The latest submission to the forthcoming book is from Martinpfirrmann via our Flickr Pool.

This is an interesting one, in Martins words - probably one of the worst thing you can do in urban planning is to built a street right next to a river. Even worse is only to built a street on top of a river. Japan however even tops this.

Nihonbashi - meaning "Bridge of Japan" - was first built in the center of Japan in 1603. The area around Nihonbashi was the major business and financial district until the 20th century. The bridge is the origin of measuring distances for all places in Japan.

Since then, it was rebuilt about 20 times; today’s renaissance-style stone bridge was constructed in 1911. Only in 1999, it was designated as a cultural asset.

Though being a significant element in Japanese history, shortly before the Olympics in 1964, the elevated Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway was constructed over the bridge.

Plans to remove the ugly highway are without progress. So tourists will continue to stunningly watch this world-class mis-development in Japanese Planning - a disaster that continues to put a whole nation to shame.

The sad part, this is only the tip of the iceberg, as Japanese Bureaucracy still continues to completly destroy every single historical monument and natural piece of landscape.

If you would like to contribute it is easy, simply go out into your local urban environment and photograph anything that you think is an example of poor architecture, urban design or use of space. It could be a photograph of a run down phonebox or a disused building, perhaps a concrete monstrosity from the 1970's or anything that you think fits.

Once you have your photograph you can simply upload it to our newly created group on Flickr, Worlds Worst Urban Spaces and Place including a description of between 100 and 250 words.

Its as simple as that, see our previous post for full details on the book.