Exhibition of archive photographs shows how strip of land around Paris, established in 1844 as a defence initiative, became home to 40,000 people
The Zone at the Gates of Paris is on display at Croisière, at the Rencontres d’Arles, until 22 September
All images courtesy Galerie Lumière des Roses
By refusing to expel a Taiwanese diplomat, the Prague mayor has joined the ranks of local politicians confronting contentious national policies
Zdeněk Hřib had been Prague’s mayor for little more than a month when he came face-to-face with the Czech capital’s complex entanglement with China.
Hosting a meeting with foreign diplomats in the city, Hřib was asked by the Chinese ambassador to expel their Taiwanese counterpart from the gathering in deference to Beijing’s ‘one China’ policy, under which it claims sovereignty over the officially independent state of Taiwan.
Continue reading...Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has signed a deal to move his payments company to Oakland – which activists say will only exacerbate an already brutal housing crisis
Photographs by Jason Henry
The knocks on Maria Espinoza’s front door became a nightly occurrence.
If the 60-year-old Oakland woman wasn’t home, her frightened partner would turn off the lights and TV and remain silent. On evenings Espinoza did answer the door, her new landlord would be outside with the same question: When are you moving out?
Continue reading...Enver Hoxha’s villa in central Tirana, once sealed off by the Albanian secret service and home to party elites, is to be opened to the public
The interiors of Enver Hoxha’s cavernous three-story villa are mostly just as they were when Albania’s communist leader died in 1985. By then, Hoxha had led a Stalinist dictatorship in the country for four decades, turning Albania into one of the most isolated and repressive states in the world.
During the communist period, the whole area around Hoxha’s house in Albania’s capital city, Tirana, was sealed off by police and secret agents. Known as the Blloku, the district functioned as a kind of wall-less Kremlin in the heart of Tirana, reserved for the party elite and their families.
Continue reading...Although Germany is internationally touted as bike-friendly, Berlin lags metropolises like Amsterdam or Copenhagen by decades. But in the city’s senate, a rethink is under way
Electric bikes, swanky racers and clanky old flea market two-wheelers roll along a cycle path near Berlin’s Hasenheide park that was recently reclaimed from a lane used by cars. The path has been coated with bright green paint and has a line of stripy metal bollards to separate it from the busy road.
“It’s now protected from cars and that is good,” says Jerome Jossin, who lives nearby and whose baby sits swinging her legs from a seat on the back of his bike. “This is safer, but it’s not typical.”
Continue reading...Some cities use images of bikes and riders, with or without helmets. Some use riderless bikes – and others just get the geometry all wrong. Can you tell what city it is from its cycle lane icon?
Which city is this?
London
Paris
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Amsterdam
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Edinburgh
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Milan
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New Orleans
Copenhagen
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Perth
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Pittsburgh
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Continue reading...Teams of women and girls are among numerous cycle groups increasingly to be seen on the streets of the frenetic Pakistan megacity
Early on Sunday morning in Karachi, a group of girls are riding loops around an empty stretch of road outside the colonial-era Custom House. At 6am they left the narrow alleys of the old neighbourhood of Lyari, branded a war zone by national and international media after a lengthy and brutal gang conflict. Two hours later they are still happily pedalling away, in ballet slippers and with headscarves tucked under helmets.
“I used to cycle alone,” says Gullu Badar, 15. “It’s nice to cycle here because there’s no danger, no cars. It feels good that there are other girls cycling with me too.”
Continue reading...Racial segregation meant cycling lost status in South Africa earlier and more intensely than in the rest of the western world
“The writer counted, in the space of only four minutes, 93 native cyclists riding past the Astra theatre,” wrote a journalist for the Star newspaper in July 1940. Standing almost 80 years later on the same corner of Louis Botha Avenue at the same time and day of the week – 6.30pm on a Monday – it is hard to imagine. The theatre is long gone and not a single cyclist is to be seen on the car-choked thoroughfare.
What happened to Johannesburg’s once vibrant commuter cycling culture? The dominance of the automobile marginalised the bicycle in many cities around the world through the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s but that process was accelerated in South Africa by apartheid. When policies of spatial segregation forcibly moved black people to faraway townships at the periphery of the city, the distance between work and home increased dramatically and cycling collapsed as an everyday practice.
