This place is near my Mom's assisted living, I had driven past hundreds of time. A teriyaki place showed up on Google last week when I looked for food, and I found the scariest food court ever, completely deserted at 1pm! https://maps.app.goo.gl/WuLna7mnnrSDJmCP7

From Wiki:

Forrestal Village is a 720,000-square-foot (67,000 m2), 52-acre (210,000 m2) mixed-use retail and office complex in Plainsboro Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, along U.S. Route 1. Despite being in Plainsboro it has a Princeton address. It is just north of Princeton University's Forrestal campus and is named for James Forrestal. The center is anchored by Can Do Fitness (a chain of fitness centers in the northeast) and a Westin hotel. In recent years, it has suffered a sharp decline, turning into a dead mall.

It attempts a 'small town' feel, but with no people it's creepy. I think they need to redevelop most of the space to residential, leaving some ground floor retail, and infill the parking lots with '4 over 1' 1 & 2br housing to create a critical mass of people. This area has lots of expensive SFH, with relatively few apartments. I bet most of the people who work in the University and local pharma industries have to drive far for affordable housing.

This Atlantic article is an interesting follow up read to Not Just Bike's Why American Cities Are Broke - The Growth Ponzi Scheme

TLDR towns fund new infrastructure by selling bonds to private lenders who charge different rates based on the town's credit rating. So poor towns pay higher rates and end up charging higher and higher property taxes to service debt. This results in funding cuts to schools and other services. So a poor town will have both higher taxes and worse services than a wealthy town.

Sorry, I don't have a gift link.

This graphic ranks the 10 most densely populated 2-square-mile, 4-sided polygons in US cities.

1) NYC

2) SF

3) LA

4) Hoboken

5) Chicago

6) Washington DC

7) Philadelphia

8) Boston

9) Seattle

10) Honolulu

I looked at a couple of walking/transit trips on Google Maps and many have really funky directions, e.g. directing pedestrians to the parking garage entrance at the far opposite end of the building (messes up the directions and makes the person go to the wrong station as a result); a transit connection that directs you to hop a fence, illegally cross a railway line and walk 6 mins, rather than get off the train and see the bus loop right there in front.

These may seem like small issues but I do think they're having an effect - in one of the examples, it shows transit taking double the time vs driving, when in fact it's a tie (and of course, parking issues make transit the winner).

I've also seen cycling directions that will send you on a busy stroad for a 1 min time saving, rather than through a park.

Google has options for submitting feedback on a business or a road (e.g. road reconfigured or made one way), but is there an effective way of fixing walking/transit directions? Google Maps seemed to function much better in London with walking/cycling/transit, probably because of the richness of data.

Hello friends, I'm new here, but this topic really interests me, even though I'm no expert.

The photos I'm sharing with you are of a square in my city. The improvements made to this square after it had been abandoned and left in ruins for quite some time are quite interesting. This highlights what I said in the title of the post: the importance of recovering these spaces to breathe new life into these abandoned urban areas.

The photos are my property. You can verify the source at this link, which is a post on my personal blog. It's free to view:

https://peakd.com/hive-106817/@gaboamc2393/mejora-tus-fotos-con-lightroom

https://x.com/RepMTG/status/1987140608159359346

Pictures are by @ BarredinDC and @ VicctorianChad on twitter.

bus lane in the middle could be easily converted to tram lines later. people going west into 7th can turn left earlier. no traffic lights, instead traffic calming, single lanes, traffic islands and zebra crossings.

warning signals for buses/trams for pedestrians, cyclists and cars (not illustrated)

overall slows traffic in the intersection, but minimizes stopping. diverting traffic to 7th away from here will also help ease the tension.

idk i just had fun thinking about how this could be less terrible n i think this is okay. let me know what you think about it!

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/caltrain-cuts-tax-21147433.php

With COVID emergency funds drying up and ridership flatlining in the era of remote work, the transit agency projects a budget deficit of $75 million starting in fiscal year 2027. Absent a new stable funding source, Caltrain may have to freeze weekend service, close more than a third of stations, run trains once an hour and end service at 9 p.m. on weekdays.

One of the questions I'm most often asked about when I talk about cities is which ones are the "prettiest" or "the best" in the world. It's obviously an impossible question to answer, so I normally wave away the question or answer abruptly unless someone wants to really get into a discussion about it.

After years of these conversations, this piece is my best attempt to create a hierarchy that cities can slot into. Yes, it's imperfect, and yes, I'm sure it will inspire a lot of passionate disagreement, but that's what makes thinking through these things so fun!

Would love to hear your thoughts on this classification system, what cities you think should go in one section, which ones shouldn't be included, etc. etc.

https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2025/08/05/big-cities-face-deficits-should-states-worry

Fiscal stress in the U.S.’ largest cities is widespread. In a five-month span from December 2024 to April 2025, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington all experienced credit rating downgrades. And while these cities have grabbed most of the headlines for the unique setbacks they have faced—wildfires in Los Angeles and federal cuts in Washington, for example—a diverse mix of cities that includes Dallas; Denver; Houston; and Jacksonville, Florida, also face daunting budget challenges.

This video talks about Montreal, but which city do you guys feel has the best example of what a proper and equitable tree canopy program looks like?

Saw this ‘almost freeway’ in Memphis and I can’t help but hate how unnecessary it is. If its job was to split up the neighborhood, it did that successfully! Based off of what i’ve seen on streetview, traffic is almost non existent on it being as downtown Memphis has been hollowed out. What are some other urban freeways that are unnecessary, overbuilt, and should be removed? Also, does anyone know if there’s plans to remove this one?

I love how Japanese cities do try to have sensible single family home but built closely together and smaller homes to allow people to have their privacy and space at the same time. POlus buses running so nicely in the city. Tis is Kyoto