cities
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What can 100 cities teach us about the future of this vulnerable world?Since the launch of the 100 Resilient Cities initiative, writes Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin, we have been inspired – and daunted – by our member cities’ willingness to confront the many challenges ahead
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Carmageddon: can electric jeepneys ease Manila's traffic crisis?The capital of the Philippines has some of the worst traffic in the world, costing the metro area an estimated £45m a day. While some pin their hopes on new road projects, others think e-jeepneys could be part of the solution -
Mexico City is 'crowdsourcing' a new constitution. But will it change anything?With a diverse line-up of expert advisers and a digital tool to promote public participation, Mexico City’s plan for a new constitution looks like a bold initiative. But can it really trigger the changes this city of 20 million so desperately needs? -
Syria's Gypsy refugees find sanctuary in an Istanbul ghetto – but for how long?In Tarlabaşı, Istanbul’s oldest slum, a tiny community centre offers a crucial place of safety and support for the shunned Syrian Dom community. But as the city gentrifies, there are fears these refugees may become victims again
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When New York City tried to ban cars – the extraordinary story of 'Gridlock Sam'Decades before New York installed bike lanes and pedestrian streets, Sam Schwartz – the man who coined the term ‘gridlock’ – was at the centre of a bitter fight to create a car-free Red Zone in downtown Manhattan
the big picture
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Beijing streetlife at nightFrom family boxing to food markets, Jens Schott Knudsen’s pictures of the Chinese capital after dark capture life in its streets and alleyways
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From Addis to Yiwu via Manchester and Washington, the new resilient cities – in picturesThe 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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100 Resilient Cities announces hundredth member, but 'work is only just beginning'Washington and Seattle, Nairobi and Lagos, Manchester and Belfast are all included in the final list of member cities as 100RC programme reveals it has had more than 1,000 applications since 2013
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Story of cities #50: 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
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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?
in depth
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Superblocks to the rescue: Barcelona’s plan to give streets back to residentsThe Catalan capital’s radical new strategy will restrict traffic to a number of big roads, drastically reducing pollution and turning secondary streets into ‘citizen spaces’ for culture, leisure and the community
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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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No vacancies: life in Mozambique's abandoned Grande HotelWhen 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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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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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
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
In praise of the tram How a love of cars killed the workers' transport system