Continue reading...In 2013 the Irish capital was ranked among the world’s top 20 bike-friendly cities, but only a small part of the promised cycle network was ever built
One sunny May afternoon in Dublin, as the Spice Girls prepared to kick off their Spice World 2019 tour at Croke Park stadium, the coaches bringing their fans unwittingly sparked another reunion – the city’s cycle activists.
It had been two years since the direct action group I Bike Dublin had mobilised to protect cycle tracks from car parking – uniting around twice a week under the hashtag #freethecyclelane – but as police officers directed coach drivers to park in the bike lane by Dublin Bay, blocking the track, the protesters were back.
Continue reading...We rounded up half a century of protest posters and stickers from campaigns which helped Amsterdam become the ‘cycle capital of the world’
Bike City Amsterdam by Fred Feddes and Marjolein de Lange is published by Bas Lubberhuizen
Continue reading...Stakeholders say unanswered questions remain over scale of Sidewalk Labs’ hi-tech redevelopment scheme for city’s waterfront
The Google sister company behind a controversial, hi-tech redevelopment scheme for a swath of Toronto’s waterfront has released the first detailed outline of an ambitious project, but stakeholders say that unanswered questions remain over data collection and the scale of the plan.
The 1,500-page plan unveiled in Toronto on Monday reveals that Sidewalk Labs intends to spend C$1.3bn (US$900m) on the project that will involve “raincoats for buildings”, heated and illuminated sidewalks, affordable housing, tall timber structures and innovations to support sustainability and environmentalism.
Continue reading...Chongqing’s population is estimated at just below 10 million but that rises to more than 31 million if the built-up surroundings are included. Belgian photographer Kris Provoost finds that in a city so large, individuals can get lost
Continue reading...High unemployment and living costs are driving people from the metropolis – but some rural residents aren’t happy about the new arrivals
Su Ava has been up since 5am. There have been new lambs to check on, goats, cats and dogs to feed, beehives to inspect, orders to fill, and she has also made a visit to her under-construction workshop.
Her current life making and selling cheese, honey and tahini in Turkey’s beautiful Çanakkale region could not be more different to her old one in Istanbul. The work can be exhausting but, Ava says, she would not give it up for anything.
Continue reading...The Illustrated City: In a multicultural city, soccer gives children like my daughter a common ground
Continue reading...Cities say short-term holiday lettings market is contributing to soaring long-term rents
Ten European cities have demanded more help from the EU in their battle against Airbnb and other holiday rental websites, which they argue are locking locals out of housing and changing the face of neighbourhoods.
In a joint letter, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brussels, Krakow, Munich, Paris, Valencia and Vienna said the “explosive growth” of global short-stay lettings platforms must be on the agenda of the next set of European commissioners.
Continue reading...Photographer and anthropologist Liz Hingley uncovers the spiritual landscape of China’s largest city, revealing the spaces and rituals of this cosmopolitan megalopolis that is home to 26 million people – and to religious groups from Buddhism to Islam, Christianity to Baha’ism, Hinduism to Taoism
By ritual, heaven and earth harmoniously combine
For the last thirty to forty years China has been undergoing one of the great religious revivals of our time. Alongside the country’s rapid pace of development, the search for meaning and celebration of the Sacred are shaping China’s future in new and significant ways.
Continue reading...Gaziantep has grown by 30% due to newcomers fleeing the crisis across the border in Syria, but remains a model of tolerance and pragmatism
Imagine you live in a medium-sized city such as Birmingham or Milan. Now imagine that overnight the population increases by about 30%. The new people are mostly destitute, hungry and with nowhere to stay. They don’t even speak the language.
Then imagine that instead of driving them away, you make them welcome and accommodate them as best you can.
Continue reading...Fewer than 30 of 879 villages built to house nationalist KMT soldiers and their families remain in Taiwan. After a lengthy battle, Daguan is to be demolished this week
At 22, Cynthia Tang was one-third the average age of the other people crowded into the abandoned Taipei storefront that served as the office of the Daguan Anti-Eviction Movement.
Looking fervently through the frames of her large round glasses, Tang, a student at the prestigious National Taiwan University, addressed the small crowd. “Two of our student activists have been arrested,” she said. “Now the government is suing them. This is not only their problem – this is everyone’s problem.”
Continue reading...Photographer Jonathan Browning pictures Chinese migrant workers in front of advertising billboards for the projects they are helping to construct – office complexes and luxury apartments for the wealthy of Shanghai
Continue reading...15 projects from nine countries have been selected for the second Bicycle Architecture Biennale, which launches on Monday in Amsterdam
Continue reading...