushing bold, large-scale ideas—like building an enormous electricity cable linking Texas and the UK—to rethink how we solve big energy and infrastructure problems.

Listening to Noise

Dada Drummer Almanach • 67 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Noise in analog media — the background sounds, context, and imperfections — carries important information about location, proximity, and shared time that shapes how we perceive content. Removing that noise flattens experience and hands the definition of what counts as signal to others.
  2. Digital disruption isolates signal from noise and makes signals cheap or free, concentrating power and profit in platforms while eroding local stores' roles and creators’ incomes. Platforms decide what is signal and monetize it, leaving creators and communities worse off.
  3. Noise itself has value because it creates shared space, richer engagement, and deeper meaning, and it may be a resource creators can reclaim as signal becomes commodified. Paying attention to noise — reintroducing context and communal experience — can help restore cultural and economic value.

the marrow of days — on freedom & idleness in a post-singularity world

antoniomelonio • 142 implied HN points • 14 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Automation and AI will make most jobs obsolete and give billions unprecedented free time, forcing society to answer a simple but huge question: what will people do with that freedom?
  2. Losing work risks a crisis of purpose because many people tie identity and social connection to their jobs, so leisure must be rethought as active education, creativity, and community to support real human flourishing.
  3. If handled well, post-work life could remake cities, families, arts, science, and health by turning economic structures into spaces for community and creativity, though there will be an initial period of decompression before people find lasting meaning.

American Sprawl and Dutch Neighborhoods

Erik Examines • 492 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26
🪑 Design Urbanism
  1. Dutch suburbs pack more people into smaller private spaces but make up for it with lots of nearby public green areas and local amenities, while many American suburbs have large private yards but little shared public space.
  2. Extensive, safe bike infrastructure lets people of all ages get around easily by bike, which gives daily exercise and independence and reduces the need for a car.
  3. Countryside near Dutch towns is close, walkable, and full of reachable destinations like tea houses and historic sites, whereas much of the American countryside is farther away, less walkable, and usually requires driving and planning to enjoy.

Let Cities Build Utopia—new drop!

The Novelleist • 86 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
🪑 Design Urbanism
  1. A long, deeply researched essay about the future of cities is being released as a print pamphlet, digital pamphlet, and audio essay and will be serialized across free and paid installments.
  2. Common models for “cities of the future”—autocratic, corporate, special zones, and charter projects—aren’t true utopias; the research shows companies, investors, island/counties, and tribes have sometimes built more humane, autonomous, and prosperous urban experiments.
  3. The central argument is that future cities should prioritize building utopia—focusing on quality of life, resident autonomy, and long-term resilience rather than only GDP and skyscrapers—and the project itself is an experiment in slow journalism with contributors credited and 10% of sales going back to the researchers and collaborators.

Somehow, HS2 to Manchester returned

Odds and Ends of History • 335 implied HN points • 19 Jan 26
🎙 Podcasts Urbanism
  1. The government's U-turn on digital ID is being treated like a huge scandal, but the reaction is overblown and doesn't need hysterical coverage.
  2. A 17th-century Cromwell-era engineering project is even visible from space, and its story has surprising parallels with modern big rail schemes like HS2.
  3. Northern Powerhouse Rail has been revived, including a new Birmingham–Manchester line that closely resembles the old HS2 plans.

Universal's troubled waters

Odds and Ends of History • 201 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26
🎙 Podcasts Urbanism
  1. The new Universal theme park is creating unexpected pressure on local water infrastructure, showing gaps in planning and coordination with utilities.
  2. Planning committee meetings are a key public forum where politicians and campaigners can highlight development issues and sometimes create dramatic moments.
  3. Foreign-born founders make a large contribution to the UK economy, and immigration policy should be reformed to better attract and support high-growth entrepreneurs.

Bodge-up and Badger

Odds and Ends of History • 335 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
🎙 Podcasts Urbanism
  1. The Abundance Agenda has been rebranded, with the podcast continuing under a new name and still available across major platforms.
  2. A village was almost cut off from civilisation for a year because of badgers, and the reason behind it is more infuriating than you'd expect.
  3. There's a hard question about reaching Net Zero when China manufactures most renewable energy technology, and experts are exploring how to reconcile decarbonisation goals with global supply‑chain realities.

The Abundance Christmas Quiz!

Odds and Ends of History • 469 implied HN points • 22 Dec 25
🎙 Podcasts Urbanism
  1. A special Christmas quiz episode focuses on transport, infrastructure and urbanism topics in a festive format.
  2. The quiz is hosted by Only Connect question-writer Stephen Jorgenson-Murray and features panellists CityEd and comedian/author Andrew Hunter Murray.
  3. The episode is part of The Abundance Agenda podcast, available on major platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and Substack, with links to hosts' newsletters and a request for listeners to share and leave reviews.

