Category Archives: Cities

How the pandemic transformed the world of work in 2021

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There were winners and losers as work patterns continued changing, with repercussions for city centres and society as a whole

Of all the predictions on your 2021 bingo card, who had employees being fined for going into the office? Workers in Wales now face that threat since the tightening of Covid regulations amid the spread of the Omicron variant, with a possible £60 penalty for failing to work from home.

That is just one of many examples of how the pandemic has transformed the world of work this year – and perhaps for ever – for city centre employers, their staff and the service industry that depends on them for trade.

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‘We need a new commons’: how city life can offer us the vital power of connection

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The pandemic has seen borders close and divisions widened. But in almost all aspects of life, humanity will only thrive by coming together


During the pandemic, the nations of the world set about energetically strengthening borders around themselves, and within themselves, as states restricted entry. During the early lockdowns, according to the UNHCR, 168 of the world’s 195 countries partially or entirely closed their borders. This hit refugees particularly hard. “Movement is vital for people who are in flight,” said Filippo Grandi, the head of UNHCR. “They save their lives, by running.”

The virus knows no borders; it is the ultimate globalist. Covid-19 put an end to the idea that the 19th-century European nation state is the political arrangement we should all aspire to. The nation state is an outdated concept, and ill serves the present emergency. The rich countries have frozen immigration. But when people can’t move, they also can’t earn. Global remittances – money sent back to their families by people working abroad – which amount to four times all the foreign aid given by the rich countries to the poor ones – have gone down two years in a row. Poor countries will be poorer.

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Contact with nature in cities reduces loneliness, study shows

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Loneliness is significant mental health concern and can raise risk of death by 45%, say scientists

Contact with nature in cities significantly reduces feelings of loneliness, according to a team of scientists.

Loneliness is a major public health concern, their research shows, and can raise a person’s risk of death by 45% – more than air pollution, obesity or alcohol abuse.

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Cornish town with 1,440 residents seeks to become UK’s smallest city

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Marazion, opposite St Michael’s Mount, faces stiff opposition from larger areas in contest for city status

It may not boast a cathedral, a university or a major sports team – the sort of features often associated with a typical British metropolis. But the town of Marazion (population 1,440), perched prettily on the south coast of Cornwall, has nevertheless launched a bold campaign for city status.

Marazion, which does have a couple of churches, a primary school and rowing and sailing clubs, would become the smallest and most southerly city if its proposal is accepted.

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How Nairobi’s ‘road for the rich’ resulted in thousands of homes reduced to rubble

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40,000 people in one of the largest slums in the Kenyan capital have had their homes demolished to make way for works for a Chinese-backed toll road, with some asking: ‘this is development for who?’

About 40,000 people have been made homeless by demolition works for a major Chinese-backed toll road in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

Amnesty International Kenya says it believes the roadworks have created a humanitarian crisis, as schools, businesses and 13,000 homes spread across nearly 40 hectares (100 acres) of the Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum have been demolished since October, clearing land for a link to the Nairobi expressway.

A girl stands among the rubble of Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum, Nairobi, where 13,000 homes were razed to the ground

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‘They’re in the way’: Manchester rebels against grey advertising boxes

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Pedestrians call them ugly and a nuisance but council says money is sorely needed after years of cuts

Earlier this year, Manchester city council declared ambitions to become a pedestrian paradise. “We want walking to be the main way people get around the city centre,” proclaimed the town hall’s transport plan. “Pavements and public spaces will be high quality, well-maintained, green and accessible – catering for everyone, no matter what their age or mobility.”

Yet this autumn, 86 mysterious grey boxes were plonked on pavements across the city which did pretty much the opposite. Measuring more than a metre across, the metal monoliths obstructed the footway, failing what transport engineers call “the double buggy test” while upsetting wheelchair users and aesthetes alike.

