Los Angeles in smog by bvi4092 licensed under Creative Commons.

Why are our cities so different from those in Europe and around the world? Disney gets into the sprawl scene. The dream of the mall is looking awfully nightmarish.

American cities are unsustainable: American visitors to European cities are often frustrated by the difference in urbanism and mobility. But how did American cities get here? American urban residents contribute six times more emissions than their European counterparts, because of differences in construction and architecture as well as the automobile. If we’re going to save human civilization, urban form needs to play a part in that change. (Walter Jaegerhaus | ArchDaily)

Disney’s new subdivision business: Disney is planning on building residential communities themed as Disney properties. The wing of the company that controls theme parks and the cruise line will be in charge of these new developments, the first of which will be built near Palm Springs. Instead of, say, Star Wars themed communities, spokespeople say the developments will weave a story about the area’s food and culture. Unfortunately, even with mouse magic, it’s still sprawl. (Arthur Levine | USA Today)

American dream to American nightmare: Dan Barrecchia remembers as a kid being excited about the big mall coming to the Meadowlands in New Jersey. During the pandemic he went to visit the place that had taken 16 years to build and billions in private and public funds. What he found was a half-empty space with listless patrons, an illustration of how we spend billions in public funds on consumerism and tax breaks for the rich instead of helping those that need it most. (Dan Barrecchia | Current Affairs)

Amazon’s urban expansion ruffles feathers: In San Francisco, Amazon has purchased properties zoned industrial in order to build last mile fullfillment centers for deliveries in the city. One property in particular that used to house garbage trucks has found local opposition from the California College of the Arts and trade unions. Now a city supervisor has proposed an 18-month moratorium on last mile delivery centers across the city in order to extract concessions from the company. (J.K. Dineen | San Francisco Chronicle)

A transit shift in Utah: Legislators in Utah are looking to bring major fixed guideway transit projects under the purview of the Utah Department of Transportation. While many transit advocates are worried about what that means, Salt Lake City officials see it as a way to make transit investments more front and center in state transportation policy. (Benjamin Wood | Salt Lake City Weekly)

Quote of the week:

“We die by accident because of risk exposure. The layers of risk compound, increasing the likelihood that mistakes aren’t survivable. As our regulatory systems have declined since the Reagan administration, we’ve lost a lot of ability to police how corporations expose us to unsafe conditions. At the same time, economic inequality drives accidental death in a variety of ways.”

Jessie Singer in Bloomberg CityLab discussing her book, “There Are No Accidents.”

This week on the podcast, Sahar Massachi of the Integrity Institute discusses his piece in MIT Technology Review on connecting cities and social media platforms, and how we should be monitoring and managing them properly.