cities
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From Addis to Yiwu via Manchester and Washington, the new resilient citiesThe Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities programme has unveiled the final tranche of 37 cities it is helping to prepare for – and bounce back from – shocks and stresses such as flooding, terrorism, earthquakes and hurricanes
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The reclaimed stream bringing life to the heart of SeoulWhen the Cheonggyecheon Stream replaced a traffic-filled stretch of elevated freeway with public space, water and vegetation it looked like a modern urbanist’s dream. The reality is more complicated, finds Colin Marshall -
Can Johannesburg reinvent itself as Africa’s first cycle-friendly megacity?In a city of 10 million designed around the car – but where most can’t afford one – could bicycles be the answer? The legacy of apartheid planning makes change difficult but cyclists are pushing and, crucially, they have the mayor’s support -
America's longest strike: the last gasp of Brooklyn's Domino Sugar FactoryFor 148 years the factory employed thousands of immigrants. When Williamsburg began to transform, as Lucio Zago tells in his forthcoming graphic novel Williamsburg Shorts, the workers weren’t going down without a fight
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The long road to Rawabi, Palestine's first planned cityIs this privately financed city project in the heart of occupied West Bank a momentous trailblazer, or a colossal folly? Harriet Sherwood pays a visit
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Housing crisis: affordable homes vanish as developers outmanoeuvre councilsIndustry analysis shows that local authorities routinely miss affordable housing targets, but experts warn that Sadiq Khan’s pledge to boost levels could stall development entirely
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Politicians condemn 60% foreign ownership of London skyscraperJohn Prescott, who approved UK’s tallest residential building, speaks out after Guardian reveals a quarter of flats in it are held by offshore firms
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City-centre homes – in picturesFrom a duplex in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter to an Upper West Side Manhattan apartment, these properties put you at the heart of the action
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Rome calls on companies and the rich to adopt crumbling ancient sitesCity asks philathropists to provide cash for excavations of the Forum, restoration of parts of the Colosseum and repair of fountains and aqueducts
the big picture
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No vacancies: life in Mozambique's abandoned Grande Hotel – in picturesWhen it opened in 1955, the Grande Hotel in the Indian Ocean city of Beira was one of the most luxurious in Africa. Photojournalist Fellipe Abreu documents the lives of the 3,500 people who now fill this long-closed hotel to capacity
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Bristol mayor Marvin Rees: ‘My dad arrived to signs saying: No Irish, no blacks, no dogs’His election as UK’s first black mayor was deeply symbolic. How does he plan to tackle Bristol’s growing problem with inequality – and its racist past?
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Can a new 'global alliance' rethink disaster response in cities?The deadly spread of ebola in west Africa and the prolonged earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti were a wake up call for the international community: they must find a more effective way to tackle humanitarian crises in urban settings
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More than just a flood defence: how Vejle built a blueprint for resilienceAs Rotterdam becomes the latest city to unveil its resilience strategy, Athlyn Cathcart-Keays looks at how the port of Vejle – the ‘Manchester of Denmark’ – came to create its own roadmap for future survival and growth
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Story of cities #46: the gated Buenos Aires community which left its poor neighbours under waterThe richest and poorest residents of Argentina’s capital are separated by the walls of gated communities. When heavy rains in 2013 left those outside the barriers vulnerable to severe flooding, their only hope was to tear them down
talking points
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The birth of Baghdad was a landmark for world civilisationThe 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
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get involved
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'Teach young people we are not going to move over': stories of ageing in citiesFrom tackling isolation in Leicester to better footpaths in Dhaka, you shared your experiences of how cities could be improved for older generations
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Call yourself an urbanist? Take our ultimate city pub quizTo kick off our collaboration with the Young Urbanists, quizmaster Rob Cowan tests your city knowledge with questions straight from the group’s pub quiz
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Have you recently migrated to a new city? Share your storyRefuge 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
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'You are left with no choice but to leave' – your stories of long-term gentrificationReaders from Istanbul, London, San Jose, Montreal, Newcastle and Buenos Aires share their experiences of neighbourhood change over the decades
in pictures
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Playgrounds for the elderlyCities around the world have been designing outdoor gyms and play areas for older generations to improve fitness and wellbeing. Even non-specialist playgrounds are getting multi-generational. Play’s not just for kids...
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The heritage of London's brutalist architectureA 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
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Street football in Africa: flyovers and floating schoolsIn Africa, the beautiful game isn’t confined to the stadium: from city roads to markets to beneath giant flyovers, football belongs everywhere
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The hidden life of Rome's Tiber riverThe 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
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Abandoned airports around the worldUrban 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
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Cracked walls, wrinkled faces: Paris' modernist housing estates and their elderly residentsPhotographer 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
you may have missed
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Is Morrissey's city still recognisable?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 …
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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 EastThe truth about property developers: how they are exploiting planning authorities and ruining our cities
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Rumble in the Jungle: 40 years on, Kinshasa is a city of chaosThe 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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Timbuktu: portrait of a city on the edge of existenceWhat 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
100 Resilient Cities announces hundredth member, but 'work is only just beginning'