London.gov.ukDo you fancy a cappuccino frosted with toxic dust? This is one of the unsettling images from a new campaign highlighting the terrible quality of London’s air. Launched by the London mayor’s office this week, the campaign uses heavily soiled everyday objects, includin … | Continue reading
Whenever a city updates the rolling stock of its subway, a familiar question emerges: What to do with all the old metro cars? You can hurl them in the ocean to make artificial reefs, or use them for emergency housing for the homeless, or sell them to North Korea, as Berlin did in … | Continue reading
The Amazon reality show: The bidding for Amazon’s HQ2 turned America into “The Bachelor: Corporate Edition,” writes Slate columnist Henry Grabar, as the public groveling and courtship from U.S. cities now gives way to the “quieter, more private seduction of dozens of bids promisi … | Continue reading
This post is part of Prime(d), a new podcast about “What happens when Amazon comes to your town.” It’s a partnership between CityLab and KUOW Seattle. We see you, all you cities courting Amazon. Today is deadline day for municipalities aspiring to host HQ2, the retail behemoth’s … | Continue reading
When I was a young boy growing up in and around Newark, New Jersey, there was one company that stayed when nearly all the others left. Prudential, founded in Newark in 1875 as the Widows and Orphans Friendly Society, remained committed to Newark through all its storied economic a … | Continue reading
It’s a problem that isn’t going away: the so-called “affordable” housing we’re building in many cities—by which we mean publicly subsidized housing that’s dedicated to low- and moderate-income households—is so expensive to build that we’ll never be able to build enough of it to m … | Continue reading
The U.S. is just one of two nations in the world with a money bail system (the other is the Philippines). The system means that people are held in jail while they wait for trial, unless they can afford to pay to go free. Defendants who can’t pay their way out of jail often lose t … | Continue reading
On a recent morning in Atlanta, Georgia, Marian Davis and four volunteers set up folding chairs along a busy stretch of the Atlanta Beltline where people come to exercise, sightsee, and shop. Next to them, a sign advertised their services: “Free Listening.”Davis and her “listenin … | Continue reading
Firsthand Amazon experience: As the deadline closes today for cities to bid on “HQ2,” a Seattle journalist narrates that city’s experience since Amazon set up camp in the 1990s, via Politico Magazine: Most would acknowledge the extraordinary prosperity that Amazon has brought to … | Continue reading
New York City is an island of imported goods. The city’s main export, though, is trash.The Department of Sanitation (DSNY) heaves more than 12,000 tons of waste each day; private haulers are conscripted to lug some festering freight, too. Though some organics or recyclables are d … | Continue reading
On any given bus or train, Rude Dude is never too far away. For Angelenos, at least, they now have Super Kind to save them.The new superheroine was unveiled last week as part of a new etiquette campaign by Metro Los Angeles. As the transit system continues its ambitious period of … | Continue reading
Ever since Matthew Desmond won a Pulitzer Prize this year for his book on structural poverty and racial inequality, no mention of housing policy is complete without it. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, which also helped its author earned a MacArthur Fellow grant, … | Continue reading
In a Citylab interview with former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, producer of the HBO series “The Deuce” and “The Wire,” Simon was asked which cities were “doing a pretty good job.” His response:I’d say Pittsburgh. They’ve never had the same rates of entrenched poverty, neve … | Continue reading
This week, social media was flooded with #metoo, a hashtag that survivors of sexual harassment and assault used to share their experiences and demonstrate the sweeping ubiquity of the problem. Some women recounted stories about being made to feel unsafe in public spaces and their … | Continue reading
In September, as tensions ratcheted up over North Korea’s nuclear program, Aram Pan was high above Pyongyang as a passenger in a tiny, buzzing microlight aircraft, his video cameras pointed down at the North Korean capital.Pan, a Singapore-based commercial photographer who has be … | Continue reading
Los Angeles has always been an “exceedingly improbable phenomenon,” historian Wade Graham explains at the start of season two of the podcast “There Goes the Neighborhood.””It has no timber, it has no coal, it has no iron, it has no natural harbor, it has basically no water for ei … | Continue reading
