The Vieux Pays of Goussainville should have disappeared during the construction of the Charles de Gaulle airport in the 70s, however some inhabitants resisted the takeover of their houses and continue to live there despite the noise and isolation
Continue reading...Category Archives: Cities
London’s cafe culture has left a sour taste for stressed residents
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.
Continue reading...The lost history of the electric car – and what it tells us about the future of transport
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.
Continue reading...Dog DNA tests: putrid dog poo strews the world’s streets. Does Tel Aviv have the answer?
Each month, 500kg of excrement is dumped on the streets of the Israeli city. If its new scheme works, every owner will be tracked down
Name: Dog DNA.
Age: Dogs were first domesticated between 14,000 and 29,000 years ago.
Continue reading...The real urban jungle: how ancient societies reimagined what cities could be
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.
Continue reading...Bee-friendly urban wildflower meadows prove a hit with German city dwellers
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.
Continue reading...More boats on canals and rivers than in 18th century as thousands opt for life afloat
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.
Continue reading...Asia is home to 99 of world’s 100 most vulnerable cities
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.
Continue reading...‘Shortsighted’: UK cuts aid to project preparing cities for natural disaster
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.
Continue reading...New York deserves better than Andrew Cuomo’s towering folly Rowan Moore
The state governor seems determined to give the city’s famous skyline a lumpy revamp
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York state, is currently resisting calls to resign over allegations of sexual harassment. So what better way to prove that he is definitely not a phallocratic bully than to “ram through”, as one outlet puts it, a super-tall tower called Penn 15, and a vast development around it?
It’s not just that its name reads like the personalised licence plate of an inadequate and not-literate male. It is also that this lumpy object will compete on the New York city skyline with the nearby Empire State Building – Penn 15 would be bulkier than its famous neighbour and almost as tall. It is part of the Penn District, a proposed “campus” that will rip up several city blocks and replace them with what, on the available evidence, looks like further big lumps swathed in bland and generic design.
Continue reading...‘They capture history’: the projects saving Spain and Portugal’s shop signs
A collective of projects across Iberia is protecting commercial signs to create a living archive
Fire engine red, bordered by polka dots and stretching the length of three cars, the sign for the Orte clothing store had long loomed over Madrid’s Alcalá thoroughfare, its presence steady even as fast-food restaurants and chain stores began moving into the area.
When the store closed its doors and the space was poised to be rented, news swiftly reached Alberto Nanclares. Within days he was on site, working with a team to painstakingly pry the sign from the facade where it had sat for more than five decades.
Continue reading...‘Bangladesh has come a long way’: people of Dhaka on half a century of independence
A rickshaw rider, a domestic worker, a student and a photographer on how their lives have changed
Habibur Rahman, 48, rickshaw rider
Continue reading...The making of a megacity: how Dhaka transformed in 50 years of Bangladesh
In the half century since independence, the capital has grown from peaceful town to economic hub. But does it live up to the dreams of those still flocking to work there?
On the banks of the Buriganga, Old Dhaka’s boatmen only ever rest a moment before making their return journey, endlessly ferrying passengers back and forth across the river.
They pick them up at the Sadarghat docks, the historical trading hub that helped build the city, and row them towards the sprawling suburbs that have crept across what used to be open farmland two decades ago.
Continue reading...Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
A year after ditching a Google tie-up to create a tech-heavy waterside development, Canada’s largest city is stressing affordability and sustainability
When a Google-backed company first considered 12 acres of industrial land along Toronto’s waterfront, it saw a blank slate that would let it design a hi-tech, futuristic city.
Algorithms would ease congestion on heated roads. Autonomous vehicles would shuttle residents past towering wooden skyscrapers. And by closely studying millions of residents, computers could learn how to make the city more livable.
Continue reading...Europe doubles down on cycling in post-Covid recovery plans
Success of schemes during pandemic has led many cities to plan vastly expanded bike networks
When the coronavirus pandemic led to global lockdowns a year ago, hundreds of cities reconfigured their streets to make walking and cycling easier to aid social distancing and reduce air pollution. Now, with an end to the lockdowns in sight, the measures have proved so successful that cities across Europe are betting on the bicycle to lead the recovery.
