cities
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Mafia architecture, music and lamb gutsFrom architecture built under mafia dominance, to the challenges brought about by the refugee crisis in Sicily, journalist Anna Ditta tours us around her flavourful hometown, stopping off for some questionable local dishes on the way
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China's twin towers? Hangzhou skyscrapers look strangely familiarHangzhou already has a copycat Eiffel Tower, while other cities have versions of Manhattan and Tower Bridge. Now critics say the proposed Zhejiang Gate Towers bear a suspicious resemblance to the destroyed World Trade Centre buildings -
Will Paris be ready for the flood of the century?When the river Seine burst its banks in June the rain stopped just short of a disaster. With the next floods on the scale of 1910 long overdue, is Paris prepared? -
South Africa's apartheid legacy photographed by droneJohnny Miller used a drone to take aerial photographs of the gulf in living conditions for the poor and the wealthy in South Africa
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Mexico City from a wheelchair: 'There's no second chance on these streets'Abraham Plaza is on a mission to break down the countless barriers – physical, mental and social – that make daily life in Mexico City so tough for people with disabilities. But with the help of an alliance of NGOs, he finally sees signs of hope
the big picture
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This brutalist world: from Rotterdam's 'vertical city' to Tokyo's capsule towerPeter Chadwick’s new book This Brutal World collates some striking examples of this currently cool architectural genre, from the infamous to the virtually unknown
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How to win back the city: the Barcelona en Comú guide to overthrowing the eliteA guide for world cities: how a 10-month-old community group took power from a political caste which had been in charge of Barcelona for four decades
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Amazon's express delivery service rattles Paris authoritiesMayor vows to take uncompromising approach to Prime Now offering amid fears it could force small shops to close
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Dead-end street? Hard truths about life in a 'forgotten' Manchester neighbourhoodWhile most of the city has benefited from economic growth, Gorton has been in continued decline. In an extract from his new book, Raymond Holden shares his own experience of living there and asks, can urban regeneration really help lost areas like this?
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Cycle hackers of the world unite: how a global movement grew out of GlasgowLater this month sees the third running of CycleHack, a collaborative brainstorming event which has grown to cover 38 cities on five continents. Will this year’s hacks outdo past successes like the viral hit Penny in Yo’ Pants?
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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Share ideas for what we should cover nextFrom filling billboards to mapping a whole city, readers and their experiences have played a huge role in the development of Guardian Cities. But what stories are we missing, and how can we improve? Share your ideas and suggestions
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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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Your storiesFrom 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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'You are left with no choice but to leave'Readers 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
The rise and fall of great world cities 5,700 years of urbanisation – mapped