After trying to remove street vendors from its cities for years, China is supporting them to help jump-start its economy. An urban scholar explains why other cities should do the same.
The Aztecs had a shining city on a lake, with canals, causeways and aqueducts – until the Spanish came. Mexico City is still suffering the consequences of their bad public health decisions.
First trains, then cars and, now, COVID-19 have all spurred New York to reimagine how its scarce space should be used – and what residents need to survive.
Abiy Ahmed has a vision to upgrade Ethiopia’s capital city but his ambitious megaprojects do not take the majority of Addis Ababa’s residents into account
Four decades after Ellen Craig-Jones of Urbancrest, Ohio, became the US’s first Black woman mayor, seven of the nation’s largest cities are lead by Black women. And what a time to be in charge.
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the lack of green space available to those living in urban areas. Cities must be managed as ecosystems to make them more liveable and resilient.
High-density city living has been touted as a way to solve the problem of creating more sustainable, more liveable cities. But instead cities are only more liveable for a few.
Why one city suffers significantly more deaths than another isn’t always obvious. A simple experiment shows how failing to consider certain factors can point policy makers in the wrong direction.
Neighborhood characteristics like pollution from busy roads, widespread public transit use and lack of community-based health care are putting certain communities at greater risk from COVID-19.
Visits to ‘adult’ sites surged in March when coronavirus pandemic restrictions came in. While tastes vary around the country, a disproportionate share of traffic comes from our biggest cities.
Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of many great North American city parks, understood that ready access to nature made cities healthier places to live.
For centuries, disease outbreaks have forced cities to transform physically and operationally in ways that ultimately benefited all residents going forward.
Robert Muggah, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) et Richard Florida, University of Toronto
COVID-19 is spreading fast through not only the world’s richest cities but also its poorest, ravaging slum areas where risk factors like overcrowding and poverty accelerate disease transmission.
The plight of the urban poor affected by COVID-19 highlights the need to to reaffirm that adequate housing, water supply and sanitation are basic human rights.
We sorely miss our regular haunts during the coronavirus lockdown not only because we like them but also because a healthy society needs places where people can gather, mix and mingle.