Writing

ESSAYS + CRITICISM

“Moses on the Heights.” New York Magazine (July 23, 2019)

“Opinion: Watering New York’s Transit Deserts.” The New York Times (August 13, 2018)

“Broom with a View.” Slate (April 16, 2018)

“Brooklyn’s Levittown Before the Levitts.” CityLab (January 4, 2018)

“Under a Tungsten Sun: Mapping the Edison Bulbs of Brooklyn.” CityLab (October 24, 2017)

“How Low Did He Go? Robert Moses and the Bridges of Nassau County.” CityLab (July 10, 2017)

“After 75 Years, the Chees Stands Alone.” The New York Times (July 17, 2016)

“New York’s Washington Monument.” The Wall Street Journal (May 14, 2014)

“Robert Moses, Peddle Pusher?” The Wall Street Journal (June 26, 2012), D5

“The Rise and Fall of Edward G. Lawson.” Landscape Architecture (March, 2012), pp. 120-127 

“Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of American Planning.” Design Observer: Places (April, 2011)

“Masterpiece: The Villa d’Este in Tivoli.” The Wall Street Journal (September 17-18, 2011), C13

“The Roman Roots of Gotham’s London Plane.” The Wall Street Journal (July 20, 2011), D5 

“Icon of a Fair, a Borough, the World.” The Wall Street Journal (September 11-12, 2010), W13

“Portal to the Future: Shanghai World Expo 2010.” Architectural Record (August 2010), pp. 52-134 

“China: As We Once Were.” Journal of Architectural Education 63:2 (March 2010), pp. 63-64 

“After the Inferno.” Obit (February, 2009 – excerpted in The Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2009) 

“Steve Nygren’s Workable Utopia.” Metropolis (May 2006), pp. 48-52

“The Great Egg of Beijing.” Wired 12:6 (June 2004), pp. 31

“Schooled in Design.” Wired 10:11 (November 2002), pp. 94

“Henry David Thoreau and the Yankee Elm.” Arnoldia 61:2 (Fall 2001), pp. 112-119

“New Life for an Old Airport.” Architecture (May 2001), pp. 96-97

“Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai.” Architectural Record (January 2000), pp. 82-89

“Terminal Bliss.” Wired 8:11 (November 2000), pp. 88

“Hupcapitalism.” Wired 8:09 (September 2000), pp. 79

“Kuala Lumpur International Airport.” Architectural Record (July 2000), pp. 150-153

“Shanghai – Pudong International Airport.” Architectural Record (July 2000), pp. 160-162

“Portal Call.” Wired 8:05 (May 2000), pp. 76

“The Rugged Steed: Mythologies of the SUV.” Harvard Design Magazine 1:3 (1997), pp. 29-32

“American Curves.” Harvard Design Magazine 1:2 (Summer 1997), pp. 40-43

“(Re)placing the City of Bricks.” Wired 5:10 (October 1997), pp. 117-118

“Who Says the Net Makes Cities Obsolete?” Salon (August, 1997)

“Be There Now” Salon (August, 1997)

“The Visible City: Mexico City.” Metropolis (September 1996), pp. 27-32

“The Visible City: Shanghai.” Metropolis (March 1995), pp. 33-38

“China’s Gardens of Time and Space.” Places 10:1 (Summer 1995), pp. 4-7

“Reckoning with a Tragedy in Concrete.” Metropolis (July / August 1995), pp. 11, 15-16

“Sir Norman Foster’s Unexpected Guests.” Metropolis (March, 1995), pp. 

“Pipe Life.” (with Shrinath Tandur) Metropolis (March 1995), pp. 76-77

“The Greening of China.” Metropolis (March 1995), pp. 35, 38

“Battlewagons of Suburbia.” Metropolis (January 1995), pp. 47-49

“Bomb Crater Fish Ponds in Vietnam.” Places 9:3 (Fall 1994), pp. 48

“A Moth Flies in Brooklyn.” Orion: People and Nature (Autumn 1994), pp. 18-19 

“Transforming the Good Earth.” Landscape Architecture 84:6 (June 1994), pp. 38-39

“Public Landscapes of the Pacific.” Landscape Architecture 84:8 (August 1994), pp. 48-50

 

BOOK CHAPTERS

“Saved By a Salt Marsh,” in Frederick R. Steiner, et al., ed., Design With Nature Now (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2019)

“The Bucks Stopped Here: From Yeoman Lung to Kongjian Yu,” in Letters to the Leaders of China: Kongjian Yu and the Future of the Chinese City (UR Terraform, 2018), pp 148-163 

“Schleptropolis” and “Empire of Brownstone and Brick” in Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, eds., Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (University of California Press, 2016)

“The Spatial Ecology of the New York Elevated,” in Caroline Bauer, et al., eds., Under the Elevated: Reclaiming Space, Connecting Communities (Design Trust for Public Space, 2015), pp 14-19 

“Urban Resilience” (with David R. Godschalk), in Rachel Weber and Randall Crane, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning (Oxford University Press, 2011) 

“Hillsborough in Time and Space: A View From Afar,” in 27 Views of Hillsborough: A Southern Town in Prose and Poetry (Eno Publishers, 2010), pp. 81-89 

“Recovering New Orleans,” in Planetizen’s Contemporary Debates in Urban Planning (Island Press, 2007), pp. 110-116

“Eden by Wire: Webcameras and the Telepresent Landscape,” in Goldberg, ed., The Robot in the Garden (MIT, 2000). Reprinted in Graham, The Cybercities Reader (Routledge, 2004), pp. 57-63 

 

JOURNAL ARTICLES

“John W. Reps.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 35:4 (Fall 2015) 

“Playground of the Century: A Political and Design History of New York City’s Greatest Unbuilt Park.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 72:2 (June, 2013), pp. 189-204

“Mimetic Utopias: Themeing and Consumerism on China’s Suburban Frontier.” New Geographies Volume 1 (Spring 2009), pp 78-87

“‘Mark Well the  Gloom’: Shedding Light on the Great Dark Day of 1780.” Environmental History 12:1 (January 2007), pp 35-58

“Longer View: Urban Resilience and the Fate of New Orleans.” Journal of the American Planning Association 72:2 (Spring 2006), pp 1-6