Cities
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An ambitious and unusual renovation project plans to transform former racetrack grandstands overlooking a motorway by 2021
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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 … -
Serbian capital’s £2.56m taxpayer-funded decoration budget met with outrage and accusations of corruption
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How can you get ahead when the city itself wants to slow you down? Journey though Ghana’s capital in part four of our new series, The Illustrated City -
Manchester is changing fast, and its relentless growth is leaving some people behind, argues part three of our new series, The Illustrated City
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Ali Fitzgerald reveals Berlin’s hidden spaces, where the flora and fauna are wild – if you know where to look -
Did New York get nasty or are there just too many people in the city now? No one even looks at each other anymore ... -
The shortlist for Britain’s biggest outdoor exhibition of street photography – Clear Channel’s MyTown – has been announced -
An exhibition of found photographs at the Detroit Institute of Arts from the 1960s to the 1970s provides a look a the city through the eyes of local photographers
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Due to its unparalleled exposure to natural disasters, Manizales in central Colombia is globally recognised for its innovative approach to prevention and response -
A rooftop garden in Shenzhen is using plants to make stormwater work for the city, and to improve the livelihoods of residents -
The West Bank city is busily razing older buildings in favour of new apartments and malls. But is the city losing more than it gains? -
Campaigners argue a proposed £50m development would demolish sandstone art deco shops, businesses and social enterprises in the Scottish capital’s historic port
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Stoke-on-Trent residents are fed up with it being known as the ‘Brexit capital of Britain’. After being swamped by negative media stories during the referendum and later byelection, local people are fighting back against the stereotypes -
Award-winning photographer David Levene has revealed an unparalleled cross-section of the urban 21st century over more than a decade documenting how people live and work in 70 cities
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As police yesterday yet again applied brute force to the residents of São Paulo's 1,000-strong encampment of addicts, a group of artists is trying something wildly different
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Once known as the City of Lakes, urban sprawl has destroyed 85% of Bangalore’s fresh water and pollution has ruined much of the rest. Can Lakshmi and her mother find clean water today? -
Suresh Kumar Sharma is an auto-rickshaw driver in Delhi, a city with some of the world’s dirtiest air – and where many locals don’t know how unhealthy the pollution really is -
Photographer Elisabetta Zavoli spent years getting to know a famously standoffish community – who eventually granted her unprecedented access
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Jack Shenker reports on a new culture of secrecy and control in public spaces, where private security guards can remove you for protesting, taking photos ... or just looking scruffy -
Labour leader among those voicing concern after Guardian revealed secretive world of privately owned public spaces in London -
Public space is a right not a privilege; yet Britain is in the midst of the biggest sell-off of common space since the enclosures of the 17 th and 18 th century -
Guardian Cities and the Greenspace Information for Greater London (GiGL), have created the first comprehensive map of pseudo-public spaces in the UK capital. We’re looking for your help to make it better
Get involved
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Be it gang violence, terror attacks or military strikes, conflict has come to cities. We want to hear about your experiences of urban warfare to aid our coverage of Cities at War -
Representations matter ‘when you’ve only ever seen your city portrayed as the butt of a joke’, a Stokie says of John Domokos’ eight-part documentary -
From lost buildings to transformed neighbourhoods, share your pictures and memories of the changing landscapes of cities with GuardianWitness -
Readers shared their experiences of living in cities affected by air pollution – from the curse of the ‘Delhi chest’ in India’s capital to celebrating blue sky in Shanghai
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Police cleared a homeless camp before the transport department filled the pavement with unneeded bike racks – a clear case of hostile architecture which does not address the problem, say campaigners -
Riding a bike may be easier than walking for two-thirds of disabled cyclists, but they often remain invisible to society. Many don’t realise that more than a quarter of disabled commutes in this university city are made by bike -
Ten years ago, Vélib revolutionised Paris and inspired the world. But a new operator, higher prices and a hi-tech competitor have shaken its confidence -
Squint at Stevenage’s extensive 1960s protected cycleway network and you could be in the Netherlands – except for the lack of people on bikes. So why did the New Town’s residents choose the motor car over the bicycle?
Live weeks
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The carving of three civil war leaders who fought to defend slavery is a huge tourist attraction featuring a laser light show. Some Georgia residents say it’s time to remove it, others insist it be protected -
Like New York in the 1980s and Berlin in the 90s, the occupation movement in São Paulo has exploded into one of the most dynamic forces in Brazil -
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From the 4,600-year-old pyramid of Zoser to the under-construction one kilometre-high Kingdom Tower – via the first London semi, Beijing’s old stock exchange and LA’s stacked freeway interchange – these 50 structures tell unique stories of our urban history -
The foundation of al-Mansur’s ‘Round City’ in 762 was a glorious milestone in the history of urban design. It developed into the cultural centre of the world
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With its mathematical layout and earthworks longer than the Great Wall of China, Benin City was one of the best planned cities in the world when London was a place of ‘thievery and murder’. So why is nothing left?
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When city planning supremo Robert Moses proposed a road through Greenwich Village in 1955, he met opposition from one particularly feisty local resident: Jane Jacobs. It was the start of a decades-long struggle for swaths of New York -
Civil rights activist Floyd McKissick dreamed of a southern utopia where the racially integrated community would be planned and managed by African Americans. Although the city was never completed, some traces remain
From our archive
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The Pearl River Delta has witnessed the most rapid urban expansion in human history – a predominantly agricultural region transformed into the world’s largest continuous city. By revisiting the sites of rare archive images of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Macau from the 1940s through 1990s, our photographers have documented this staggering change -
Affordable housing quotas get waived and the interests of residents trampled as toothless authorities bow to the dazzling wealth of investors from Russia, China and the Middle East
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Underneath the streets of the capital lies a hidden labyrinth of Victorian sewers. We’re going down 20 metres and back 150 years -
Exclusive Sadiq Khan tells the Guardian he will carry out ‘the most thorough research on this matter ever undertaken’ amid widespread concern over rising housing costs and gentrification
'There's no major city like it' Toronto's unique ravine system under threat