cities
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Bright lights, big city The sci-fi future of lamp-posts
Street lighting has always been a form of social control. As ‘smart’ lamp-posts start to adapt to our needs, are we entering a brave new world of big city lights? -
Mumbai from the sky A city of ethereal beauty
Robert D Stephens flew 15,000ft above the city to take photographs for his Mumbai Articles exhibition
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How to build a fairer city: German municipality to buy back utility grids after referendum vote to end private ownership of power, gas and water networks
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Campaigners wanted to help the public understand how much money the government had used to bail out a bank – so they created the model for a vast city that could be built for the same amount of cash
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Hot shots Why is Brighton so obsessed with coffee?
With Brightonians the biggest coffee drinkers in the UK, spending an average of £177 a head per year, the city’s coffee shops - from chains to artisanal independents - are acting as a community hub and temporary workplace
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Underground stations are often filthy, noisy and festooned with litter and rodents. But not the new Fulton Center in New York, which has opened after 10 years and at a cost of over $1bn, and is already receiving rave reviews from commuters. Here are some others that buck the trend
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Exploring the forbidden subterranean world of ghost Tube stations, Victorian sewers and disused shelters has given academic geographer and urban explorer Bradley Garrett a whole new perspective on the city
in depth
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Underground London Adventures in the secret city
Exploring the forbidden subterranean world of ghost Tube stations and Victorian sewers has given Bradley Garrett a whole new perspective on the city -
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Last week, we invited our readers to collaboratively map the city of Baraka, DRC as part of the Missing Maps project. Here’s what happened
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Don’t spit, don’t play loud music, don’t drive on the pavement … Farmers moving to the former ghost city of Kangbashi are getting lessons in how to be urbanites
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Can this one-industry town find a way to rescue its losses? A man called Guardian still thinks so ...
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big picture
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The new Fulton Center subway station in New York opened after 10 years and at a cost of more than $1bn, and is already receiving rave reviews from commuters. Here are some others that buck the trend
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Forward-thinking Hari Krishna chairman marks Diwali by lavishing almost 500 cars and more than 200 apartments on his long-serving staff
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As part of our Stormproofing the City series, Klaus Jacob, who predicted the devastation wrought by 2012 storm, tells Lilah Raptopoulos why city planners could be making things worse, not better, for future generations
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Western audiences are being sold a shiny new version of the Colombian city – but one academic says his research has uncovered a culture of exclusion and a mirage of social harmony
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Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $130m plan to upgrade New York’s neglected parks has put the spotlight on a commissioner who likes to go incognito to see how people use ‘his’ green spaces. Emma Brockes joins him
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Hasmukh Patel hopes to change the culture of his force by encouraging officers to adopt ancient techniques. His crime figures have gone up – but that’s ok, he says
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Welcome to our new series, where a NYC resident makes sense of the network protecting her from the next Sandy-sized storm … by interviewing the people preparing for it
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By the end of next year one-in-three of the world’s 100m+ buildings will be in China, as its state-orchestrated urbanisation drive prompts a megacity building bonanza
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Ageing populations are increasingly prone to feeling lonely and isolated in modern, anonymous cities around the world. A new app from Barcelona might have the answer
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We invited readers to join our experts in a live webchat on whether UK cities and towns are ready for the threat of flooding
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From jokes between friends to public health messages, a traditional phrase is sweeping though Indian communities worldwide, thanks to Facebook, WhatsApp and a good dose of humour
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City links: This week we were at the SXSW Eco conference in Austin, Texas, thinking about the future of cities amid climate change. Here are some of the best of the (many) conclusions
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Mature cities can adapt and new cities can design themselves to be climate resilient from the start. Alongside unavoidable expenditure come potentially lucrative benefits for innovative businesses providing solutions – and the prize is a big one
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Our urban leaders’ belief in autonomy as the ultimate goal must be unset, writes Richard Sennett. The seductive idea of a place controlling its own fortunes is out of date
