Metrocable is a finalist for the WRI Ross Prize for Cities. Medellín, Colombia, used to be the murder capital of the world. With the explosion of the global drug trade in the 1980s, crime burgeoned, plunging the city into ...

When we think of design in cities, it’s typically physical environments and infrastructure that come to mind: glass, steel and stone, skylines and main streets, museums, traffic jams, playgrounds and construction sites. But the designs that determine the health and ...

Imagine Lagos, Nigeria, a city of 22 million. What was once a small coastal town just a few decades ago has exploded into a sprawling megacity spanning 452 square miles. Its rapid growth has stretched the city’s services impossibly thin: ...

Affordable housing is a crisis that only seems to deepen. Some 1.2 billion people in cities lack access to affordable, secure housing – a number that’s projected to grow to 1.6 billion people by 2025. Cities in the global south, ...

Every other Sunday, thousands of people spill onto otherwise auto-clogged city streets across India. For a few hours, the roadways are theirs – to walk, cycle, skate, practice yoga, CrossFit, even Zumba. Open streets days, known locally as Raahgiri Days, ...

Neighbors in Porto Alegre, Brazil, have been getting together regularly since 1989 to discuss the future of their city. Everyone is encouraged to speak at district meetings in churches, gyms and clubs, discussing everything from water supply and sewage to ...