Karl Dickinson

Understanding children’s experiences of cities exposes new opportunities for inclusive design. The trick is knowing how to properly engage them. Gold Coast transport planner Luisina Perassi has made it easy – even collating a toolkit to prove it. She tells us that the intention was to get young voices...

Engaging children in urban design and planning activities can increase interest in these professions in later years. It also provides perspectives infrequently considered in architecture, which are fundamental to building inclusive, sustainable cities. The municipal library might not be where you’d expect to find a group of youngsters enthusiastically engrossed...

Inefficient building envelopes are huge carbon emitters. Retrofitting promises results but the time left to attain climate targets is narrowing. This calls for urgent, scaled-up action. With an abundance of social housing, city authorities can make significant inroads. Edinburgh is one such city that has given it a go....

How do we unlock urban agriculture’s potential? By improving policies, spreading knowledge, and implementing a supportive network. This is the work of European Forum on Urban Agriculture, an EU project determined to help urban agriculture reach its potential. So, what can cities take from the project and how can...

In ageing societies like Europe, young people have little of the political power needed to influence decisions that impact their lives. As a group for whom sustainability is a prominent concern, futureproofing cities relies on their involvement in the democratic process. That’s what motivated Hanah Lahe to make a...

Space in cities is limited. Urban farming signals better times for food security but if there’s a future in it, we need to find ways to make it fit around existing land uses. When room on rooftops runs out, then what? Rotterdam’s floating dairy farm is an example making...

In cities struck by economic downturn and decay, we might hear the term ‘urban regeneration’ bandied round as a catalyst for improvement. But it’s about more than just throwing money at a problem. Young Leader alumni Luis Obregon argues that, when done well, regeneration can confidently deal with the...

Meat may be one of the most controversial topics in sustainability discourse. It’s a major contributor to climate change emissions, for one, and vegan advocates have a hard time convincing diehard carnivores to change their ways. Frank Hollemen scales the in-between: he set up Fork Ranger to raise awareness...

Food security will be one of the greatest challenges that humans face in the years ahead. Urban agriculture reduces reliance on rural imports, but a bad harvest can threaten financial viability of small producers and strain supplies again. Community supported agriculture is an alternative model that provides a safety...

Food is a massive and complex matter. In nature, food chains have to find a balance to prevent ecosystems from collapsing. Our human-made food network is no different. As the statistics show, a sustainable future concerns much more than what – and how much – we put on our...

We all need it, but many of us don’t have enough of it, and a lot of what we can get is bad for us. Up there with water and oxygen, food is one of the essential building blocks of life that nature has given us, yet somehow, we’ve...

Food is a funny, fickle friend... or is that foe? While we all need it, the industries concerned with producing, packing, distributing, and clearing up after foodstuff can make this dependency majorly problematic - for access, health, finances, and environment. It's such a complex fiend that we've split the Getting Started...

If the design of urban spaces does not make us feel safe, it limits how we move around, engage with, and enjoy the city. This impacts women disproportionately, and even spaces that seem welcoming in daylight can feel menacing after dark. We investigate the link between urban design and...

Through population growth and in-migration, cities are only going to increase in number and size. This presents a challenge: how do we ensure citizens’ needs are addressed adequately as urban environments sprawl at an unprecedented rate? One answer is using a life-long approach – improve outcomes for young people...

Finance is an unavoidable puzzle piece in making cities sustainable. With scaling a priority, leveraging enough money is a challenge. Too often, if forces us to focus on a single objective, when what we need for meeting climate targets is holistic change. Rufus Grantham speaks with CityChangers to offer...

Because of the population density, cities are a concentration of the best and worst of everyday human behaviour. Nowhere is this more evident than at celebrations that infringe on urban parks. With the warmer weather of summer, people strip themselves sartorially, and apparently of a sense of responsibility for the world...

Implementing spatial changes that benefit citizens isn’t a straightforward process. In many cities, there’s not a process for it at all! Or is there? The case of Muscat, in Oman, shows us that it may be disadvantaged citizens rather than authorities who possess the real change-making power. We talk...

Biobased materials can deliver buildings that are both low-carbon and fit residents’ needs: robust, resilient, and pleasant to be in. They can allow us to ‘partner’ with the natural world too, supporting the forest ecosystems we need, as a planet, to act as vital carbon sinks. Timber stands out...