After designing 44 affordable-housing projects over the last 30 years, San Francisco architect David Baker has developed a formula for making them look like their market-rate cousins: “You build 20 percent with high-end materials, and the other 80 percent with less expensive ones.

This article originally appeared in the Chinese edition of Architectural Record. Yuelai Eco-City, one of 17 transit-oriented developments (TODs) that Peter Calthorpe has designed for the northern Chongqing area, is scheduled to break ground on its 2,500-acre site this summer and will eventually accommodate 100,000 to 250,000 residents. Record-breaking pollution levels in Beijing this winter are one visible symptom of the bind China has gotten itself into with its rapid urbanization and infatuation with the automobile.  As China accelerates its urban development to accommodate an estimated 300 million people moving from the countryside to cities by 2020, it is turning