Society

A tragicomic account of how the Los Angeles Police Department blew up a city block

19 minutes

The haunting of modern China

In Nanjing, Hong Kong and other Chinese cities, rapid urbanisation is multiplying a fear of death and belief in ghosts

Andrew Kipnis

Sick city

My dad grew up in Robert Moses’s New York City. His story is a testament to how urban planning shapes countless lives

Katie Mulkowsky

The rise and fall of Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong’s infamous urban monolith

18 minutes

Inside the unique London community built by residents to defy housing discrimination

21 minutes

From manners to mud – two women recall coming of age in Victorian London

10 minutes

Here’s to the aquapolis

Unkempt, beguiling and lacking conventional geometry, wetlands bring a roguish, raffish wildness to the city

Tom Blass

Living closer together

Urban density was once seen as a sign of unhealthiness and poverty. But today it is necessary to make cities sustainable

Max Holleran

The haunted city

The city, for all its mechanical speed, artificial light and industrialisation, is the most uncanny of human habitats

Azania Imtiaz Khatri-Patel

Energised crowding

To understand why early cities thrived, look not to the temples of kings but to their subjects’ bustling neighbourhoods

Michael E Smith

Walk like a Roman in this digital reconstruction of the ancient city

9 minutes

Uncovering Sparta

Mythological home of Helen, war-making polis of Leonidas and now a modest municipality: the city is a palimpsest

Daphne D. Martin

How we became weekly

The week is the most artificial and recent of our time counts yet it’s impossible to imagine our shared lives without it

David Henkin

Cities that grow themselves

They are spreading like branching plants across the globe. Should we rein cities in or embrace their biomorphic potential?

Josh Berson

Seeking authenticity in a Chinatown built for tourists and Hollywood movies

23 minutes