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Stop talking, start acting, says Africa’s first extreme heat official

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Rising temperatures are already killing people in Sierra Leone’s Freetown, says Eugenia Kargbo, who is planning how best to protect the hundreds of thousands living in informal settlements

When she was growing up, Eugenia Kargbo could have a leisurely stroll, jog or cycle around the streets of Freetown. But that easy life no longer exists in Sierra Leone’s capital for her two children. The city is so swelteringly hot that children run the constant risk of sunburn or heat rashes if they are outdoors for very long.

“Over the past 10 years, there has been a dramatic change,” says Kargbo, 34, who has been appointed as Freetown’s chief heat officer – the first such post in Africa and only the third globally, after Athens and Miami.

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Community-led upgrade to a Nairobi slum could be a model for Africa

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Mukuru, one of Kenya’s largest informal settlements, has cleaned up its act with improved water, roads and sanitation

The people who live in Mukuru, one of the vast, sprawling “informal settlements” in Nairobi, used to dread the rains, when the slum’s mud-packed lanes would dissolve into a soggy quagmire of sewage, stagnant water and slimy rubbish.

But a few years ago, things began to change. On a newly paved road Benedetta Kasendi is selling sugar cane from a cart. It gives her a clean platform, somewhere she can keep her wares tidy. Her biggest challenge now is what to do with the sugar-cane waste as she does not want to clog up Mukuru’s revamped sewers.

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‘We will be homeless’: Lahore farmers accuse ‘mafia’ of land grab for new city

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The futuristic Ravi Riverfront City development, championed by Imran Khan’s government, has been met with determined opposition

It has been called Pakistan’s answer to Dubai, a brand new multitrillion-rupee development of towering skyscrapers, futuristic domes and floating walkways.

But Ravi Riverfront City, described as the “world’s largest riverfront modern city” also faces accusations of rampant land grabs by prime minister Imran Khan’s government, which has championed the project. Hundreds of thousands of farmers who could never afford to live in the modern urban utopia are now at risk of eviction.

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10 great city projects for nature – from vertical forests to a ‘gangsta garden’

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Around the world, architects, activists and communities are finding ways to bring wildlife into urban areas

Many readers have noticed wildflowers thriving in urban areas as city councils decide to let grass grow wild. These colourful little patches may seem like window dressing in the face of vast decline, but across the world people are welcoming wildlife into cities, where more than half of us live. Here is a look at 10 of the most exciting and innovative urban biodiversity projects popping up.

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‘In Rome, nothing works’: citizens despair in run-up to mayoral elections

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Virginia Raggi hasn’t solved waste issues while far-right candidate advocates restoring fascist salute

Elio Perugini can’t remember the last time he had a decent night’s sleep. “It’s a disaster, the noise just doesn’t stop,” he said. “I hardly sleep any more. The worst of it is on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.”

Sleepless nights have become the norm for many in Trastevere, a neighbourhood in central Rome once treasured for its charm and old-world feel, but now known for its rowdy nightlife, petty crime, piles of rubbish and graffiti-scarred walls.

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London’s cafe culture has left a sour taste for stressed residents

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Licensing outdoor seats saved countless jobs but brings noise and antisocial behaviour

Continental Europe has come to the UK – at least when the sun shines. In towns and cities all over the country, alfresco dining has exploded, with thousands of extra outdoor seats being licensed.

Many in the hospitality industry say the move has saved their business from bankruptcy after catastrophic losses during the pandemic. Now, although Covid restrictions have been lifted, the government is considering making outdoor dining a permanent feature rather than a short-term response to a crisis.

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The lost history of the electric car – and what it tells us about the future of transport

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To every age dogged with pollution, accidents and congestion, the transport solution for the next generation seems obvious – but the same problems keep coming back

In the 1890s, the biggest cities of the western world faced a mounting problem. Horse-drawn vehicles had been in use for thousands of years, and it was hard to imagine life without them. But as the number of such vehicles increased during the 19th century, the drawbacks of using horses in densely populated cities were becoming ever more apparent.

In particular, the accumulation of horse manure on the streets, and the associated stench, were impossible to miss. By the 1890s, about 300,000 horses were working on the streets of London, and more than 150,000 in New York City. Each of these horses produced an average of 10kg of manure a day, plus about a litre of urine. Collecting and removing thousands of tonnes of waste from stables and streets proved increasingly difficult.

