Forty years after its abandonment, a school building in Harlem goes residential. Twenty years ago, the building was part of a landmark Architectural League design study.

Interaction designers Carmen Dukes and Katie Koch create a curriculum for high school students in which the city itself is the classroom.

Xenophobia. Unfunded entitlements. Anti-immigrant zeal. More retirees than workers. Crumbling infrastructure. Failing schools. Threats to burn books. Taken together, our national ailments have shaken my belief in a Country of Cities. I have argued on these pages that density and infrastructure, and the diverse ecology they engender, can lead us out of this recession to a greener, leaner nation...

Architect Peter Gluck and EHS co-founder Ivan Hageman introduce us to a distinctive independent middle school and discuss why the design of learning environments matters.