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The development of engineered timber could herald a new era of eco-friendly ‘plyscrapers’. Christchurch welcomed its first multistorey timber structure this year, there are plans for Vancouver, and the talk is China could follow
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Architectural, fine art and news photographers shed light on contemporary and traditional solutions to the problem of climate change in densely populated coastal regions
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The future of food: A new Dutch scheme aims to distribute local fare more sustainably, unclog the streets and reduce Amsterdam’s 15 million annual food miles
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We asked readers to make three-minute films about their cities for the Barbican’s City Visions film season. In this first of three updates, here are some of our favourites
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As Christ Church Cathedral remains gripped in a battle between modernity and heritage, a bold new structure is coming to symbolise progress as the city rebuilds after the earthquake
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Gujarat city on India’s west coast is preparing to cope with twin disasters brought on by rapid growth and global warming
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Tune in to watch the session exploring urban resilience and digital civic engagement from the Making the City Playable conference in Bristol - live
talking points
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We're getting to know the local urban voices who cover their home cities most insightfully. Here's our initial list of bloggers, from Detroit to Addis Ababa
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Placemeter pays New Yorkers to suction-cup an old smartphone to their window, then records and analyses what’s happening outside
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From ‘green wave’ traffic lights and majestic harbour bike bridges to digital countdowns and foot rests at junctions, the Danish capital is full of clever ideas to improve city cycling
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Duncan A Smith of UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis talks us through his new data visualisation platform, LuminoCity3D, and the insights it offers into population, employment, transport and the environment
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Potholes kill, cost billions to fix and are the focus of endless apps and initiatives (yes, there’s a UK Pothole Fund). Enter the brave urban warriors fighting to slay this original urban bugbear for good
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Solar panels embedded in the cycle path near Amsterdam could generate enough electricity to power three houses, with potential to extend scheme to roads
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From boardwalks to bridges, tunnels to cycle-friendly subways, you shared your experiences of the best urban bike infrastructure from across the globe
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From Calgary’s space-age Peace bridge to Eindhoven’s floating roundabout and the Copenhagen apartments with a cycle path straight up to the 10th floor, Gavin Blyth’s Velo City highlights some of the world’s best cycling infrastructure
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The PR war over Boris Johnson’s flagship cycling scheme risks impeding its progress
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The ‘rust belt’ city of Buffalo, New York is experiencing a renaissance after decades of decline. But while one half rises from the post-industrial ashes, large swaths of the other remain trapped in poverty and disrepair
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London could soon be home to the longest continuous, substantially segregated urban cycleway in Europe – but lobbyists are raising concerns about the impact on congestion, pedestrians and businesses. Do they have a point?
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The main political parties and 60 big employers support ‘Crossrail for bikes’ – yet behind the scenes there are intense efforts to poison the project, says Chris Boardman
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A huge number of the world’s most vulnerable human settlements have remained unmapped ... until now. Enter an unprecedented plan to map the world’s forgotten places
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Bike messengers were once the fastest way to get a document across a city – until the arrival of email. Yet even today, in a world with superfast broadband, a few of us still eke out a living, writes cycle courier Emily Chappell
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Tens of thousands of people were trapped in Yumen after officials swiftly locked down the city when a man died of plague. While the crisis has since passed, it highlights China's severe approach to the threat from disease
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An urbanist’s tour of South Korea, day 4: How the little-known industrial city of Changwon learned to love the bicycle so much they’ve even written a song about it
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The two-lane elevated orange Cykelslangen – the latest of the city's continuous and safe bike lanes – is a joy to ride as it wriggles its way over the harbour
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Amsterdam-based Peerby enables users to share items – a hammer, a tent, a badminton racket – in the way neighbours did before cities made us more anonymous
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The city boasts the highest concentration of millionaires in Britain and an unemployment rate of just 2% – but wage inequality and astronomical rents have heightened calls for change
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Peer-to-peer car sharing, borrowing from neighbours and connecting with fellow cyclists: which gets your vote?
