cities
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Inside Bangkok's open-air 'community' mall'In a city dominated by air-conditioned complexes and where street life is being destroyed, a new style of mall seeks to recapture a neighbourhood charm -
Is this the biggest urban demolition project ever?In what might be the biggest urban demolition project ever, 10% of Moscow’s housing stock will be torn down and 1.6 million people resettled as the city’s ‘Khrushchevka’ flats are destroyed. But residents are fighting back
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in pictures
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Life in Ghana before independenceFound in 1922, Deo Gratias is the oldest photography studio still in operation in Accra
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Philadelphia's abandoned turbine hallsThe Philadelphia Electric Company built enormous metropolitan power stations at the turn of the 20th century. Now vacant and decaying, these buildings are a blight in the eyes of city planners and a beacon to urban explorers
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The city that might have beenFrom the offshore Santa Monica freeway to a mini Las Vegas with pyramids and the Parthenon, Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell look at the LA that never happened
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The 10 most unaffordable citiesA new survey ranks the affordability of ‘middle-income’ housing in 406 cities – and for the seventh year running, one stood above the rest
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The city's forgotten neighbourhoodsGerman photographer Philipp Ebeling left behind familiar landmarks to travel to the forgotten locations where the city ceases to be the city
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The biggest city sinkholes around the worldAs a huge crater opened up in the Japanese city of Fukuoka, we take a look at the largest urban sinkholes – from Guangzhou to Guatemala City
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The resurrection of Palermo: how the mafia battlefield became a cultural capitalThe Sicilian capital is using millions of euros seized from crime bosses to fund regeneration – though the wounds inflicted by the Cosa Nostra may never heal
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Welcome to Yiwu: China's testing ground for a multicultural cityUnlike Guangzhou’s African community – who have faced prejudice and hostility – Yiwu’s foreign residents enjoy an ‘unusual freedom of worship’, with the municipal government even consulting international traders on city business
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'I can’t believe how I used to live': from gang war to peace treaties in MonterreyIn January, 13 gangs met at a gym hall in Monterrey to sign a truce – the project of a former gang member who is showing that militarised police is not the only way to fight Mexico’s gang violence
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How bad is Delhi's air? We strapped a monitor to a rickshaw to find outSuresh Kumar Sharma is an auto-rickshaw driver in Delhi, a city with some of the world’s dirtiest air – and where many locals don’t know how unhealthy the pollution really is
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Waria at twilight: the remarkable old age home for trans JakartansPhotographer Elisabetta Zavoli spent years getting to know a famously standoffish community – who eventually granted her unprecedented access
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The city that many hajj pilgrims don't seeAs the hajj begins once again, Saudi artist Ahmed Mater has revealed unprecedented changes to the holy city – from flashy new hotels to the loss of priceless neighbourhoods
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The people who live in Tokyo's net cafesHow We Live Now: In Tokyo, commutes are so long, and apartments so small, that some people sleep in internet cafes – which offer showers, meals, clothes and everything you might need for a substitute home
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How beautiful Beirut is becoming a rubbish tipProtesters parody tourism video by juxtaposing images of Lebanon’s beauty spots with the reality of the country’s garbage crisis
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Stik in Shoreditch: the artist’s hidden tribute to a sold-off LondonThe street artist Stik set out to ask the denizens of Old Shoreditch how his new mural should reflect their gentrified neighbourhood
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How a canal community escaped gentrificationHow do you improve a neighbourhood without causing land prices to rise? Residents along a polluted waterway in San Juan set up a community land trust to help save their homes, as well as the environment
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The residents holding out against gentrificationA government-driven revitalisation project is turning public housing – including the waterfront Sirius building with its 90-year-old hold-out resident – into private developments. It is seen by some as ‘aggressive social cleansing’
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get involved
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Your stories of life in polluted citiesReaders shared their experiences of living in cities affected by air pollution – from the curse of the ‘Delhi chest’ in India’s capital to celebrating blue sky in Shanghai
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Can you guess the city from its skyline?A city’s skyline can be its defining feature – from Sydney’s Opera House to New York’s skyscrapers – but can you identify places based on their skylines alone?
