As I woke up this morning in Missoula, MT I just knew that ourbania members in Europe had been busy. I checked - and there it was. The Eiswerder Riverside Promenade in Berlin is ourbania's 500th urban item. Be sure to visit it on ourbania (http://ourbania.de/urban-items/eiswerder-riverside-promenade) and take a stroll along the water the next time you visit Berlin (if you are not fortunate enough to live in this wonderful, lively city).

With the continuing growth of ourbania (we are still curious about what will be the 500th urban item) and its network of real estate people, we thought it was time to step back and think about some valuable features to add.

Also, we found that many first time visitors did not understand what ourbania was all about and what they can do here. That is why we decided to tweak our navigation wording and our claim. But we want to make sure that you like what we are doing, so please: Share your comments on the proposed changes and take the poll on the ourbania home page...

ourbania is getting closer to the number of 500 objects. Want to be the one who enters the 500th urban item? Go on! Be an active citizen. We're curious to see where and what it is.

Many North American cities can already be presented in 3D - mainly the inner cities of bigger metropoles. Germany has also started to build 3D models of inner cities. Hamburg and Berlin were the first German metropoles in 2007 which could be discovered in 3 dimensions. Various other cities copied this strategy to present themselves to target groups as tourists and architecture enthousiasts for example. Even smaller German cities as Wiesbaden in Hesse begin to create their urban environment in the world wide network of Google Earth.

The internet information provider comStore has published a ranking of German real estate portals, based on their traffic:

1. ImmobilienScout24.de
2. Immonet.de
3. Immowelt.de
4. Immopool.de
5. WG-gesucht.de
6. Immozentral.com
7. Studenten-WG.de
8. wohnung-jetzt.de
9. s-immobilien.de
10. immobilienmarkt.de
11. my-next-home.de
12. wohnungs-schnaeppchen.com
13. pro-wohnen.de

Due to the special FAQ site in the community, the team decided to remove all FAQ content from the ourbania blog. Therefor, from now on, you will find frequently asked questions only here: http://ourbania.com/faq

Nevertheless, for certain temporary issues, special FAQs and news concerning updates will still be posted in the blog section.

If you have ever thought about spending more than 2 Billion Dollars on your family home: this is the solution. The Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, head of the petrochemical company Reliance Industries, invested this sum in his dream family "house".

There are quite a few interesting new websites in the www which could be also of interest to you. WYP for example offers a unique community which gives users the opportunity to buy property.

Currently, one hectar of land costs € 9.95. It is limited to the virtual world, so there is no real ownership - but why not becoming a virtual landlord?

If you have ever been to Tokyo or Japan in general, you might have realized that parking in the crowded megacities is a little bit different compared to European or North American car parks. Usually, European car drivers drive into the city, get their parking ticket at the entry lane and steer their vehicle into the lot. Well, due to the lack of space in urban areas especially in Japan, developers, urban planners and technology companies built parks under different circumstances.

This weekend the see conference, a conference on visualization of information, took place in Wiesbaden, Germany, for the third time.

Julien De Smedt from JDS Architects, Copenhagen, presented a showcase of his actual work. In his speech he focusses on the influence of visualization on the perception of space, and it was quite impressive to see the results of this approach.

The full presentation can be seen here:
http://www.see-conference.com/#/en/Livestream/?stream=seeconference3_jul...