Karl Dickinson

Urbanism is not uniform. Understanding how CityChangers work at various scales is fundamental to forming communities that pull together to advance change that benefits everyone. At what scale does an urban change-maker work? Knowing the answer to this question has many benefits for those of us who believe that cities can...

Humans crave connection with nature that cities disconnect us from. Graphic Rewilding proves that art is a viable alternative, or even enhancer of, ecological spaces. Sides of buildings in cities around the world have been getting a makeover. Entire facades, sometimes many storeys tall, brought to life with vibrant depictions...

Social media sensation Bins of Congleton uses humour to generate a new appreciation for local waste infrastructure, also encouraging people to keep the town litter-free. A short distance from Manchester, UK, lies the small market town of Congleton, home to almost 29,000 people and around 150 public waste bins. It’s...

Using transition design to utilise the knowledge of living heritage provides cost-effective opportunities to reach sustainability targets. If only we can learn to communicate it effectively. Communication is the lynchpin to change. Fail to express what we need people to know – and do – in a way that connects...

Having everything we need a stone’s throw from our front door would surely make life much easier. But the 15-minute city isn’t just about proximity. Imagine an elderly person unsteady on their feet. If that’s you, maybe you recognise this scenario. We’ve all seen someone fragile moving along the street...

As universal amenities, public toilets should be easy to access, inclusive, and functional. MidCoast Council’s strategy paper shows how to deliver on this priority. Australia is a world leader in public toilet provision. It may be a vast country, but its 23,000 public conveniences means that there’s the equivalent of one...

Rimini’s comprehensive Bicipolitana cycling network has been expanding since the 1960s, converting car culture into enthusiasm for active mobility through joy and convenience. Nestled on the Adriatic coast to the northeast of Italy is Rimini, a medium-sized historic city that has pushed ahead with cycling and walking infrastructure development for...

From targeted participation to making it fun, the Urban Minded project shows what strategies and activities really work to involve people usually excluded from engagement processes. “One of the pitfalls of citizen participation is that we tend to ask people what they want, and that is the wrong question,” says...

Poor city design correlates with poor mental health. Urban Minded sought to involve young women, among those worst affected, in determining how planning can support wellbeing. Even a small space can produce a lot of joy if it has meaning for the people using it. Outside a youth culture house in...

What if the perceived barriers to retrofitting the built environment are actually helpful perimeters that steer each job in the right direction? That’s one of the themes discussed in this episode of the Talking Place webcast, which is featured on CityChangers with the kind permission of its presenter, Tanisha...

Environmental health officer “Dog Poo Daren” Clark found purpose in a job no one else wanted to do. He ended up improving public spaces nationwide. About a quarter of a century ago, a story emerged about a man working for Sheffield City Council in the UK, whose job it was...

As extreme weather becomes commonplace, the Darwin Living Lab evaluates what cities in the tropics can do to stay cool enough to be liveable. Temperatures in Darwin can easily reach above 30°C all year round and are predicted to rise because of climate change. The capital of Australia’s Northern Territory...

Honorata Grzesikowska explains how football centrism, where schoolyards are built around sports fields, excludes girls from accessing and enjoying sport and shared spaces. Culturally revered and a money-making machine, football – or soccer – is popular the world over. The design of a standard football pitch is so ubiquitous that...

Street gardening gives city-dwellers a way to reconnect with nature. In Melbourne, it is also helping Australia’s wildlife and makes people feel safer in the street. Little did Emma Cutting realise when she broke ground in 2016 on a patch of street outside her suburban Australian home, that a tiny...

This article is reproduced with the kind permission of Urban Solutions Journal. In it, the urban planner behind “China in 5”, Lile Mo, explains how the Chinese city of Hefei came up with sustainable responses to flooding and urban sprawl through strategic zoning and borrowing ideas from ancient infrastructure. By...

Krater is a feral site reshaping Ljubljana’s ecological stewardship by embedding it in creative practices. It’s also changing the way international communities perceive invasive species. Less than a 30 minute walk from the Old Town of Ljubljana, Slovenia, a team of creative young professionals have transformed a semi-abandoned patch of...

Omer Juma’s organisation 4 Lines 4 Days assesses the accessibility of metro stations. Findings in Montreal surprised city leaders, who have since commissioned improvements. Between 1984 and 2014, a succession of law changes related to the built environment secured stronger equality rights for citizens in Spain’s Catalonia region. “It was...

London’s mobile Skip Garden was co-constructed by local communities from construction waste. Now named the Story Garden, it has finally found a permanent home. The Story Garden gives people in and around the busy King’s Cross district of London, UK, a much needed connection with nature. Known by many as a...