cities
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From Oscar the Grouch’s new recycling bin to Coronation Street’s trendy wine bar, gentrification is seemingly unstoppable – on TV as much as in real life
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The Dutch government’s plan to ‘clean up’ Amsterdam’s red-light district and rid the area of organised crime has forced the closure of many brothel windows, displacing sex workers and leaving valuable buildings up for development
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As the San Francisco tech boom has sent rents skyrocketing and pushed out established businesses, Erin McElroy and others at the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project have been gathering oral histories of some of those affected
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The vibrant south London neighbourhood of Brixton has become a flashpoint for the gentrification debate. Martin Godwin revisits it to see the ways it has changed … and the ways it has not
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Few areas of London have seen such drastic transformation as Brixton. But how exactly is gentrification affecting prices, diversity and local businesses? Sarah Marsh digs into the numbers and finds some surprising truths
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Art made on local bus routes, punk performed at the top of the tower and a promenade awash with mohawks – Blackpool’s cultural scene has plenty to offer
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She may be an outsider to succeed Boris Johnson, but the Green Party candidate seems determined to invigorate the debate about the capital’s future
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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
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The number of annual deaths caused by pollution around the world is now greater than malaria and HIV combined, according to a recent study, with scientists warning that fatalities could reach 6 million a year by 2050
in depth
the big picture
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The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat keeps tabs on skyscrapers under construction around the world. Of the 10 tallest due for completion this year, six are in China, two in Dubai and one each in Seoul and Moscow
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Major roads which get snarled in rush hour or after a few inches of snow could be potentially deadly in the event of a terrorist attack or superstorm. So what should a more resilient transport system look like?
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Coney Island has long struggled to beat the seasonal exodus and reinvent itself as a year-round resort. Could the unexpected popularity of its New Year’s Eve parties kickstart the transformation of one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods?
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The Italian capital has a logistical nightmare: juggling ambitious restoration projects at the Colosseum and the Porta Maggiore basilica with trying to run and update the city – and all without a mayor. Can it cope?
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This week, New York and LA reacted very differently to the same bomb scare. So how does a city judge how seriously to take such threats – and is it really that easy to bring a major metropolis to a halt?
talking points
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Permanent walls were built to separate Catholic and Protestant districts of Belfast in the 1970s, and the city is still scarred by almost 100 of them. Defensive architecture, it turns out, is easier to build than tear down
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get involved
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We’ve stripped out the street names and lost the labels – but can you still recognise the cities from their aerial views?
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From noise and pollution to street harassment and anonymous crowds, readers share their experiences and thoughts on what makes cities stressful – and which places are the biggest offenders. Is it time to relocate?
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You shared your experiences, photos and memories of forgotten or unloved rivers in cities around the world, from Birmingham to Belo Horizonte
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From Bucharest to Birmingham, you shared your pictures and stories of overlooked, abandoned or unloved buildings in cities
in pictures
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In 1869, French artist Gustave Doré and British journalist Blanchard Jerrold began a landmark account of the deprivation and squalor of mid-Victorian London
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Ten years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, photographer Mario Tama of Getty Images returns to the city to document how things have changed
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No distraction is too bizarre when it’s in the middle of a roundabout. Here are some of the strangest and most beautiful examples, including from the hitherto-uncelebrated roundabout hotspot of Oman
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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
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Colin O’Brien has been photographing the lives of Londoners since 1948, capturing both change and continuity in the life of the capital. His book London Life records the final moments before transformation took place in the city
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From a fake underground grotto to giant bronze tulips, murals making statements on ecology to work by ‘the Swedish Banksy’, Stockholm’s metro stations are full of surprises. All photographs by Luis Rodriguez
popular
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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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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 …
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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
Is the gentrification of cities inevitable – and inevitably bad?