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Notable cities

Notable City: Decarbonising Vienna

Vienna is a pragmatic city, bursting with exuberance, diversity, and political action. In terms of decarbonising, it’s a place where people are making definite, positive urban change at the street and policy levels. We...

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...

Notable City London: The Transition to Community Energy

Widescale social housing retrofit projects led by local authorities are not uncommon. Yet many energy refits still tend to focus on changes at the microscale – in single buildings. Does it have to be...

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...

Notable City Paris: The Cultivated Capital

The French capital’s ambitious vision for urban agriculture is in full bloom. We take a look at the city’s signature Parisculteurs programme to understand why its unique approach is receiving world-wide attention. From ‘the city...

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...

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...

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...

Waste to Resources: Tampere’s Triumphs With Trash and Trade

The importance of good waste management is no secret, but how to do it can sometimes allude us. This is where the city of Tampere comes in. So, if you’re lacking innovative ideas and...

Lyon Confluence: How a District is Retrofitting Heritage Buildings

SPL Lyon Confluence is carrying out a stand-out urban renewal project in a once-deprived district of central Lyon. Project Manager Etienne Vignali describes how this offers a significantly chance to undertake a large-scale decarbonisation...

Barcelona’s Superblocks: Putting People at the Centre – Literally

A few weeks back, during an ECIU Challenge in Barcelona, I talked with the Office for Urban Ecology of Barcelona's municipality. They showed me the city's plan to win its war on cars. The plan is...

Superblocks – the Spanish Idea That Is Conquering European Cities

Giving the streets back to the people: The Spanish idea of creating city blocks where cars are only allowed as guests is spreading across Europe. But what’s the story behind the superblocks, and how...

The Secrets of Vancouver’s Rain City Strategy

Vancouver has undergone a blue-green infrastructure revolution. Its Rain City Strategy integrated nature making the city more resilient to fluctuations in rainfall. Behind it all is Melina Scholefield, a CityChanger with an impressive portfolio...

Vienna Calling: A Story of Gender Equality, Funding Structures, and School Streets

For the 10th consecutive time, Vienna was named the world's most liveable city in the Mercer Rankings of 2020. But does that also mean that the city is particularly pedestrian-friendly? We talked to Petra...

Preventing Day Zero: Lessons from Cape Town

Day Zero: the moment a city’s water dries up completely. For Cape Town, this deadly scenario came too close, but it was averted thanks to collective action and decisive leadership. This story serves as...

From Emissions to Edens: Our Top 5 Car-Free Urban Transformations

Our cities have been constructed almost entirely around private cars. But what's happening now? Cities are realising that infrastructure for motor vehicles in urban areas often leaves them looking grey, industrial and not very...

From Creating Momentum for Pedestrians to Turning It Into Policy – How Rotterdam Made It Happen

It’s a long way from one person having an idea to a city fully implementing it on policy-level – Rotterdam’s story shows that it can be done, and how. We sat down with José...