A neighborhood park can be a powerful tool to help nearby residents lead healthier lives. According to one study, every dollar spent on creating and maintaining park trails saves nearly $3 in healthcare expenses. And America is chock full of neighborhood parks: Across the country … | Continue reading
You probably haven’t heard of internet prankster Jeremy Piatt, but you may be familiar with his work. A mock GoFundme campaign to “Get Kanye out of debt” was widely covered in the press as serious, with Kanye's camp eventually having to clarify that no, he didn't want the money.P … | Continue reading
When it comes to public transit, the cities of the European Union are generally viewed as success stories. In the union’s larger cities, an average of 49 percent of people use transit to get to and from work. But as recent figures published by Eurostat reveal, ridership numbers v … | Continue reading
Taxi wars: The more than 40,000 Uber drivers in London are still allowed to drive—for now—as an appeals process plays out over the city’s surprise decision not to renew Uber’s license. But greater questions loom about the cultural battle stewing between Uber’s “techie upstarts” a … | Continue reading
On October 14, officials in Montgomery County, Maryland, ceremonially opened a new protected bike lane in downtown Silver Spring, a fast-urbanizing part of the 1-million-person county near Washington, D.C. Like many local government events, this one featured a ribbon-cutting, sho … | Continue reading
When teachers in Charlottesville, Virginia, faced the first day of school nearly two months ago, they were reeling from the violence of the “Unite the Right” rally 11 days earlier, on August 12, when white supremacists descended on the college town to protest the planned removal … | Continue reading
Urban innovations company Sidewalk Labs and the Canadian government announced a partnership Tuesday to develop 750 acres along Toronto’s waterfront into what they envision as a high-tech living laboratory for solving urban problems. It would be the largest urban redevelopment pro … | Continue reading
To forestall the continuing growth of cities as “cancerous organisms,” the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC) was conceived in the mid-1960s by epochal technologist Athelstan Spilhaus. A modular settlement of 250,000 people or more, the city was to be powered by clean energy and r … | Continue reading
There are no stop signs along the Wharf, the new $2.5 billion waterfront development that opened over the weekend in Washington, D.C. No traffic lights or pedestrian crossings, either, even though the strip stretches for more than a mile along the Washington Channel. The master p … | Continue reading
Walk around any city at dawn this time of year and you’ll likely encounter a grim, feathery graveyard. Migrating birds that have crashed into windows lie stunned or dead at the bases of buildings, only to be swept up by property managers or snatched away by predators as the sun r … | Continue reading
Ai Weiwei walked into Columbia University’s Arthur Miller Theater last week with the gait of a man who’s seen much and said little.The Chinese artist, now living in Berlin, spoke on stage with Carol Becker, Dean of Columbia’s School of the Arts; and Amale Andraos, Dean of Columbi … | Continue reading
When people talk about the financial crisis having brought dark times to Athens, sometimes they mean it literally. One of the side effects of the 2008 crisis, with which the Greek capital is still grappling, is a general dimming of night-time light. Certainly street lights still … | Continue reading
Robbie Burks had a leak. It was a slow leak, seeping from a pipe all the way down in the basement, not persistent enough to accumulate in inches but enough to leave the floors damp. And enough to suddenly, without warning, transform Burks’ $45 monthly water bill into a three-figu … | Continue reading
Services on demand: We know how “surge pricing” through Uber, planes, hotels, and concert tickets—at high-demand times, you pay more to ensure your spot. But as this trend leaks into more public uses, like electricity and traffic, what are the potential consequences? The New York … | Continue reading
Dynamic entrepreneurial companies have long been the drivers of America’s economic growth, and innovators like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs held up as heroes. But today, high-tech companies are increasingly cast as villains. Uber was recently thrown … | Continue reading
In March 2016, a flock of pigeons took to London’s skies with petite vests strapped to their backs. The tech firm Plume Labs had conscripted the winged denizens as a corps of citizen scientists with a unique vantage point on the city. As the birds swooped around the metro, a sens … | Continue reading
