cities

Are We in For a Dystopian Future of Endless Suburbs and Robot Cars? 

Hamilton Nolan · 06/20/16 01:20PM

If you are exactly like me, you live in a dense urban environment and assume that dense urban environments are the way of the future, and suburbs are dark hellpits full of enormous PetSmart outlets and molly-soaked teens. But perhaps this is incorrect?

The Era of Bank Branches on Every Corner Is Ending

Hamilton Nolan · 05/23/16 10:50AM

Right now, 94% of U.S. commercial districts are composed of bank branches. (The other 6% are takeout salad lunch places.) The good news is that we may have already witnessed the peak of the “bazillions of banks, everywhere you look” era.

Hamilton Nolan · 05/19/16 09:50AM

New Census figures show that U.S. urban growth is slowing, “as a bulge of late-20s Americans reaches prime homebuying age and high urban real-estate costs are making suburbs and exurbs more attractive.” Good!!

How Zoning Laws Fuel Economic Segregation

Hamilton Nolan · 01/13/16 02:28PM

Zoning laws, governing how we use our land, are often thought of as mundane drudgery, or as opportunities for civic-minded people to help “Keep Our Neighborhood Beautiful.” In fact, they can also be a powerful driver of inequality.

Banning Chain Stores Is Not a Bad Idea

Hamilton Nolan · 04/07/15 09:41AM

One of the most common laments of anyone who dwelled in a once-cool city is that our nation's urban spaces have become infested with identical chain stores. So what if we just... banned them?

Terrifying: The Creative Underclass May Never Escape the City

Hamilton Nolan · 01/20/15 11:02AM

Traditionally, young people come to the big city with a dream; then, when that dream inevitably fails to materialize, many of them move away to some smaller, more forgiving town and cry silently, years later, at what might have been. Now, the fucking tables have turned.

The University of Chicago's Weird As Hell "Scav" Is Underway

Dayna Evans · 05/11/14 08:43AM

Every year since 1987, The University of Chicago has hosted a campuswide scavenger hunt called Scav that will validate to your speculation that smart college kids are always up to some awesomely weird insider shit. The event is on its last day and the clues this year are typically esoteric.

This Is the Williamsburg of Your City: A Map of Hip America

Max Read · 01/29/14 11:30AM

What is your city's Williamsburg? What's its hippest—or formerly hippest—or sometimes just youngest—neighborhood, the one with the art galleries and the boutiques and the lines for brunch? (And what, for that matter, is its Bushwick, or "Next Williamsburg"?) If you don't know off the top of your head, don't worry. We do, thanks to the collective knowledge of Gawker readers.

What's the Williamsburg of Your City?

Max Read · 11/06/13 11:13AM

Williamsburg and Bushwick, two Brooklyn neighborhoods, have become, for various reasons both accurate and not, a global icon of "hipness." But it's obviously not the only "hip" neighborhood in the world. What's your city's Williamsburg? And what's its Bushwick?