Category Archives: Cities

Lisbon’s bad week: police brutality reveals Portugal’s urban reality

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A viral video of police violence has brought national attention to the long-ghettoised community in Bairro da Jamaica

From time to time, cars of curious people drive slowly though Bairro da Jamaica, craning their necks for a peek at the neighbourhood that’s been in the headlines across Portugal for several days now. None of them step out of their vehicles.

They’re here to look at the broken glass, the smashed roof tiles and the evidence of last week’s violence. The tallest of the bairro’s self-built housing towers is now derelict, fenced off with yellow tape and awaiting demolition; the others are also scheduled to be torn down, but are still occupied for now.

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Chinese city seeks young blood: how ageing Nanjing lures new talent

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The next 15 megacities #12: The ancient capital of China is pulling out all the stops in a bid to defuse its ticking demographic timebomb

Tan Jingquan is exactly the kind of person the ancient Chinese city of Nanjing wants to attract. The 38-year-old had been searching rival cities for possible sites for his biotech startup for years – until the Nanjing government finally made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“I visited and explored opportunities in nearly a dozen cities,” recalls Tan, a native of Wuhan in central China. “It turned out Nanjing has the best combination of policy incentives and market potential for small startups.”

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Quebec mosque attack: two years on, will security trump openness?

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The planned transformation of Quebec’s Grand Mosque is haunted by the deadly attack on the Islamic centre in 2017

Until 29 January 2017, random motorists on the busy Chemin Sainte-Foy would sometimes pull over to the Quebec City Grand Mosque to withdraw some money.

Converted from a Desjardins Bank, it still looks like one, with its rows of rectangular glass panes and a barricaded drive-through. Its only crescent and minaret are in graphic form on a small plastic sign, blocked from the road by trees.

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Tollywood confidential: inside the world’s biggest film city

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The next 15 megacities #11: As Hyderabad heads towards megacity status, its film industry is going from strength to strength. Its secret? Cutting-edge VFX and filming in multiple languages

It is rush hour on Monday morning in Hyderabad, but the city’s usual deafening soundtrack of revving engines and blaring horns is absent. The only noise comes from a woman gently sweeping the veranda of one of the large, pastel-coloured mansions nearby. The silence is even more disconcerting when you see the airport near the end of the street, and, just beyond that, a railway station. New York’s Statue of Liberty is a short walk away, as is the splendour of the ancient city of Mahishmati. In fact, Mahishmati is the first place here where I encounter any real noise – the blue special effects screens around the fibreglass throne area are rather flimsy, and a buzz from power tools carries from the adjoining parking lot, where workers are building a pirate ship.

We are in Ramoji Film City, the largest film studio in the world and the beating heart of Tollywood, India’s Telugu-language film industry. And although Ramoji is technically part of Hyderabad, in reality – with its (real) hotels, workshops, soundstages, gardens, post office, banks and restaurants – it is a metropolis in and of itself.

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‘No one likes being a tourist’: the rise of the anti-tour

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With the tourism explosion affecting even smaller cities such as Porto, visitors and locals alike are looking for more ‘authentic’ days out. But is that possible?

“From this point on, we’re going to be trespassing,” announces Margarida Castro casually. “Everyone comfortable with that, right?”

Our group of eight follow her across the threshold of an abandoned house in central Porto, Portugal’s second city. This once-sleepy, cobble-paved place is turning into one of Europe’s hottest tourist destinations, thanks in no small part to sweetener deals with low-cost airlines and a sophisticated government marketing drive.

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Mugged by macaques: the urban monkey gangs of Kuala Lumpur

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The next 15 megacities #10: As Malaysia’s ever-expanding capital swallows up their rainforest habitat, the macaques are turning to guerrilla warfare

The gang stop and stare, attention spiked by our car doors slamming. Ten pairs of eyes flit between our backpacks and our faces. Is it worth mugging us? Do our bags contain bananas or useless, inedible wallets and cameras? The monkeys of Kuala Lumpur’s Ampang district decide against it and head further down the road in the hunt for victims. The morning joggers here run with sticks.

“Twenty years ago this was jungle,” says Viswa Hattan, an accountant jogging in the area. Gated high-rises loom ahead of us, the roads leading to them flanked by forest too dense to enter without machetes. Four macaques, babies clinging to their chests, loiter on a metal road barrier uphill from a construction site. “This was their area,” says Hattan as a nearby male macaque begins vigorously masturbating. “We’ve taken it from them.”

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Zombie clunkers: has your local bus been resurrected in Guatemala?

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Phased out vehicles often end up back in use in developing countries – a form of dumping with serious environmental consequences

In a sparsely furnished office overlooking dozens of buses at the Zone 21 depot in Guatemala City, Jorge Castro flips through photographs on his mobile phone. He settles on one.

“There’s the bus when I bought it in Maryland,” he says proudly. It is a blue and white bus emblazoned with the words “Ride On”, the name of Montgomery County’s public transit system.

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Which is the world’s most LGBT-friendly city?

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Even when cities seem progressive on the surface, the lived experience of members of the LGBT community can tell a dramatically different story

Amid a mass of colour and pounding Latin rhythms, revellers at this year’s Bogotá Pride march waved banners stating “not one step back”. They were among tens of thousands who took to the streets to celebrate and support Colombia’s LGBT community.

Many annual Pride marches that were once solemn protests against repression have become celebrations of now-existing rights or progress, reflecting the strength of LGBT communities.

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Inside China’s leading ‘sponge city’: Wuhan’s war with water

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The next 15 megacities #9: Known as ‘the city of a hundred lakes’ until most got paved over, Wuhan has a flooding problem. Can permeable pavements and artificial wetlands soak it up?

