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As a design student in Detroit, Veronika Scott was keenly aware of the increasing numbers of homeless people suffering deeply during the relentless winters. At the tender age of 21, she created The Detroit Empowerment Plan not to solve homelessness, but to provide much-needed warmth to the city's 20,000 street dwellers

When is a city like a startup? Last weekend, the City of New York hosted a hackathon to re-envision its website, NYC.gov. Here's what geeks from Manhattan, NY, to Manhattan, Kansas, had to say about how a gov site should serve its citizens

After Syrian troops began shelling civilian targets in the city of Hama, brave activists used smuggled phones and sympathetic allies abroad to upload grainy, graphic warfare footage onto YouTube. On Sunday Syrian tanks assaulted Hama and shelled civilian targets; at least 70 are confirmed dead and hundreds more seriously injured. Observers are calling it the " Ramadan Massacre " since it occurred on the eve of the Muslim holiday.

Those calorie counts on fast food menus that make you feel bad about your extra-large fries actually work.

No more blaming being late on the subway. An online mapping tool lets you see exactly how far you can get on public transportation in a given amount of time. You have a couple hours to kill in a new city, but don't have the slightest clue how long it will take you on public transportation to get to all the good tourist destinations.

These gorgeous videos show the patterns of drivers in three major cities: where they're going, and where they get stuck. Los Angeles managed to survive Carmageddon , with some help from Ashton Kutcher and traffic updates from Waze , a service that utilizes the GPS-enabled phones of its users to compile traffic maps. A few months ago, Waze made a slick video of a day of L.A.

Andrew Yang, through Venture for America, wants to send an army of new college grads out to start-ups in cities nationwide and help resuscitate their faltering economies. Andrew Yang believes entrepreneurs can help save cities, especially those whose economies have been ravaged by the recession.

Andrew Yang, through Venture for America, wants to send an army of new college grads out to start-ups in cities nationwide and help resuscitate their faltering economies. Andrew Yang believes entrepreneurs can help save cities, especially those whose economies have been ravaged by the recession. Yang gave up a law career almost immediately after he started, realizing the mega-firm life was "a less than ideal use of a lot of smart people's time." He founded Stargiving.com, a celebrity affiliated philanthropic fundraising site in 2000, right at the end of the dot.com bubble

A new guerrilla art project asks the city of New York to give the people access to unused public land, and to create a massive network of urban farms.

Apple's destined to become the world's first trillion-dollar company.

Say goodbye to bike shops. Minneapolis's Bike Fixtation will sell you the parts you need to get your bike back on the road, and give you the tools to make your repairs right there. It's happened to every biker.

Tired of watching the Hollywood machine engulf the San Diego Comic-Con, two Pixar artists have taken matters into their own hands and opened Trickster, an enclave for comic book fans, right across the street from the convention center. Whatever you do, don't call them Slamdance for Comic-Con. After years of watching the Hollywood machine slowly engulf the San Diego Comic-Con, Pixar story artists Scott Morse and Ted Mathot this year have staked out a creators' enclave across the street from the convention center.

The mayor of Santa Cruz is also co-founder of a coworking startup, which he created to bring individual jobs to his city after major companies turned him down. It's no surprise that the mayor of Santa Cruz, California--just a short ride over the mountains to Silicon Valley--is also a budding entrepreneur.

Using a system of sensors and cameras, the new program lets city engineers control traffic signals in real time in response to changing road conditions. Sitting in traffic isn't just unpleasant; it also wastes gasoline and is a major trigger for heart attacks, among other health problems. And of all the places to get stuck in traffic, Midtown Manhattan may be one of the worst.

The iconic Philly cheesesteak—thin slices of beef piled onto an Italian bun and topped with grilled onions and Cheez Whiz (sorry Provolone proponents, it ain't a Philly cheesesteak to me without the neon Whiz)—was invented in 1930 when Pat and Harry Olivieri improvised with some leftovers to make a sandwich to sell at their South Philadelphia Italian market stand when they ran out of hot dogs. The happy accident is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, a must-have whenever I'm anywhere near Philly