How Will the Future Remember COVID-19?
Three visions for a hypothetical pandemic memorial
The YouTuber Who Treats the Inner City Like a Safari
Charlie Moore turned the aesthetics of beat policing into a full-time job.
The Pandemic Could End Waiting in Line
Theme-park designers, architects, and engineers have been fighting against queues for decades. COVID-19 could finally kill them for good.
America Will Sacrifice Anything for the College Experience
The pandemic has revealed that higher education was never about education.
Trees Are Time Machines
Arborists are planting trees today that must survive decades of global warming. The health, comfort, and happiness of city dwellers hang in the balance.
The Pandemic Has Remade Friendship
Every relationship is long-distance now—and that’s a good thing.
Why Every City Feels the Same Now
Glass-and-steel monoliths replaced local architecture. It’s not too late to go back.
The End of the Fictional Cop
Television and film helped naturalize police violence. Noir offers a way out.
The Struggle for the Urban Soundscape
The quiet of lockdown and the noise of protest restage the political conflicts of sonic life in the city.
How a Feel-Good AI Story Went Wrong in Flint
A machine-learning model showed promising results, but city officials and their engineering contractor abandoned it.
Tech Is Killing Street Food
The wealthy hubs of the United States and India are embracing informal gastronomy, but not the people who have traditionally provided it.
An Augmented Reality
A short story explores the possible quandaries of future wearable computing.
Meet the Safecracker of Last Resort
Charlie Santore sees Los Angeles from the inside, by breaking into safes whose owners can no longer unlock them.
The Grim Future of Urban Warfare
New technologies are making war even more horrific.
What Venice Can Teach American Cities
The city of canals has been flooding for centuries. Others can learn from its adaptations.
A Map That Tracks Everything
Blockchain-based mapping hopes to replace GPS. Can it be trusted?
How Restaurants Got So Loud
Fashionable minimalism replaced plush opulence. That’s a recipe for commotion.
Sports Stadiums Are a Bad Deal for Cities
But cities can fight back.
When Elon Musk Tunnels Under Your Home
The billionaire is drilling for futuristic transit under Los Angeles. He didn’t have to ask the neighbors first.
Kim Kardashian’s Private Firefighters Expose America’s Fault Lines
“Rich people don’t get their own ‘better’ firefighters, or at least they aren’t supposed to.”
Every City Should Have a Toy Library
The “toyery” once made play a part of civic infrastructure. It’s time to bring it back.
A Smart City Is an Accessible City
A new breed of accessibility apps can make life easier for people with disabilities. They can also make it harder.
Future Shock in the Countryside
Earth’s rural areas are being transformed by climate change and technology.
The Bus Is Still Best
Ride-shares aren’t the most efficient way to move lots of people around cities.
The Black Struggle for Technology Jobs
In Atlanta and other racially segregated cities, the education system is stacked against African Americans competing for STEM careers. If Amazon picks the city for its second headquarters, things could get even worse.
How High Schools Shaped American Cities
Public education and its traditions united communities. But “school choice” could put that legacy at risk.
A World-Class Airport for the End of the World
New Orleans is building a state-of-the-art, billion-dollar terminal. But is it planning for a future doomed by climate change?
A Long-Term Solution for Scooter Sharing
San Francisco’s scooters are back, and newly regulated. But is regulation enough to make them work in the long term?
Cape Town Is an Omen
Climate change is going to revolutionize politics in cities across the world.
The Hurricane in My Backyard
An environmental philosopher reflects on his experience enduring Hurricane Harvey, and what it teaches cities and their citizens about living with global warming.
An App for Ejecting the Homeless
Amazon’s hometown has one of the nation’s worst homelessness problems. But instead of using its technology and its wealth to fix it, the city is making the problem worse.
Who Gets to Live in Silicon Valley?
Google and San Jose hope to make the city more affordable for working- and middle-class families, but they make matters worse.