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The real urban jungle: how ancient societies reimagined what cities could be

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They may be vine-smothered ruins today, but the lost cities of the ancient tropics still have a lot to teach us about how to live alongside nature

Visions of “lost cities” in the jungle have consumed western imaginations since Europeans first visited the tropics of Asia, Africa and the Americas. From the Lost City of Z to El Dorado, a thirst for finding ancient civilisations and their treasures in perilous tropical forest settings has driven innumerable ill-fated expeditions. This obsession has seeped into western societies’ popular ideas of tropical forest cities, with overgrown ruins acting as the backdrop for fear, discovery and life-threatening challenges in countless films, novels and video games.

Throughout these depictions runs the idea that all ancient cities and states in tropical forests were doomed to fail. That the most resilient occupants of tropical forests are small villages of poison dart-blowing hunter-gatherers. And that vicious vines and towering trees – or, in the case of The Jungle Book, a boisterous army of monkeys – will inevitably claw any significant human achievement back into the suffocating green whence it came. This idea has been boosted by books and films that focus on the collapse of particularly enigmatic societies such as the Classic Maya. The decaying stone walls, the empty grand structures and the deserted streets of these tropical urban leftovers act as a tragic warning that our own way of life is not as secure as we would like to assume.

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Bee-friendly urban wildflower meadows prove a hit with German city dwellers

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Countrywide scheme is flourishing after being set up to reverse a 75% decline in insect populations

To escape the Berlin bustle on a summer afternoon, all that Derek O’Doyle and his dog Frida have to do is lap the noisy building site outside their inner-city apartment, weave their way through the queue in front of the ice-cream van, and squeeze between two gridlocked lorries to cross over Baerwaldstrasse.

Bordered by a one-way traffic system lies a bucolic 1,720 sq metre haven as colourful as a Monet landscape: blue cornflowers, red poppies, white cow parsley and purple field scabious dot a sea of nettles and wild grass as armies of insects buzz through the air. Two endangered carpenter bees, larger than their honey bee cousins and with pitch-black abdomens, gorge themselves on a bush of yellow gorse.

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More boats on canals and rivers than in 18th century as thousands opt for life afloat

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Rising house prices and restrictions on overseas travel are leading to a surge in popularity for houseboats

Little more than six months ago, Paul and Anthony Smith-Storey were still living in a three-bedroom semi-detached house near St Helens in Merseyside. But now the couple – and their dog, Dexter – have traded it all in for a life afloat in a two-metre-wide narrowboat on Peak Forest Canal in Derbyshire.

“We took the equity out of the house, bought the boat and thought we’d enjoy it while we were still alive,” said Anthony, 48, an NHS sonographer. They are not the only ones.

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Asia is home to 99 of world’s 100 most vulnerable cities

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Indonesia’s capital Jakarta – plagued by pollution, flooding and heatwaves – tops risk assessment ranking

Of the 100 cities worldwide most vulnerable to environmental hazards all but one are in Asia, and 80% are in India or China, according to a risk assessment.

More than 400 large cities with a total population of 1.5 billion are at “high” or “extreme” risk due to a mix of life-shortening pollution, dwindling water supplies, deadly heatwaves, natural disasters and climate change, the report found.

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‘Shortsighted’: UK cuts aid to project preparing cities for natural disaster

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From Quito to Kathmandu, millions will be endangered by cuts affecting planning for floods, earthquakes and fires, experts say


UK aid cuts to a programme working to reduce the disaster risk to poor communities around the world could endanger millions of lives and slam shut a brief window of opportunity to build safer cities for centuries to come, experts have warned.

Professor John McCloskey, from Edinburgh University, said the 70% cut to this year’s budget for the Tomorrow’s Cities project was an act of “vandalism” that had wrecked the past two years of collaboration with scientists, NGOs, authorities and communities in Ecuador’s capital Quito, Nairobi, Kathmandu and Istanbul.

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