Category Archives: Cities

How an emerging African megacity cut commutes by two hours a day

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The next 15 megacities #2: Could Dar es Salaam’s experiment with Africa’s first ‘gold standard’ bus rapid transit system offer an alternative to a future dependent on private cars?

The next 15 megacities #1: Baghdad at 10 million

Dusk falls in Dar es Salaam, and for hundreds of thousands of people in this African megacity-to-be the daily chaos and frustration of the journey home begins.

People cram themselves into dalla dalla minibuses, some even climbing through the windows once the entrance is blocked. Others hang out of the doors, but the Kilwa Road heading south towards Mbagala slum is jammed and these diesel-belchers are going nowhere fast.

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Laser technology shines light on South African ‘lost city’ of Kweneng

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Settlement with limited traces was sophisticated and thriving metropolis, lasers reveal

From close up, all that is visible are some broken walls among the scrubby brush, a mound covered by parched grass, a dry river gully.

But to Professor Karim Sadr and his team of archaeologists from Johannesburg’s University of Witwatersrand, the ruins at Kweneng tell an extraordinary story of a long-lost city.

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Baghdad at 10 million: fragile dreams of normality as megacity status beckons

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The next 15 megacities #1: Iraq’s capital remains a profoundly damaged place, but the city feels more stable these days – at times even vibrant

After an exhausting journey through Baghdad’s vast and grimy suburbs, the pastel-coloured blocks of Besmaya Dream City rise up above the rushes just beyond one of the modern gates marking the edge of the city.

The orderliness of these dozens of towers – some lived in, some unfinished – is a shock in the otherwise chaotic jumble of low-rise cityscape. The residential complex is being built by a South Korean company, Hanwha, and will house 100,000 people once its delayed construction is complete.

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Too little, too late? The battle to save Tripoli’s futuristic fairground

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Designed by Brazilian modernist Oscar Niemeyer, Lebanon’s international expo site has been abandoned since civil war broke out in the 1970s

“It could collapse at any time,” says the architect and activist Wassim Naghi. The facade of the unfinished, subterranean space museum in Tripoli, Lebanon, is visibly decaying and its steel reinforcements are rusted – but that may not be its biggest problem. “The ageing concrete’s carbonation is invisible,” explains Naghi when we meet in his office in the centre of the city. “We don’t know how bad it really is.”

Situated beneath an elevated concrete helipad, the museum was part of a planned permanent international fair designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in the early 1960s that was expected to accommodate more than 2 million visitors a year. The 100-hectare (250-acre) site’s 15 existing buildings also include a domed theatre, an atrium, an arch and collective housing. A 717-metre-long boomerang-shaped canopy was designed to house the permanent exhibition, alongside a separate, traditionally styled pavilion for exhibitions relating to Lebanon.

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Turkey’s gift of a mosque sparks fears of ‘neo-Ottomanism’ in Kosovo

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Pristina badly needs a new mosque – but Turkish attempts to court the young Balkan state with investment and advocacy is making some uneasy

It is six years since Islamic leaders and government officials laid the cornerstone of Pristina’s new central mosque – a slab of stone now hidden beneath weeds in a parking lot.

Pulling back the weeds reveals it is covered with bright red graffiti – death threats to Kosovo’s chief mufti, along with the words: “No Turkish mosque or there will be blood.”

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Spite buildings and 50C cities: the most-read urban stories of 2018

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From overstretched and overheating cities to an urban paradise that banned cars, here are the best-read cities stories of this year

In a year of unrelenting political and climactic extremes, some of the best-read Guardian Cities stories looked at overpopulation and its impact on the environment and communities; others explored the reality of living in acute, road-melting heat.

We have also heard from underrepresented voices from urban areas ranging from Stoke-on-Trent to Atlanta, and found a truly walkable city. Here are the most-read Cities stories of 2018.

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Green-feathered immigrant surge prompts Greek parakeet count

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Fears for native biodiversity as climate ideal for propagation

The raucous squawking comes first. Then they are seen, banking and diving before they crash-land on trees.

If Greeks had been told, not long ago, that their skies would become the preserve of ring-necked parakeets, the response would have been one of incredulity.

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‘There’s no major city like it’: Toronto’s unique ravine system under threat

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Without urgent action against environmental degradation, the forest ravines covering 20% of the city could be reduced to sterile valleys within decades

It can be difficult to keep up with Lawrence Warriner while walking; running, it’s next to impossible. Many of the trails that weave through the ravines near his house in Toronto are well groomed, but for Warriner – a decorated trail runner and coach – the more exciting ones are off the beaten path, tracks only faintly visible to the eye.

He has come to these forests, which rise along the sides of the river valleys that snake through the city, ever since he was a child. He has discovered a secret communal stone grill next to a sandy beach, hidden by trees; he has watched awestruck as a dozen white-tail deer crossed a bridge. He has also seen things he can’t explain, such as a parade of men, women and children, clad in period clothing, walking the woods at dusk with antique rifles slung over their shoulders.

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The dark history of Santa’s city: how Rovaniemi rose from the ashes

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After the Finnish city was razed to the ground by the German army in the second world war, architect Alvar Aalto rebuilt it to a reindeer-shaped street grid. Then Santa came to town …

As soon as you land at Rovaniemi airport in Lapland you see a reindeer. Not a real one, admittedly, but somebody in a Rudolf suit cheerily greeting passengers who have just arrived. A couple of miles from “Santa’s official airport” lies Santa Claus Village, an amusement park complete with elves, real reindeers, huskies, shops and restaurants that draws more than 600,000 visitors a year to this isolated spot at the edge of the Arctic Circle.

There are reindeer everywhere in Rovaniemi: humans dressed as them at the airport, real ones pulling sleighs at Santa Claus Village and statues of them throughout the city centre.

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