Mayors from the around the world are at the Vatican to discuss climate change, a global issue that’s proving to be most effectively addressed at the local level.
Nigeria’s plans for a new modern city need to be boosted so that they deliver a metropolis like the Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi.
Shutterstock
Rather than just becoming a financial venture, the Eko Atlantic experiment can be carried further at no extra cost to become the hub to transform good governance in Nigeria and West Africa.
Raise the (Thames) Barriers!
diamond geezer/Flickr
The same persistent weather pattern bringing hot, dry conditions to California is likely connected to a punishing drought in the Sao Paulo area in Brazil.
Well-connected landowners owned 75% of the rezoned land, but only 12% of comparable land immediately outside the rezoning boundaries.
AAP/David Crosling
A study tracks how well-connected land-owners have benefited from favourable rezoning decisions. So what’s the best way to crack down on these cosy relationships?
The Separation Tree in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, marking where Victoria’s separation from New South Wales was celebrated in 1850, is dead after two attacks by vandals.
Gregory Moore
Tree vandals after better sea views or with political goals deprive everyone of the benefits trees provide. Despite costing local councils thousands in replacement trees, they are rarely caught.
People of Baltimore rally after six officers were charged in the death of 25-year-old black man Freddie Gray.
Jim Bourg/Reuters
Emerging research looks at new ways to measure the ecological footprint of cities, a key step to making them more environmentally benign and perhaps more livable.
The Boston-area transit authority has had major disruptions and shut-downs this winter.
MaxVT/Flickr
Despite the Patriots winning the Super Bowl, January and February were not kind months for the people of Boston and New England. By February 10th, more than 60 inches of snow in 30 days fell on the city…
Cities are always much more complex than their popular perceptions.
Daniel Lee
What is the future of Australia’s wealthiest state? The Conversation, in conjunction with Griffith REVIEW and Curtin University, is publishing a series of articles exploring the unique issues facing Western…
City planners are looking to redevelop the eastern part of midtown Manhattan. How can they preserve its character, economic importance, and functionality?
Wikimedia Commons
Good historians know that history rarely teaches clear lessons. When it does, we should heed them. In the 1920s, urban visionaries completely refashioned midtown Manhattan, making it the most modern and…
Voluntary programs are all the rage. From ratcheting up cybersecurity to fighting obesity, firms in the United States and elsewhere voluntarily make pledges to do better than governmental regulation. Firms…
The Gold Coast is one of Australia’s climate “hot spots” — vulnerable to rising seas, storms and erosion.
Phalinn Ooi/Flickr
The world’s population could reach almost 10 billion by 2050. Most people will live in cities. To accommodate an additional 3 billion people, we’ll need to build the equivalent of one new city, that can…
The inner suburbs of Melbourne are surprisingly more leafy than the outer suburbs.
Andrew
When you look out of your window in the morning, how many trees do you see? Your answer might depend on what suburb you live in. As you go further from the city centre, the amount of tree cover in a suburb…
My future city contains flying cars, shimmering architecture and vertical parks. Yours is probably different, but whether you’ve thought about it or not you’ll definitely have some conception, some image…
Greater Manchester is to get its own directly elected mayor to preside over regional issues. The new mayor will have powers over transport, housing, planning and policing in a devolution deal worth more…
Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, offers an idea of how pleasant and practical the Velotopian dream of a bike-friendly city might be.
AAP/Visit Denmark
The Australian television satire Utopia invited the public along for a laugh that architects and planners have been sharing for decades. We laugh at the idea of utopia to disassociate ourselves from the…
Does this look like a conservative city to you?
Ixnayonthetimmay
Mesa, Arizona: a place with wide streets and narrow minds. Or so goes a once popular saying about this traditionally laid-back, conservative community that came into official existence in 1883 as a Mormon…
New research shows golden orb weaving spiders are larger in cities compared to their relatives in the bush.
Lizzy Lowe
Find yourself thinking that the spider living in your garden is the biggest you’ve ever seen? You could be right. New research shows some spiders are getting larger and even doing better in cities than…
Culture is frequently identified as the key determining variable in accounting for a city’s ‘liveability’.
AAP / Kerry O'Brien Publicity, John Gollings
The world is in the grip of a rankings mania. This week alone the city of Melbourne has been awarded the mantle of Most Liveable City and World’s Friendliest City in the space of days. And don’t they want…
In an experiment for a forthcoming National Geographic television show Mind Over Masses, a pavement was divided into lanes, separating those that are walking from those walking while talking on mobile…
Fast-growing Tehran is at the heart of the economic and demographic pressures for change in Iran.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
Iran is involved in P5+1 talks with the US and Europe ostensibly about nuclear capacities. But the real talk in Iran and around the world is that Iran’s government knows things have to change. As Egypt…