cities
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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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Ben Holt, who has cerebral palsy, bids to visit all 270 London Underground stations to highlight system’s accessibility problems and set world record
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Twenty five years after its fall, more pieces of the Berlin wall are scattered across the globe – from Seattle to South Korea, Cape Town to Canberra – than remain in the city itself
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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 by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti’s London: The Information Capital, published by Particular Books on 30 October
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Studies show that exposure to light after dusk is quite literally unnatural, and may be detrimental to health. Do we need 24/7 garages, supermarkets and TV – or should the city that never sleeps be put to bed?
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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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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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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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Harsh winters and the world’s worst road congestion make the Russian capital an inhospitable place for cyclists. So why does the number of riders keep on rising? Maryam Omidi reports for The Calvert Journal
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This Friday, in conjunction with UN-Habitat, we’re staging the very first Guardian World Cities Day Challenge, with 35 finalists taking the hot seat to show off their city’s best idea. Get involved!
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Should we be concerned about Placemeter – an app which monitors street views from apartment windows?
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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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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Ben Holt, who has cerebral palsy, bids to visit all 270 London Underground stations to highlight system’s accessibility problems and set world record
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Twenty five years after its fall, more pieces of the Berlin wall are scattered across the globe – from Seattle to South Korea, Cape Town to Canberra – than remain in the city itself
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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 by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti’s London: The Information Capital, published by Particular Books on 30 October
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Studies show that exposure to light after dusk is quite literally unnatural, and may be detrimental to health. Do we need 24/7 garages, supermarkets and TV – or should the city that never sleeps be put to bed?
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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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Taxis, trash and street dance parties: Mohamed Elshased of Cairobserver navigates us beyond the sensory overload of the Egyptian capital
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It’s the world’s third most multicultural city – but with voters poised to replace Rob Ford with yet another middle-aged white man, Colin Marshall asks whether Toronto needs a new big idea
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People are being shut out of major planning decisions and our control system can verge on meaningless. It’s time to act
in pictures
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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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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 by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti’s London: The Information Capital, published by Particular Books on 30 October
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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 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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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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Urban planner and academic who believed good design considered the smells of towns and cities as well as their sights and sounds
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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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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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The PR war over Boris Johnson’s flagship cycling scheme risks impeding its progress
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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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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 London borough is battling to bridge the gap between its working-class residents and an influx of well-heeled investors
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Gary Younge: Gates made his name by staging soul food dinners in honour of a fictional Japanese potter. Now he is recycling the fabric of Chicago’s past, including its bricks and mortar, to transform the city’s depressed areas
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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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From Phnom Penh and Yokohama to Athens and Glasgow, you shared your pictures of deserted sports stadiums and venues in cities. Here are some of the best
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A unique 19-mile belt of neglected green space in the very centre of the French capital is sparking debate among environmentalists and entrepreneur around the future direction of development in the city
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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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Jonathan Jones, Framing the Debate: The architecture of corporate confidence has faded to green. Can the city that defined energy excess become a symbol of resistance to preserve the future?
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Expensive sports stadiums in cities around the world lie unused and decaying, the remnants of ambitious urban building projects. Share your photos of them – and ideas for their reuse
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Hometown pride and promises of economic growth are often leveraged to garner billions for new stadium megaprojects, taking public funds away from other pressing needs
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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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Amy Sacka’s 500-day photo essay exploring Detroit is an attempt to discover the meaning of home. Raised in the suburbs, where the ruined Motor City was a place to be feared, returning was a personal challenge
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Hull’s twin loss of its fishing and shipping industries consigned it to a future of poverty, isolation and even ridicule. But now all that is about to change, because the city is putting its faith back in the North Sea
We can't let lobbyists destroy London's segregated cycle lane plans