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Now we’re focusing on cyclists and pedestrians – what daily dangers do you face and what changes to road and pavement layouts do you want to see? Use Street View to show us
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City links: From urban anxiety to pictures of stairs (yes) to shipping container 'ghettos', here are some of the web's best city stories this week
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After much agonising, the list of 10 creative concepts still in the running to be named best new mobile city app of 2014 has been revealed. As ever, it's an impressively eclectic, global list
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Architecture and design critic Rowan Moore, himself a cyclist, asks whether our dreams of a Dutch-style bike culture have materialised
get involved
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A huge number of the world’s most vulnerable human settlements have remained unmapped ... until now. Enter an unprecedented plan to map the world’s forgotten places
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We put 36 cities from around the world in the ‘hot seat’. See how they got on …
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From boardwalks to bridges, tunnels to cycle-friendly subways, you shared your experiences of the best urban bike infrastructure from across the globe
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From huge city parks to neighbourhood community gardens, share your favourite urban green spaces in the US
in pictures
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Lurking in the back alleys of New York or perched above the busy streets of Cairo, ghost signs provide an ephemeral link to a city’s past
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Where do the happiest, least stressed, most satisfied Londoners live? What’s the busiest station? Do football fans support their local team? These questions and more are explored in London: The Information Capital
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From Calgary’s space-age Peace bridge to Eindhoven’s floating roundabout and the Copenhagen apartments with a cycle path straight up to the 10th floor, Gavin Blyth’s Velo City highlights some of the world’s best cycling infrastructure
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The American photographer spends 15 hours perched on a rooftop or crane photographing each city from one camera angle through night and day, before months in the studio painstakingly blending them into one seamless image
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Berlin’s modern face – glass skyscrapers, busy roads, overgrown lots – shows little trace of its old scar. Our Street View expert takes us back to Checkpoint Charlie, the death strip ... and the wall’s glorious fall 25 years ago next month
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Oliviera’s repurposed plywood construction hoardings wind their way around the university contemporary art museum’s white columns in a tangle of roots
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Halloween special: Photographer Seph Lawless – whose eerie images of abandoned shopping malls we featured this summer – has explored houses blighted by tragic histories in his new book, 13: an American horror story
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Reinforced doors, metal bunks and hot food – with nuclear winter an unlikely prospect, Geneva’s fallout shelters have thrown open their doors to welcome the homeless
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The copycat city in north-eastern Liaoning province is just the latest example of China’s fondness for replicating Europe’s greatest architectural hits
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From British prisoners of war being marched through Bruges to anti-aircraft guns on the Eiffel Tower and new recruits in Toronto, our Street View specialist takes us back 100 years
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The theme of this year’s competition – Cities at Work – challenged photographers from around the world to capture the beauty and day-to-day reality of working life
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The group of vulnerable young mothers who occupied vacant flats after being told they would be rehoused outside London by Newham council have now left the Carpenters estate. Photographer Jess Hurd visited the protesters this week to document their campaign
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Architectural, fine art and news photographers shed light on contemporary and traditional solutions to the problem of climate change in densely populated coastal regions
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Oxford academic and ‘place hacker’ Bradley Garrett has spent years exploring the capital’s hidden depths. His latest book, Subterranean London, is published by Prestel
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Guardian Cities asked you to share your photos of the most silly, confusing and dangerous signs near you via GuardianWitness. Here’s a selection of our favourites
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The Barbican Centre’s new Constructing Worlds exhibition brings together 18 photographers who have changed the way we view the urban world around us, from the early skyscrapers of New York to the Torre David vertical slum in Venezuela
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As the global parliament of mayors prepares to kick off, which civic leaders would you want in your deck?
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What is life like in Mali’s ‘city in the middle of nowhere’? Guardian photographer Sean Smith recently spent a week there, meeting everyone from Timbuktu’s chief muezzin to its only DJ
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Emma Brockes: Notebook: I’m transfixed by New York’s high guys, whether outside my window or cheating death above the World Trade Center’s 68th floor
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London mayor makes u-turn over Oxford Street’s pollution levels in a letter to the EAC about research funding for King’s College, that made the original claim on air quality
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David Hambling: Gusts and a glassy skyscraper test the engineers
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Homes in British countryside cost quarter more than those in urban areas, Halifax finds, squeezing out first-time buyers
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David Chipperfield: Since the fall of the Wall, Berlin has managed something truly admirable: to be defined not by wealth but by its very complexity
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Two-wheeled transport has come a long way over the last two centuries. Take a pictorial spin through the bicycle’s journey from the wood and iron era to the age of carbon fibre
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The hardships and unemployment of the Greek economic collapse have led to a new wave of innovative graffiti, which is both politically aware and socially accepted – making Athens a new Mecca for street artists
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The eco apartment block One Central Park in Sydney has been named best tall building in the world, topping a list dominated by the Asia-Pacific region
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Mumbai residents have designed a mobile app – and enlisted the help of tiny superheroes – in their campaign to repair the city’s notoriously ramshackle roads
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Will Hutton:The country’s great conurbations are, currently, civic pygmies. George Osborne has made a start by giving Manchester more autonomy. Now more must follow
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Alison Watt: The rippling of wooden bobbins, the sound of 2,000 lengths of wool being stretched taut… these make a fine accompaniment when an artist’s design is woven into being
you may have missed
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Affordable housing quotas get waived and the interests of residents trampled as toothless authorities bow to the dazzling wealth of investors from Russia, China and the Middle East
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The heavyweight world championship showdown between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman electrified a city full of pride and promise in the early years following independence – and then the money ran out …
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Pushed into a corner by soaring prices, greedy landlords and a cap on benefits, one London council has embarked on a daring set of untested policies to provide more public housing
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What is life like in Mali’s ‘city in the middle of nowhere’? Guardian photographer Sean Smith recently spent a week there, meeting everyone from Timbuktu’s chief muezzin to its only DJ
It's time to make town planning cool again