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Magazine

The Cities issue

May/June 2021

More than half of all people live in cities. This issue explores how technology is shaping what cities are, and what they will become.

Letter from the editor

The great urban tech reset

Dogboy

Features

Categorized in Smart cities
What cities need now
Smart cities haven’t brought the tangible improvements that many hoped they would. What comes next?
Categorized in Climate change
How megacities could lead the fight against climate change
Reducing emissions in a few of the world’s most populous cities could have an outsized impact on climate change.
Categorized in Tech policy
Inside the rise of police department real-time crime centers
Police departments want to know as much as they legally can. But does ever-greater surveillance technology serve the public interest?
Categorized in Smart cities
The pandemic could remake public transportation for the better
Remix is helping transit agencies figure out what comes next for the post-pandemic commute.
Categorized in Smart cities
One city’s fight to solve its sewage problem with sensors
America’s aging sewers need $1 trillion in repairs, but officials in South Bend, Indiana, have a plan to make them smarter.
Categorized in Smart cities
What’s bigger than a megacity? China’s planned city clusters
Five regions with as many as 100 million people each aim to deliver the benefits of urbanization without the headaches.
Categorized in Humans and technology
These drone photos show urban inequality around the world
From Mumbai, to Silicon Valley, to Long Beach, California, this drone photography project illuminates scars in the urban fabric.
Categorized in Humans and technology
How technology helped archaeologists dig deeper
Digital tools can help us understand ancient cities and the people who lived in them.

Also in this issue
- Why cities will come back stronger after covid
  The pandemic has shown that the benefits of density far outweigh the drawbacks.
  
  Categorized in Humans and technology
- Rio de Janeiro is making a digital map of one of Brazil’s largest favelas
  Illegal and unplanned settlements will grow in cities everywhere as urbanization accelerates. Digital technology can help residents connect to services they need.
  
  Categorized in Smart cities
- Slum dwellers in India get unique digital addresses
  Residents can use Google’s plus codes to direct deliveries and medical care to their front doors.
  
  Categorized in Smart cities
- Cape Town fights for energy independence
  Advances in renewable energy are giving more cities the chance to build their own power supply, but national governments are pushing back.
  
  Categorized in Climate change
- Can “democracy dollars” keep real dollars out of politics?
  Seattle gave residents $100 in a bid to make the city’s campaign contributions more representative of its electorate. Now, the program is spreading.
  
  Categorized in Tech policy
- How to build freestanding public restrooms that are clean and safe
  Portland, Oregon, and Montreal, Canada, offer different models for this basic amenity.
  
  Categorized in Smart cities
- Five modern bridges that are pushing the bounds of engineering
  Bridges are becoming safer, more durable, and longer than ever before.
  
  Categorized in Humans and technology
- Politics and the pandemic have changed how we imagine cities
  Science fiction authors like N.K. Jemisin and M. John Harrison are remaking familiar cities in a new light.
  
  Categorized in Humans and technology
- Los Angeles: “A Humming, Smoking, Ever-Changing Contraption”
  Three visitors on why they see Los Angeles as a machine.
  
  Categorized in Humans and technology
- Fiction: Unpaired
  —
  
  Categorized in Fiction
- The city inside our heads
  What is the ideal urban environment? Throughout the decades the idea has proved to be fertile imaginative ground.
  
  Categorized in From the archives

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