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UF25

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...

Underground Space: The Lesser-Known Champion of Climate Resilience

This article was written for CityChangers.org by Mahak Agrawal, Steering Board Member of ITACUS and Founder of All Bits Count (ABC). In it, she explores how cities around the world are looking, and ought...

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...

#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...

# 19: Just Streets

We sit down with Marco te Brömmelstroet and Adrian Fratila from the Just Streets project to talk about what justice has to do with city streets, how to deal with the naysayers, and whether...

#18: Cities of Making

Urban Future’s Karl Dickinson is in conversation with Adrian Hill, a social designer and lead researcher for the Cities of Making project, talking about the nature of production in the post-industrial city. They discuss...

Od-Nowa: How Łódź is Creating Its First School Street

Karolina Taczalska was appalled by the density of traffic outside her son’s school, so she and Mateusz Cyganek started a project that aims to make the street child friendly by implementing small but effective...

#16: Why Politics Needs Young People 

Urban Future’s Cornelia Forsthuber-Aumayr talks to Maral Koohestanian – former Young Leader and now the youngest ever Deputy Mayor for the city of Wiesbaden, Germany – about everything from why we need more young...

Daylighting Rivers: A Hidden Gem of Climate Adaptation

Urbanisation in the post-industrial age led to the burial of waterways to make way for buildings, roads, and public spaces. Water, though, cushions the blow of climate change, so many cities are raising channels...

Young Leader Luisina Perassi: Enabler of Child-Inclusive Urban Design

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...

How Cities Can Build with Timber… Responsibly

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...

Green Finance Institute: Accelerating Retrofits Through Investment

Retrofitting Europe’s built environment would drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and position us closer to climate goals. It’s a tantalisingly tangible but costly outlook, and progress is slow. To change this, the Green Finance...

A Just Transition: Raising Workers’ Rights in the Built Environment’s Transformation

As the construction and manufacturing industries undergo a transformation to new and better ways of delivering the built spaces we need, a hidden majority is often overlooked: the sector’s workers. It’s right that we...

Six Steps to Decarbonising Buildings

This article was written for CityChangers.org by Irene Garcia, Built Environment Lead, and Michael Shank, Director of Engagement, both with the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance. In it, they outline a six-step plan – illustrated...

CityChanger Alice Haugh: A Just Transition Towards Decarbonisation

What does a city of the future look like? For Alice Haugh, it is a regenerative and inclusive built environment that supports wellbeing and equality. In her work with the global philanthropic institution, Laudes...

How to Attract Considerable Investment for Large-Scale Sustainable Initiatives

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...

#9 Honest Mistakes

Why do we fear failure? Sustainability is an iterative process. There are no shortcuts. But in a world focussed on success, we often hide from our mistakes. Recognising this, Gerald Babel-Sutter set out to unite urban...