Stories from Notable Cities

Cities large and small are constantly trialling (and succeeding with) groundbreaking ideas, projects, and policies. We’ve located some of the most forward-thinking places that have been brave enough to test out innovations – and risk the failures. Among the challenges, they have faced outspoken opposition, financial constraints, ingrained behaviours, legislative hurdles, and setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their experiences in how they deal with this and much more can set other cities well on the way to change. So, whether you’re looking for stories about citizen participation, funding models, communication strategies, or the latest concepts and technical solutions, our Notable Cities are bound to be of interest.

Notable City Darwin: Plausible Futures for Heat Mitigation in the Tropics

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...

4 Days 4 Lines: Improving Equitable Access to Public Transit

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...

Via Verde: How Mexico City’s Biggest Highway Became Its Green Lungs

In response to the collective demands of 100,000 people, Via Verde has transformed Mexico City’s two-story highway from symbol of bad decision-making to a green space that supports citizens’ wellbeing. The greater metro area of...

Please Don’t Kale My Vibe – Piloting Edible City Solutions to Change Food Systems

This article was written for CityChangers.org by Mirka Råberg and Olivia Fokeerah, who both work for Forum Virium Helsinki, the City of Helsinki’s innovation company, in Finland. In it, they explore how cities can...

d-Lab: Reviving Social Infrastructure via Architectural Design

Preserving historic architecture seems at odds with renovating buildings to meet modern sustainability standards. One Spanish university, however, is bridging these two worlds – by reviving traditional construction methods. It just so happens that...

The CityChangers Podcast #17: Heart & Seoul

How did Seoul turn a backed-up expressway into a tranquil urban stream? We take a look at the landmark Cheonggyecheon River Restoration project and ask why, almost 20 year later, this peaceful pocket in...

Lessons from Edinburgh’s Retrofit Programme, Which Runs Hot & Cold

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...

Utilising Untapped Space: Food Security with Rotterdam’s Floating Farm

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...

The Grounded Community: East New York Farms!

From farming fish in high-tech warehouses to growing mushrooms under city streets, interest in urban agriculture is well and truly coming into season. But producing food in urban areas is nothing new, and there’s...

Back to the Farms of the Future: A Viennese Vision for Urban Agriculture

What will the farms of the future look like in an increasingly urbanised world? We take a trip to the Zukunftshof, a pioneering initiative in Austria that wants to model a more sustainable approach...

From the Linear to the Circular: How Guelph-Wellington is Closing the Circle on Food Waste

What would it take to create the first truly circular food economy? In Southwestern Ontario, Canada, the small city of Guelph and the surrounding county of Wellington have set themselves the goal of finding...

Notable City Haarlem: Advertising a Better Food Future

In 2021, the city of Haarlem, in the Netherlands, submitted a draft to became the first city in the world to ban meat advertising in public spaces. The move was a lightning rod for...