Cities

A street art piece by artist Pony Wave depicts two people kissing while wearing face masks on Venice Beach in Venice, California.

How Street Artists Around the World Are Reacting to Life With COVID-19

Graffiti artists and muralists are sending messages of hope and despair with coronavirus public art

A lithograph by Alice Dick Dumas depicts children going to a clinic for a health check to prevent the advance of disease.

How Epidemics of the Past Changed the Way Americans Lived

Past public health crises inspired innovations in infrastructure, education, fundraising and civic debate

Pohl emphasized that killing rats was a civic duty, telling the Oregonian that “everyone in the city, rich and poor, should consider it his duty to exterminate rats.”

The Pioneering Health Officer Who Saved Portland From the Plague

Tasked with curbing a 1907 outbreak, Esther Pohl emphasized the importance of clean, vermin-free environments

Urban Coyotes Eat a Lot of Garbage—and Cats

A new study shows how city-dwelling coyotes thrive by feasting on human-linked food sources

Susan Pringle Frost founded the Charleston chapter of the Equal Suffrage League as well as the Preservation of Old Dwellings, now called the Preservation Society of Charleston.

The Suffragist With a Passion for Saving Charleston's Historic Architecture

A century ago, Susan Pringle Frost tirelessly campaigned to save these South Carolina buildings from destruction

Mexico City Is Proposing to Build One of the World's Largest Urban Parks

More than twice the size of Manhattan, the park could restore the water systems of the region and serve as a model for cities around the world

Hong Kong’s first Lennon Wall appeared in 2014.

Hong Kong's Sticky-Note Revolution

'Lennon Walls' have spread throughout Hong Kong and the world as a form of public protest and free expression

Look at those good doggos.

How Dog Parks Took Over the Urban Landscape

Birthed from the counterculture of the ’60s, the pet playground has witnessed a major shift in how Americans relate to their canines

Lead author Scott Haddow says, "Given the small sample size, the ultimate meaning of the human teeth pendants will remain elusive until new findings ... can help us better contextualize [them]."

Archaeologists Unearth Beads Made of Human Teeth in Ancient Turkish City

The molars found in Çatalhöyük are the first such beads found in the Near East

Photographer Charles Marville captured this snapshot of an open-air urinal with three stalls in 1865.

How Paris' Open-Air Urinals Changed a City—and Helped Dismantle the Nazi Regime

During World War II, the stalls served as rendezvous points for French Resistance fighters

Thanks to the ubiquity of electric light, less and less of the planet falls genuinely into darkness any more.

How Cities and Lights Drive the Evolution of Life

Urbanization and the spread of artificial light are transforming all of earth's species, bringing about a host of unintended consequences

The New Croton Dam at Croton Gorge Park, about 40 miles north of New York City.

How New York City Found Clean Water

For nearly 200 years after the founding of New York, the city struggled to establish a clean source of fresh water

E-scooters swarm city streets, but their advent is far from the first personal mobility revolution America has seen.

What the Fight Over Scooters Has in Common With the 19th-Century Battle Over Bicycles

The two-wheelers revolutionized personal transport—and led to surprising societal changes

For last-mile delivery, robots of the future may use a new MIT algorithm to beat a path to your front door.

Helping Delivery Robots Find Your Front Door

With a new navigation system from MIT, robots can decipher common landscape features, even in an unfamiliar environment

The newspapers on sale at this New York City newspaper stand likely contained some of the same comics and articles, thanks to the advent of syndication in the early 20th century.

How Syndicated Columns, Comics and Stories Forever Changed the News Media

For many Americans, their "local" paper would soon look much like the paper read halfway across the country

Alec Baldwin as Moses Randolph and Edward Norton as Lionel Essrog in Motherless Brooklyn.

Edward Norton on Why He Placed ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ in Robert Moses’ New York

The actor, director and screenwriter brings Jonathan Lethem's acclaimed novel to the screen—with a few unsubtle changes

The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab will be offshore of Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland for three years, in an effort to test its viability as a substrate for futuristic floating cities.

Designing Floating Buildings With an Eye to the Marine Species Living Underneath

A prototype deployed in San Francisco Bay imagines the underside of a floating building as an upside-down artificial reef

D.C.'s Newseum Is Closing Its Doors at the End of the Year

The museum dedicated to the history of journalism and the First Amendment has struggled financially since opening 11 years ago

Starlit Stratus rendering, by Sunggi Park

These Wild Sculptures Could Bring Sustainable Energy to the Desert

Winners of this year's Land Art Generator Initiative competition proposed beautiful, power-generating works of public art for Abu Dhabi

Fishermen in Milwaukee during the salmon run.

Milwaukee’s Secret Salmon Runs

In the spring and fall, watch huge salmon fly up two rivers in Milwaukee to spawn with the city as a backdrop

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