Take a stroll down the central Chinese city’s Fan Lake Road or Fruit Lake Street and despite their names you won’t see any large bodies of water – unless it has been raining very hard, that is.

Wuhan was once known as “the city of a hundred lakes”. It had 127 lakes in its central area alone in the 1980s, but decades of rapid urbanisation mean only around 30 survive.

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In the digital age, how much longer can Spain’s street kiosks survive?

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As newsprint sales fall and tourists demand keychains, the city of Barcelona is trying to keep alive the old social culture that revolves around street kiosks

For generations, the day in Spain has begun with picking up the paper from the newspaper kiosk and then reading it over breakfast in a bar. These two urban institutions – the kiosk and the bar – have been the twin pillars of any barrio, or neighbourhood.

“You have a close relationship with your clients,” says Máximo Frutos, who owns a kiosk and is vice-president of the city’s news vendors association. “I have copies of the house keys for around 15 people in the barrio, in case they lose theirs. It’s not like any other business.”

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After the oil boom: Luanda faces stark inequality – photo essay

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The next 15 megacities #8: Photographer Sean Smith captures the extremes of life in the Angolan capital

The route from London to Luanda, the capital of Angola, used to be one of British Airways’ most profitable, ferrying people involved in the country’s lucrative oil and diamond trades during a remarkable expansion of the city from 2002, after nearly three decades of civil war.

In recent years it has competed with Hong Kong and Tokyo for the title of world’s most expensive city for expatriates. Cranes dominated the downtown skyline and homes in the surrounding areas were demolished to make way for Chinese-backed housing projects. Wealthy firms reportedly paid millions to fly in pop stars such as Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj for private concerts.

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Egyptian president calls for unified colour scheme for buildings

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Decree states Cairo structures require ‘dusty colours’ while blue is to be used on the coast

Egyptian authorities are reaching for their paint brushes following a decree by the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, demanding buildings across the country adhere to a unified colour scheme of “dusty” shades in Cairo and blue on the coast.

Egypt’s prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, told a cabinet meeting: “The plan is to have unified colours for the buildings instead of this uncivilised scene.” He said a presidential decree targeting unpainted red-brick buildings demands local authorities paint them soon, or face punishment.

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‘Redefine the skyline’: how Ho Chi Minh City is erasing its heritage

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The next 15 megacities #7: More than a third of the Vietnamese city’s historic buildings have been destroyed over the past 20 years. Can it learn from mistakes made by other fast-growing Asian cities before it is too late?

“People don’t realise what they’ve lost,” says Candy Nguyen as she peers through the locked gates of what was until recently the historic Ba Son shipyard. “Many don’t even know what was here before.”

Ho Chi Minh City’s oldest and most important maritime heritage site is hidden from the street by high blue hoardings peppered with slogans such as “Never still” and “Redefine the skylines”.

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‘An egregious offence’: Canada battles Norway for tallest moose statue

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After Norway’s Storelgen stole Mac the Moose’s place as world’s tallest, a Canadian city hopes to ‘stick it to Oslo’ by increasing their statue’s size

For three decades, the Canadian city of Moose Jaw took pride in its status as the home of the world’s largest moose statue.

Standing at a majestic 10 meters tall, Mac the Moose has weathered brutal winters, graffiti and even the inglorious loss of his jaw. His recognition was so great that in 2013, he was named the city’s most popular celebrity.

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‘A three-generation project’: riverside development divides Indian city

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The next 15 megacities #6: New facilities by the Sabarmati will provide Ahmedabad with much-needed public space, but at what cost?

As the sun dips below the horizon, young lovers make themselves more comfortable on benches overlooking the Sabarmati river. Walkers stroll along the concrete promenades, and mothers enjoy a moment of respite under newly planted saplings while their children play in the adjoining gardens.

Few Ahmedabad residents could have imagined this scene a couple of decades ago. Back then the Gujarati city’s tidal river banks were lined with slum housing – precariously constructed on land polluted by industrial effluent and untreated sewage, and home to some of the most marginalised communities in the city.

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China’s Muslims fear crackdown in ancient city of Xi’an

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The next 15 megacities #5: Tourist flock to the Xi’an’s ancient Muslim area – but reports from elsewhere in China of crackdowns and re-education camps are setting nerves on edge

The streets of Xi’an’s Muslim quarter are bustling. Tourists from all over China and the rest of the world throng the small stalls and restaurants for delicacies such as yangrou paomo lamb stew, roujiamo lamb burgers, persimmon cakes and “smoked ice-cream” – a bowl of puffed cereal dipped in liquid nitrogen.

There has been a Muslim community in the capital of Shaanxi Province – at the eastern end of the old Silk Road in central China – since the seventh century. During the Tang dynasty, when the city was called Chang’an, travelling Muslim merchants and some soldiers from central and west Asia made it their home. Many married Chinese Han women, and their offspring became known as Hui, now one of China’s 56 ethnic groups.

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‘Like LA with minarets’: how concrete and cars came to rule Tehran

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The next 15 megacities #3: With nearly 10 million people doing daily battle with some of the world’s highest levels of congestion and air pollution, headscarves should be the least of the authorities’ worries …

Tehran’s traffic jams have spawned a curious social phenomenon. The affluent car-driving youth of the northern districts have turned gridlock into a way of meeting members of the opposite sex.

Known as “dor-dor” (“turn-turn” in Farsi), separate groups of young men and women drive around, pulling up alongside each other in congested traffic so they can flirt and pass phone numbers through the window. The cars are either all-girl or all-boy to avoid censorship by the Islamic morality police. If the police do show up they can make a (slow) getaway.

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