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Your stories of high-rise livingYou shared your experiences of life in tall buildings around the world – from swaying in earthquakes in Taipei to working at the top of the twin towers
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'Night walks are a great tonic for urban stress'Readers share their experiences of cities at night – from hearing panther screams in Prague to wandering through the hidden neighbourhoods of Seoul
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Can the Welsh capital steal the crown of Britain's top cycling city?Cardiff’s ambitious new cycling strategy aims to double the number of trips taken by bike, part of its ultimate goal to become Europe’s most liveable capital. But Cambridge, the reigning champ of cycling, won’t be beaten easily
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Can Jakarta find an alternative to the car?Attracted by the air-conditioning and the status, many of the 3.5 million people who commute into the hot and humid Indonesian capital come by car. With four hours in traffic not unusual, Jakarta is searching for solutions
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Bikes outnumber cars for the first time in CopenhagenDenmark’s capital has reached a milestone in its journey to become a cycling city – there are now more bikes than cars on the streets. Can other cities follow?
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Will the US ever kick the car habit?Motor City Detroit built the automobiles, oil capital Houston fuelled them and Los Angeles was carved up by freeways in their honour. Yet now all three cities are pushing walking, cycling and the use of public transport. So does this mean America’s love affair with the car is finally waning?
live weeks
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$40bn to save Jakarta: the story of the Great GarudaForget Venice. The fastest-sinking city is the Indonesian capital, parts of which are dropping at 25cm a year. Can an outlandish plan for a giant seawall and luxury waterworld city in the shape of a mythical bird save Jakarta from drowning?
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Inside Makoko: danger and ingenuity in the world's biggest floating slumMakoko is the perfect nightmare for the Lagos government – a slum in full view, spread out beneath the most travelled bridge in west Africa’s megalopolis. Yet this city on stilts, whose residents live under the constant threat of eviction, has much to teach
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A history of cities in 50 buildings – interactiveFrom the 4,600-year-old pyramid of Zoser to the under-construction one kilometre-high Kingdom Tower – via the first London semi, Beijing’s old stock exchange and LA’s stacked freeway interchange – these 50 structures tell unique stories of our urban history
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Story of cities #3: 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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Story of cities #5: Benin City, the mighty medieval capital now lost without traceWith its mathematical layout and earthworks longer than the Great Wall of China, Benin City was one of the best planned cities in the world when London was a place of ‘thievery and murder’. So why is nothing left?
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Story of cities #32: Jane Jacobs v Robert Moses, battle of New York's urban titansWhen city planning supremo Robert Moses proposed a road through Greenwich Village in 1955, he met opposition from one particularly feisty local resident: Jane Jacobs. It was the start of a decades-long struggle for swaths of New York
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Story of cities #41: Soul City's failed bid to build a black-run suburbia for AmericaCivil rights activist Floyd McKissick dreamed of a southern utopia where the racially integrated community would be planned and managed by African Americans. Although the city was never completed, some traces remain
you may have missed
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China's Pearl River Delta, then and nowThe Pearl River Delta has witnessed the most rapid urban expansion in human history – a predominantly agricultural region transformed into the world’s largest continuous city. By revisiting the sites of rare archive images of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Macau from the 1940s through 1990s, our photographers have documented this staggering change
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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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Subterranean London: the hidden labyrinth underneath the streets of the capitalUnderneath the streets of the capital lies a hidden labyrinth of Victorian sewers. We’re going down 20 metres and back 150 years
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London mayor launches unprecedented inquiry into foreign property ownershipExclusive Sadiq Khan tells the Guardian he will carry out ‘the most thorough research on this matter ever undertaken’ amid widespread concern over rising housing costs and gentrification
Germany's forgotten history Should Berlin's 'African Quarter' be renamed?