The NY Times Magazine focuses on 'The Next City'

The New York Times Magazine takes a look at what the "next city" holds and unearths a lot of ideas and questions. In several pieces they take look at cities like Dubai, Shenzhen, and Beijing, as well as examining what an urban area will mean in the future.

Another piece also dives into urban green space and how people are reclaiming it inside their cities.

Excerpt:

The walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods celebrated by Jane Jacobs may seem impossibly remote, but encouraging signs of a more textured urban reality can still be found. Take Holl’s Linked Hybrid in Beijing, for example, which has a surprisingly open, communal spirit. A series of massive portals lead from the street to an elaborate internal courtyard garden, a restaurant, a theater and a kindergarten, integrating the complex into the surrounding neighborhood. Bridges connect the towers 12 to 19 stories above ground and are conceived as a continuous string of public zones, with bars and nightclubs overlooking a glittering view of the city and a suspended swimming pool. “The developer’s openness to ideas was amazing,” Holl says. “When they first asked me to do the project, it was just housing. I suggested adding the cinematheque, the kindergarten. I added an 80-room hotel and the swimming pool as well. Anywhere else, they’d build it in phases over several years. It’s too big. After our meeting, they said we’re building the whole thing all at once. I couldn’t believe it. We haven’t had to compromise anything."

Read the entire article here.