Cities are where most of the world’s people live, and where many of the most consequential decisions about housing, transit, public space, and climate get made. This archive tracks meaningful progress in urban life — from cleaner air and safer streets to more equitable neighborhoods and smarter infrastructure.
The mayors of Los Angeles, Oakland, Atlanta, Georgia, Tacoma, Newark, Saint Paul, Jackson, Compton, Shreveport, and Stockton have joined Mayors For A Guaranteed Income, a coalition advocating for UBI policies, or the idea of giving out recurring cash payments to all individuals without any strings attached.
London’s “Ultra Low Emissions Zone,” which was established on April 8, 2019, has led to major shifts in transportation patterns. Most of those now use public transportation or walk.
South Korea’s capital, Seoul, is purchasing 700 electric taxis. This subsidy is worth 18.2 million won (around $15,000) per EV, far more than the 12.7 million ($10,300) subsidy for buying an EV for personal use.
The new law went into effect January 1. By 2021, the same law will ban handing out plastic straws, spoons, coffee capsules and other single-use items.
French company Agripolis is opening a 150,000-square-foot urban farm in Paris, where it will grow more than 2,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables every day during high season.
Nassau was founded in 1670, when British settlers landed on New Providence Island and built a small fort they called Charles Town, after King Charles II. Burned by the Spanish, rebuilt, and briefly overrun by pirates like Blackbeard, it was renamed Nassau in 1695 and grew into the capital of today’s independent Bahamas.
Belize City traces its roots to 1638, when English loggers set up a trading post at the mouth of Haulover Creek to float logwood and mahogany out to the Caribbean. The site wasn’t empty — a Maya settlement called Holzuz was already there. Nearly four centuries on, it remains Belize’s largest city and a layered meeting point of Maya, African, Garifuna, and Mestizo histories.
Luanda was founded on January 25, 1576, when Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais came ashore on Angola’s Atlantic coast with a hundred settler families and four hundred soldiers. His fortified outpost rose in Ambundu territory, where established trade networks already shaped the region. Today it’s home to more than 8.8 million people.
Caracas was founded on July 25, 1567, when Spanish captain Diego de Losada staked his claim in a mountain-ringed valley near the Caribbean coast. Earlier attempts had failed, crushed by Indigenous forces under chiefs Guaicaipuro and Terepaima. The small settlement would grow into a hemispheric capital and, centuries later, the birthplace of Simón Bolívar.
Santo Domingo took root in 1496 on the banks of the Ozama River, when Bartholomew Columbus oversaw the founding of what became the oldest continuously inhabited European city in the Americas. Its harbor later launched expeditions to Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Mexico — though the same centuries brought the near-collapse of the Taíno and the Americas’ earliest recorded slave revolt.