Brexit Could Cripple Britain’s Ports
Technology has streamlined Dover, the busiest port in the United Kingdom. But nothing has prepared it for the Brexit transition.
Shops Aren’t for Shopping Anymore
Retail stores used to be places to buy things. Smartphones changed that, and retailers are struggling to invent new reasons, and methods, for shopping.
The Cities That Never Existed
What if the urban visions of famous architects and planners had actually been built?
The Unbearable Awkwardness of Automation
The machine age is changing the nature of work. In the process, it is also transforming buildings, and making them less hospitable for human use.
Apple's Airpods Are an Omen
The company’s slick, wireless earbuds work great, but they foreshadow startling changes to the social fabric.
‘Cargo-Bike Moms’ Are Gentrifying the Netherlands
In Rotterdam, the bakfiets utility bike has become a symbol—and a tool—of urban displacement.
Drone Cops Take Flight in Los Angeles
The L.A. County Sheriff has deployed a quadcopter drone for rescue and reconnaissance. But will the public accept that these aerial officers come in peace?
A Defense of the Suburbs
An architect immerses himself in residential production housing to learn why people like it—and what it can teach Americans about the future of urban design.
Satellite Images Can Harm the Poorest Citizens
In Ho Chi Minh City, computer analysis of orbital images overlooks some urban communities. To represent them, cities will have to put boots on the ground.
Porn’s Uncanny Valley
The San Fernando Valley was once the bedroom community of the adult industry. Now technology hopes to disrupt traditional pornography—and the city it calls home.
Power Lines Are Burning the West
Human technology is responsible for more loss from fire than any other cause. But reducing fire’s impact will require changes to how people live, not just to the infrastructure that lets them do so.
Los Angeles, America’s Future Spaceport
The city of stars was once a major hub for aerospace. Soon it might be again.
Ancient Rome’s Collapse Is Written Into Arctic Ice
Scientists can finally track the civilization’s economic booms and recessions—thanks to the exhaust of its massive coin-making operation, preserved for centuries in Greenland’s ice sheet.
The 'Black Hole' That Sucks Up Silicon Valley's Money
A fast-growing type of charitable account gets big tax breaks but little oversight.
New Mexico’s Sad Bet on Space Exploration
Spaceport America was supposed to bring a thriving space industry to the southern New Mexico desert—but for now it’s a futurist tourist attraction, not an operational harbor to the cosmos.
The Design Bible That Changed How Americans Bike in Cities
A movement has brought safer bicycle lanes to the United States. But it took a manual to spread them.
The City of Coordinated Leisure
A short story imagines an entirely different way for cities to schedule people’s lives.
The Cute Robot That Follows You Around the City
Piaggio, the Italian company that makes Vespa scooters, is building cargo droids for city pedestrians.
Fire Escapes Are Evocative, But Mostly Useless
In the 19th century, fire escapes saved tenement dwellers from peril. Today they are more likely to cause harm than to prevent it.
The City That Remembers Everything
The smart city is moving beyond cameras and microphones to stranger surveillance tools.
The Rise of Virtual Citizenship
In Cyprus, Estonia, the United Arab Emirates, and elsewhere, passports can now be bought and sold.
City Noise Might Be Making You Sick
For a century, urban commotion has been treated as a moral failing of individuals. Fixing it will require systemic changes to environmental noise.
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When Malls Saved the Suburbs From Despair
Like it or not, the middle class became global citizens through consumerism—and they did so at the mall.
People Will Always Get Lost
GPS-equipped smartphones were supposed to put an end to going off course. They didn't, and they never will.
China's Dystopian Tech Could Be Contagious
The PRC’s “social credit” scheme might have consequences for life in cities everywhere.
Google’s Guinea-Pig City
Will Toronto turn its residents into Alphabet’s experiment? The answer has implications for cities everywhere.
Stop Saying 'Smart Cities'
Digital stardust won’t magically make future cities more affordable or resilient.
How Humans Sank New Orleans
Engineering put the Crescent City below sea level. Now, its future is at risk.