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A Better Standard of Better Design

Design, declared Nobel economist Herbert Simon, means "changing existing situations into better ones." Wonderful, but who decides what's "better"?
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The Compelling Promise of Urbanism Without Effort

As urban stakeholders -- residents, pundits, developers, associated professionals, and politicians -- we like to discuss and debate aspects of urbanism and how cities should change to meet new challenges. But when we talk about urbanism, I think we often forget the underlying dynamics that are as old as cities themselves. As a result, we favor fads over the indigenous underpinnings of urban settlement and personal observation of urban change.
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A Conversation on Art & Environment with Rafe Sagarin

Observation and Ecology author Rafe Sagarin discusses art and the environment with poet Eric Magrane from the University of Arizona. Eric Magrane: Rafe, you write and speak about observation, most pointedly in your bookObservation and Ecology, with Aníbal Pauchard. I’d like to discuss the way that observation interacts as a hinge between science—and particularly environmental science—as a way of seeing and understanding the world, and art as a way of seeing.
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Kickstarter for The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change

A new Island Press author, Yoram Bauman, the world's first and only stand-up economist, is trying to raise $20,000 to help offset the cost to print his forthcoming book: The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change.

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