No artist working in television today has more to say about cities than David Simon. A former police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, his 1991 nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets became the basis for the NBC series “Homicide,” which launched Simon’s second care … | Continue reading
As ex-hurricane Ophelia batters Ireland today with wind gusts up to 176 kilometers pre hour at Fastnet Rock, Europe contemplates a future of previously unimagined super-storms. Met Éireann, Ireland’s national weather service, issued red alerts, its highest warning, across the ent … | Continue reading
Almost every major U.S. city has seen years of decline in bus ridership, but Seattle has been the exception in recent years. Between 2010 and 2014, Seattle experienced the biggest jump of any major U.S. city. At its peak in 2015, around 78,000 people, or about one in five Seattle … | Continue reading
The MacArthur Foundation recently announced its list of 2017 fellows—24 people from all walks of life who will receive $625,000 “genius” grants, as they’re often called. CityLab is running a series of short conversations with several of the winners. This interview was originally … | Continue reading
Copenhagen may have a justified reputation as a cyclists’ paradise, but over the past three years, something shocking has happened: The proportion of bike commuters on the city’s roads has been going down. Since 2014, the share of commuter trips made by bike has dropped by 4 perc … | Continue reading
Every day there’s more news about the inevitable arrival of autonomous vehicles. At the same time, more people are using ride-hailing and ride-sharing apps, and the percentage of teens getting their driver’s license continues to decline.Given these technologies and social changes … | Continue reading
Failed predictions: In last week’s California wildfires, the devastation that consumed the Santa Rosa neighborhood of Coffey Park came as a surprise to many residents—and demonstrated the flaws of the hazard maps that dictated the area’s codes for fire-proofing buildings. The Los … | Continue reading
Iran has experienced extraordinary political and economic transformation over the past four decades. From the 1979 Islamic Revolution to the democratic aspirations of the 2009 Green Movement to the 2016 nuclear deal with the U.S., the country has seen profound change, including i … | Continue reading
One-party rule is hurting America’s big cities. But not everyone thinks it’s a problem. Bruce Katz of the Brookings Insititution, for example, has called for a national Metropolitan Party that advocates for urban interests. In truth, the country already has a Metropolitan Party, … | Continue reading
There’s a moment five minutes into Charlie Rose’s 2003 interview with Louis Kahn’s son in which he’s asked to define his father’s “greatness.” Nathaniel Kahn seems uncomfortable with the question, responding with the caveat, “I’m not an architectural historian.” This would not se … | Continue reading
This story was originally published by our Spanish-language sister site, CityLab Latino.Nobody knows exactly who they are, or how many people are involved. They don’t have a leader, an organizational structure, or even a spokesperson. All decisions and actions are taken collectiv … | Continue reading
The Oakland firestorm of 1991 carbonized thousands of homes and vehicles and killed 25 people. (CAL OES)Right before deadly fires broke out last weekend in California’s wine country, John Radke, a Berkeley professor who specializes in fire modeling and environmental planning, tos … | Continue reading
Come 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau will face a perfect storm of logistical nightmares: reduced funding, poor planning, and a climate of fear that may exacerbate the challenges of tabulating communities that have historically been hard to count.Last week, the NAACP sued the Commerc … | Continue reading
Ever since Jose Pereira moved to New England from the Azores, his Portuguese identity and community have been tied to his beloved soccer team, Benfica.“When I came to the United States, the first thing I did was find a Portuguese newspaper and look for the Benfica score,” says Pe … | Continue reading
The MacArthur Foundation recently announced its list of 2017 fellows—24 people from all walks of life who will receive $625,000 “genius” grants, as they’re often called. CityLab is running a series of short conversations with several of the winners.The urban designer and planner … | Continue reading
Exactly two months ago, the Ku Klux Klan, Alt-Right, Neo-Nazis, and private militia descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, for the “Unite the Right”rally. Many of the attendees, photos and videos show, carried heavy assault rifles, handguns, and shields—equipment that Virginia G … | Continue reading