Standing opposite Singapore, across the strait of Johor, is the site of a new project that its architects and developers hope will be the future of urban life in south-east Asia – a mega-city built along eco-friendly lines, with green energy and an end to the pollution that afflicts so many of Asia’s cities.

Perched in the Peruvian Andes is a new town built by a Chinese mining company to which 5,000 people will be relocated.

After many years, a new Jewish town is being planned in the Gush Etzion bloc in the Judea region. To start, the Defense Ministry has approved plans to build 523 housing units on the site that will someday be Gevaot.

From La Plata to New Haven, aerial images of some striking planned cities.

Designed by architecture students, Margaux Leycuras, Marion Ottmann, and Anne-Hina Mallette, from the architecture school of Nantes, they recently won a prize in a competition organized by the Foundation Jacques Rougerie. Their ‘Hydropolis’ proposal answers to this competition, in the category rising waters, by a project located in the Nile Valley which aims to exploit the phenomenon of rising waters instead of suffering the consequences.

International architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) recently announced that their design for the 120 million square foot master plan for Meixi Lake in Changsha, China is being realized. A new city in the West Changsha Pioneer Zone in Hunan Province, Meixi Lake is centered around a 3.85 kilometer‐long lake. Upon completion, the city will be home to 180,000 inhabitants, and will provide residents, workers and visitors sustainable neighborhoods for living, working, recreation, culture and entertainment. More images and architects’ press release after the break.

The Ogun State Government has earmarked 37,000 hectares of land for the development of a new town that will straddle the Papalanto axis in Obafemi Owode Local Government all the way to Ifo in Ifo Local Government area.

The new town, which will be part of the Lagos Mega City, will take off from the left hand side of the Papalanto road where Nestle Nigeria Plc has its factory off the Abeokuta-Shagamu dual carriageway and will traverse Mowe, Ofada, Loburo and Ifo communities, among others.

A multi-million pound museum for Stevenage and surrounding new towns is the goal of politicians at the borough council.

On Tuesday night councillors met to discuss and approve the recommendations of a report into the state of museum provision in the town – with a New Towns Museum high on the agenda.

The report by a council scrutiny committee highlighted problems in the current museum service – housed in the crypt of St Andrew and St George’s Church, which suffered cuts to staff and opening hours in 2010.

OPPONENTS of plans for 3,000 homes on farmland between Henham and Elsenham – dubbed “Hellsenham” – are claiming district-wide support for their campaign.
The public exhibitions enabled the community to find out about The Fairfield Partnership’s emerging plans, to express their views and to provide feedback on how the proposals could be improved as The Fairfield Partnership prepares to submit a planning application in the New Year.
The roadshow started in Henham, before going to Stansted, Saffron Walden and Dunmow, and finishing in Elsenham on Saturday.

Satrapia will not be a carbon copy of dozens of contemporary trading posts like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Singapore… It will definitively be a new philosophy of life.
By placing Man as its centre of gravity, Satrapia seeks to be the golden mean of the conventional and resolutely forward-looking approaches. A suitable planning and architecture consistent with physical and temporal scales will provide all the comforts of a rich and modern city.
The originality of the experiment is based on the uniqueness of the process where one uses the uniqueness of the site’s history, extract the essence, and then take over the function.
A careful work will be focused on the settlement in the territory, the orientation of buildings.

Chapelton recently received Council approval for the Development Framework and the first phase of the masterplan for the new 4,045 home community.

The project will provide 54,000 housing units and affect 10,000 people living in the area.
Lam insisted there is widespread public support for the planned government development in the New Territories.
Land in older urban areas and new towns such as Tseung Kwan O have all become saturated with developments, she said, adding that the public had been consulted over three years on the plan.

CONTROVERSIAL plans to build a new town between Inverness and Nairn have been backed by councillors in the Highlands.

Last month, the local authority’s south area planning committee approved the 5,000 home development at Tornagrain, by Moray Estates, without the application being taken to a vote.

An application has been submitted for a massive new town development in Aberdeenshire.
Developers want to build 9,000 homes at Chapelton of Elsick, about 10 miles south of Aberdeen, as well as school provision and retail space.
It would be situated at a 2,000-acre area of farmland near Newtonhill.

A new town modeled after Rock Hill will soon rise from the New Mexico desert.
Portions of the town will look like downtown Rock Hill, while other areas will resemble local neighborhoods, industrial sites, and even farm land. If you look closely, you may be able to pick out familiar east-west streets such as Dave Lyle Boulevard.

Brasilia, Canberra, Sejong and Songdo all share a common trait: They are planned cities. Despite mixed assessments of the success of cities built from scratch worldwide, South Korea has repeatedly embraced the concept.

A women-only industrial city dedicated to female workers is to be constructed in Saudi Arabia to provide a working environment that is in line with the kingdom’s strict customs.

A new city has emerged on the map of China. China’s State Council has approved the foundation of the district level city of Sangsha. Governance over the islands of Xisha, Zhong Sha and Nan Sha – as well as the adjacent waters – will be concentrated in this administrative center.

Gauteng’s Housing and Local Government Department has downplayed concerns over dozens of proposals which could significantly reshape the province’s municipal boundaries.

The Municipal Demarcation Board is currently considering about 50 proposals, which, if approved, could affect Gauteng’s largest metropoles, including the City of Jo’burg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

Perched in an isolated spot some 30km (18 miles) outside Angola’s capital, Luanda, Nova Cidade de Kilamba is a brand-new mixed residential development of 750 eight-storey apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units.

Designed to house up to half a million people when complete, Kilamba has been built by the state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) in under three years at a reported cost of $3.5bn (£2.2bn).

There may be no more perfect choice for a Fortune reader looking to enjoy some fiction this summer than Dave Eggers’s new novel A Hologram for the King. For this story of an American sales guy in Saudi Arabia, the hipster hero and founder of publishing house McSweeney’s has completely changed his writing style.

An almost brick-for-brick copy of the Austrian village of Hallstatt opened yesterday in the Guangdong, China. The New Town is home to 900 villagers and cost the China Minmetals Corporation $940 million to build.

East Africa hasn’t urbanized at the same rate as the rest of the world. While over 50 percent of the world’s population now lives in cities, the East African region of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi - the members of the regional intergovernmental organization East African Community - will only reach an urban population of 31 percent by 2030.

PATNA: Hafeez Contractor, one of India’s well-known architects, plans to develop a Dubai-like city with eco-friendly buildings and water sports facilities alongside the river Ganges here, officials say.

KOLKATA: Mystery shrouds the death of 23-year-old Sonia Sarkar who reportedly died after falling from her 12th floor apartment in Uniworld City at Rajarhat New Town. Police are still in the dark about the nature of fall and are probing if it was suicidal or homicidal. A case of murder has been initiated.