This week’s curation of insights and interviews for urbanists

• Design: City As Lab: Everywhere, metropolises big and small are percolating with ideas on how to improve themselves, their apartment complexes, their bridges, their kindergartens, their beds.Here are some of the best. (New York Magazine)

• The 50 Coolest Fictional Cities: Some of the most fantastic places only exist within the pages of books, the frames of films, the panels of comics, even the lyrics of songs. (Complex)

• Richard Florida on the Economic Crisis, the Great Reset and Creativity: “Quality of place is going to be of growing importance in the coming era to keep cities vibrant and attracting talent and the ‘creative class.'” (MyCityWay Blog)

• Back to the Future: James Howard Kunstler offers a road map for tomorrow’s cities. (Orion Magazine)

• A Conversation With Allison Arieff, Writer and Editor on Sustainability: Arieff discusses how sustainability issues suffer when they’re thought of as trends; why Julius Shulman deserves to be in a sustainability hall of fame; and why she’s done writing about gorgeous Italian closets and kitchens. (The Atlantic)