Quite how to gauge the size of a city – or where one ends and the next begins – is getting harder to determine. The 21st century belongs to the limitless city.
A comparison of 42 urban areas in New Zealand with 500 towns and cities in the US shows how much better local urban design has to be if we’re serious about reducing reliance on cars.
We only feel free to use spaces that we can identify with.
Vagengeim | Shutterstock
The success of the metaverse – whether people use it or not – will rely heavily on the environments that are created.
A visualization of daily life around Angkor Wat in the late 12th century.
Tom Chandler, Mike Yeates, Chandara Ung and Brent McKee, Monash University, 2021
With the construction industry a major source of pollution and waste, rethinking how we use the built environment we have has never been more important. This French architect duo is showing the way
People wandering on a pedestrian portion of Ste-Catherine Street in Montréal. The pandemic has contributed to a recognition of the importance of public space.
The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz
Containment during the pandemic has contributed to a recognition of the importance of public space as a gathering place and an essential tool to meet the needs of the population.
Temporary and tactical urbanism offers simple, low-cost solutions to make streets and other public spaces both safe and sociable during this time of physical distancing.
Empty cafes with tipped chairs are a common sight worldwide during the coronavirus pandemic.
Frank Rumpenhorst/picture alliance via Getty Images
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.
Global cities such as Wuhan (pictured in March 2018) require investments in lower-carbon urban development to enhance public health.
Wikipedia
After the Covid-19 pandemic, we must seize the opportunity to make urban centers more livable places by investing in affordable housing, basic services, clean energy and active transport.
A new model based on how diseases spread will help traffic controllers get on top of congestion faster
New York has become a ‘city for the rich’ in recent decades, a shift in its real estate market that impacts policy-making, too.
Alessandro Colle / Shutterstock
New York City’s municipal budget relies heavily on the property taxes of extremely high-value real estate. That drives gentrification and distorts local policy in other ways that hurt residents.
Ferrara, Italy bears some resemblance to da Vinci’s design.
hectorlo/Flickr.
With so few public washrooms in our cities, vulnerable people are forced to use café and restaurant washrooms. How do mostly minimum wage café and restaurant workers deal with this?
Cities are the laboratories where the tech giants are exploring urban innovations.
ShutterOK/Shutterstock
Companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb and Tesla are redefining key aspects of daily life such as work, mobility and leisure, using our cities as laboratories for their innovations.
City Skyline and Main River in Frankfurt, Germany.
Valerian Alecsa / Shutterstock
Economic polarisation across Europe is becoming an important phenomenon, in part driven by monetary policies that can increase office prices and can even affect the fundamentals that drive the markets.
The management of green spaces in Valldaura.
Valldaura
In a context marked by major ecological, social and economic changes, cities are at the heart of transitions.
Density is an idea sold to us by corporate developers who want to build on every last bit of green space. To fully enjoy our city now and for the future, we need more public green space.
As Toronto hurtles towards its population dense future, the making of significant green communities for its waterfront needs to be urgently considered.
Cities were once considered a source of many problems. But that vision has changed over the last generation.
Graeme Roy
Our current celebration of cities is a big shift from the past generation when cities were seen to contain all of our problems. Should we believe the hype? Are the new ideas equally problematic?