According to the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), the continent’s cities spent €1bn on Covid-related cycling measures in 2020, creating at least 600 miles (1,000km) of cycle lanes, traffic calming measures and car-free streets.
Continue reading...Weekend lockdown in Paris would be ‘inhumane’, says mayor
Anne Hidalgo condemns plans to shut city and suburbs to stem spread of coronavirus
The mayor of Paris has described as “inhumane” plans to force the city into weekend lockdowns to combat the continuing spread of Covid-19.
Anne Hidalgo has vehemently opposed government plans to shut down the city and its suburbs at the end of the week, saying its residents, most of whom live in apartments with no outside space, “need a horizon” and have to be able to escape to outside spaces such as parks, gardens and riverside areas.
Continue reading...Can Addis Ababa stop its architectural gems being hidden under high-rises?
While Ethiopia’s ancient sites are valued, urban heritage is an afterthought in a city forced to expand ever upwards
Only rubble remains of the former home of Dejazmatch Asfaw Kebede, a member of Emperor Haile Selassie’s government. Built in the early 1900s, and inspired by Indian as well as Ethiopian architecture, the building was demolished in early January without the knowledge of Addis Ababa’s conservation agency, the Culture and Tourism Bureau.
Demolition and reconstruction are now the most common sights along Addis Ababa’s unrecognisably altered skeleton skyline. The collateral damage is the city’s heritage.
Continue reading...How Sweden is taking back parking spaces to improve urban living
An experiment with the ‘one-minute city’ gives priority to pedestrians and cyclists
It was a couple of parking spaces a few days ago. But now the area outside Malin Henriksson Talcoth’s gourmet sausage shop in Gothenburg has a bench, a picnic table and racks for cycles and e-scooters. It also has people talking, eating and enjoying themselves, despite subzero temperatures.
The workmen had arrived the previous week and built the wooden unit with benches facing, importantly, towards the pavement. “When the sun was out on Friday and Saturday, it was absolutely full of people, just having a takeaway coffee and a sausage,” Talcoth said.
Continue reading...No true ‘city of culture’ should dishonour the bold ideals of its postwar rebirth
Plans for the centre of Coventry claim to offer a sense of place, but ignore its pioneering mid-century reconstruction
Coventry is UK City of Culture 2021, a title that focuses attention on its contribution to the cultural life of the nation: 1980s two-tone music, the legend of Lady Godiva, and its role in the development of the bicycle and car industries. And, high on this list, the fact that it was the pre-eminent example of reconstruction after wartime bombing.
Among the most devastated cities, Coventry was also one of the most determined and thoughtful in its reconstruction. This was partly expressed by its new cathedral, which brought together leading art and architecture, and connected movingly with the ruins of its predecessor. It was also expressed by the city centre, rebuilt as a series of human-scaled, pedestrian-friendly precincts. Here, too, the idea was for art and architecture to work together.
Continue reading...The Wodge: can London’s tallest new skyscraper survive the Covid era?
Nicknamed The Wodge because of its girth, the capital’s tallest ever office has just muscled onto the skyline. But in the age of coronavirus, who wants to jostle for 60 lifts with 12,000 others?
With the City of London deserted once more, its streets only populated by the occasional Deliveroo driver or tumbleweed-seeking photographer, it seems a strange time to be completing the largest office building the capital has ever seen, not least because the very future of the workplace is now in question.
But, rising far above the Cheesegrater and the Walkie-Talkie, dwarfing the now fun-sized Gherkin and boasting the floor area of almost all three combined, 22 Bishopsgate stands as the mother of all office towers. It is the City’s menacing final boss, a glacial hulk that fills its plot to the very edges and rises directly up until it hits the flight path of passing jets. The building muscles into every panorama of London, its broad girth dominating the centre of the skyline and congealing the Square Mile’s distinctive individual silhouettes into one great, grey lump.
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