Urban change, clearly told. Chronicles of transformation where empirical rigor meets lyrical urbanism.
Essential urban transformation stories from Atlas Urbium
I get lost in Madrid most easily underground. At street level the city is still negotiable—but in the tunnels everything becomes a geometry exercise with too many variables. Then the city quietly changed the rules.
Madrid installed thousands of Bluetooth beacons in its underground highways, allowing navigation app...
In-depth analysis and practical tools for urban transformation
By 2050, the number of urban poor facing dangerous heat could increase by 700 percent. Cities are becoming heat engines, and the burden falls hardest on those least able to escape. A UNEP analysis of why cooling has become a matter of life and death—and what 185 cities are doing about it.
Two concrete scars bisect the heart of New Orleans. A radical plan to remove the Claiborne and Pontchartrain expressways could heal the wounds of mid-century urban planning—or repeat its mistakes.
Chronicles of urban transformation that reveal how cities evolve, combining narrative precision with analytical rigor.
From Barcelona to Moscow, Europe's great cathedrals structured urban life through sacred architecture—organizing commerce, ritual, political power, and collective memory across centuries.
When Rochester decided to tear down a highway that never worked, the city discovered that sometimes the most radical urban planning move is to admit a mistake and tear it down.
When essential workers cannot afford to live near their jobs, cities fracture. A policy guide drawn from Paris, Barcelona, and American metros on aligning housing, wages, and transit to keep nurses, teachers, and service workers close to the communities that need them.
Four million housing units short in the US, and a rental vacancy rate in NYC at its lowest since 1968. But the shortage is not just about how many units exist—it's about where building is legally allowed, who owns the land, and what rules lock parcels into under-use. A human-geography approach to housing as a spatial regime.
Over 300 European cities now have congestion charges, low-emission zones, or superblocks. The question is no longer 'Can we do anything?' but 'How far could a city go?' This essay sketches a research-based scenario for a post-congestion mobility regime.
Dense cities can produce 30% of their electricity from rooftops and up to 100% of thermal energy from waste heat and geology. The technical ceiling exists—the question is whether policy will reach it.
Curated insights from urban planning leaders worldwide—practical solutions being implemented in cities across the globe.
Global insights will appear here
We're building data stories and community tools. Sign up to vote on which interactive maps, walkability calculators, and planning resources we develop first.
Priority access to new tools + monthly newsletter. No spam.
"Cities, like software, are rewritten as much by what we delete as by what we build."