cities
-
In recent years, public contests have been used for everything from the New York ‘Dryline’ to a new Guggenheim. But do these competitions just encourage gimmicky ideas – or are they a better way to prepare cities for a changing world?
-
Designed for Stalin as the world’s first completely planned city, Magnitogorsk has yet to confront its controversial past – from the forced labour that helped build it in record time, to the severe pollution that has plagued its residents
-
Parks atop malls, breweries galore and an influx of Toronto transplants are all helping transform Steeltown into a port city that can be proud of how it combines urban, industrial and green space
-
Refuge cities The ‘square city’ has long been a pioneer in its approach to welcoming migrants – but now Mannheim is attracting criticism for the ‘ghetto’ character of its giant refugee camp, as Germany agonises over how to integrate
-
In 1955, Sophiatown was one of the last areas of black home-ownership in Johannesburg. Then the bulldozers arrived to evict these residents, confirming apartheid’s brutal suppression of black upward mobility
-
Clinton and Sanders have yet to address the ubiquitous housing affordability crisis in New York City that is displacing longtime residents and potential voters
-
Campaign launched as authorities plan to phase out the vehicles, which have operated in city for 83 years
-
Developers say new tower, inspired by hanging gardens of Bablyon, would be a ‘notch’ higher than world’s current tallest building
-
Busy stations including Waterloo, King’s Cross and London Bridge among the most threatened, unpublished review states
in depth
the big picture
-
In the unofficial capital of Transylvania, Mihail Onaca wanders the streets to capture the Romanian city’s magnificent windowframes and doorways
-
Since it was first built by war veterans in 1897, Morro da Providência has become a complex symbol of poverty, violence and sentimentality, fetishised in popular culture. But where do the favelas fit into Brazil’s vision for the Olympic Games?
-
By the mid-1800s, the River Thames had been used as a dumping ground for human excrement for centuries. At last, fear of its ‘evil odour’ led to one of the greatest advancements in urban planning: Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage system
-
Originally party organisers, Toestand are now working to bring communities together in parts of the city newly associated with terror attacks, but also subject to creeping gentrification. The group’s Allée du Kaai project shows how the gift of space can work wonders
-
Constricted by its medieval walls, Barcelona was suffocating – until unknown engineer Ildefons Cerdà came up with a radical expansion plan. Rival architects disparaged him, yet his scientific approach changed how we think about cities
talking points
-
The foundation of al-Mansur’s ‘Round City’ in 762 was a glorious milestone in the history of urban design. It developed into the cultural centre of the world
-
get involved
-
To kick off our collaboration with the Young Urbanists, quizmaster Rob Cowan tests your city knowledge with questions straight from the group’s pub quiz
-
Refuge cities Europe continues to be gripped by a refugee crisis, but forced migration is happening all around the world. We want to hear your first-hand accounts of migrating to a new city and how you’ve been received
-
Readers from Istanbul, London, San Jose, Montreal, Newcastle and Buenos Aires share their experiences of neighbourhood change over the decades
-
From regeneration and grassroots activism to privatisation and security, public space in Europe’s cities is shaped by a variety of urban developments. Share your stories of the changes you’re seeing with GuardianWitness
in pictures
-
A new project by photographer Rory Gardiner and studio esinam highlights the subtle beauties hidden beneath the hard surface of London’s oft-maligned brutalist buildings, from the Barbican to the National Theatre
-
In Africa, the beautiful game isn’t confined to the stadium: from city roads to markets to beneath giant flyovers, football belongs everywhere
-
The Tiber’s banks provide an isolated ecosystem in the centre of the Italian capital. Photographer Luigi Pastoressa documents a riverside used by cyclists and street vendors, homeless people and artists, drug addicts and fishermen
-
Urban growth, sporting events, financial crashes and political turmoil have left a trail of city airports and airfields deserted around the globe. While some lie abandoned or face redevelopment, others are being creatively reused
-
Photographer Laurent Kronental spent four years documenting the lives of older citizens living in the Grands Ensembles housing estates built around Paris after the second world war for his Souvenir d’un Futur project
-
Photographer Berenice Abbott started Changing New York – her grand project to document NYC – in 1935, capturing shops and buildings before they were torn down. The photos are held in the archive of the New York Public Library
popular
-
5
Welcome to the naked city: sun, swingers and very little shoplifting
This article is 8 months old
you may have missed
-
Thirty years on from The Smiths’ only UK No 1 studio album, how do the band’s legendary evocations of 1980s Manchester compare with life in the city today? There’s only one place to start …
-
The truth about property developers: how they are exploiting planning authorities and ruining our cities
Oliver WainwrightAffordable 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 -
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 …
-
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
Mind the merde Why can't French cities clean up after their dogs?