The Capitals of the G7 Countries, Ranked

Atlas of Wonders and Monsters • 424 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🏝 Travel Urbanism
  1. Tokyo ranks highest because it isn’t flashy but everything works, feels convenient, and is full of small delightful spots that make it livable.
  2. London and Paris stand out in different ways: London exceeded expectations with energy and variety, while Paris largely matched expectations but came with moments of culture shock.
  3. Personal memories and small incidents strongly shape these rankings — school trips, mix-ups or fines, and repetitive experiences color how each capital is remembered, and lesser-discussed places like Strasbourg can be pleasant surprises.

What's the matter with SoDoSoPa?

Urben Field Notes • 97 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. City rezoning and artists moving into cheap lofts turned old industrial buildings into desirable live-work neighborhoods. This cultural rebranding made them attractive to the creative class and developers.
  2. People were drawn to these areas because they are walkable, centrally located, and relatively affordable. Restrictive zoning elsewhere and a shortage of similar housing funneled demand into industrial districts.
  3. Post-industrial neighborhoods reveal broader economic and cultural shifts and act as symbols of urban change. They can revitalize cities but also fuel gentrification and displacement, so results differ by place.

“We Are Not as Wealthy as We Thought We Were”: Postscript 1

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 273 implied HN points • 05 Jan 26
💼 Business Urbanism
  1. Rents have risen a lot and in a regressive way, with the cheapest neighborhoods hit hardest and lowest-income renters effectively losing about 15% of their incomes to higher rents—effects that common national statistics miss.
  2. The problem is a shortage and a lack of easy substitutes: constrained construction capacity and tighter mortgage access have created a paid premium for “nothing” (scarcity tied to location), so this isn’t mainly about agglomeration demand.
  3. The solution is a very large increase in housing supply across many locations—not just building smaller "affordable" units or blocking luxury projects—so millions of homes or billions of square feet must be added to eliminate the "nothing" premium.

Why Japanese cities are such nice places to live

Noahpinion • 14353 implied HN points • 07 Mar 24
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Japanese cities provide affordable living spaces, like tiny apartments, due to lower demand and a culture of building plentiful housing.
  2. Despite small living spaces, Japanese cities excel in dense, mixed-use urban planning, creating the sense of luxury and freedom for residents.
  3. YIMBY policies in American cities aim to allow construction of compact living spaces like those in Japan, but not to force people into them against their will.

Non-Euclidean Churches

Reactionary Feminist • 15 implied HN points • 25 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Athens layers ancient and modern architecture so densely that ruins, metro lines, and shops coexist, creating a living palimpsest of history.
  2. The encounter between Greek thought and early Christianity — epitomised by St Paul preaching on the Areopagus and conversions like Dionysius — is presented as a foundational moment for Western identity.
  3. Sacred places carry memory that bends perception, so small churches like Panagia Kapnikarea can feel much larger and more timeless inside than they appear outside.

Brief impressions of Las Vegas and San Diego

Trevor Klee’s Newsletter • 149 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
🏝 Travel Urbanism
  1. Las Vegas is loud, theatrical, and driven by spectacle and gambling, which often masks poverty, decay, and a predatory vibe.
  2. The desert around Vegas reveals strange, decaying Americana — ghost towns, novelty attractions, and legal brothels — that show how boomtown ventures can quickly become abandoned or exploitative.
  3. San Diego felt relaxed, sunny, and functional with strong beach‑town vibes and family time, but it remains expensive and is only slowly shifting away from car‑centric, single‑family sprawl.

54 Observations about Mexico

Kvetch • 168 implied HN points • 04 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Mexico is deeply hierarchical and classed, so family ties, ethnic networks, and social rank strongly shape who gets opportunity and wealth.
  2. State capacity is uneven and many public goods are privatized or outsourced, which creates gated wealth, corruption, cartel influence, and wildly variable service quality.
  3. Despite dysfunction there is vibrant culture and real entrepreneurial space — great music, food, and tourism opportunities coexist with low social trust and everyday chaos.

How to Make Cities Safe

Uncharted Territories • 1945 implied HN points • 06 Aug 23
🔬 Science Urbanism
  1. Having eyes on the street is crucial for making neighborhoods safe and livable
  2. Local shops with stable businesses and engaged owners contribute to a sense of safety and community
  3. Visibility, through good lighting and active street life, helps deter crime and promote safety

What new towns can learn from Ebbsfleet

Odds and Ends of History • 804 implied HN points • 01 Aug 25
🎭️ Culture Urbanism
  1. Ebbsfleet is a unique example of a new town in Britain that can teach us both what to do and what to avoid when building new communities. It's important to learn from past successes and failures.
  2. New towns should be built close to transport links, like train stations, to make them accessible and attractive to residents.
  3. Proper planning is crucial. If new towns are poorly designed, like too car-centric or isolated, residents can feel disconnected and unhappy.