Stories

Justin McGuirk Lasting Legacy for Olympics 2012? London London forges ahead with multi-decade plan, using 2012 Olympics profits, to create new parks, housing, schools and job opportunities within socially diverse communities. More	Susana Seijas Model Disaster Preparedness Mexico City Recalling its monstrous 1985 earthquake, Mexico City trains 10,000 of its civil servants in disaster recovery techniques. More
Gail Jennings Joburg's Transit Breakthrough JOHANNESBURG Informal ‘jitney’ associations transcend their warload past to become shareholders in South Africa’s first ever Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. More	Jay Walljasper Surprise Climate Leader Chicago Chicago models ambitious Climate Action Plan to slash carbon emissions and handle warming. More
Hannah Bae Global High-Tech City Model SONGDO Near Seoul, a new city rises from the mud flats, aiming to become a world model of sensor-activated, computer-driven management of an entire city. More	Fernando Serpone Bueno and Veridiana Sedeh No Excuses Slum Upgrading São Paulo In a fast-urbanizing planet, Sao Paulo develops a model toolkit to improve housing for poor, dispossessed. More
Birgit Heitfeld Red Scarf Power Berlin Berlin's "Neighborhood Mothers" program reaches out to immigrants, suggests global model. More	Christopher Tan Singapore's Transportation Secrets Singapore More vehicles, more trips, more people -- but gridlock remain a rarity. What gives? More

Mary Newsom For Citiwire

Athens’ Surprise Olympic Dividend

Athens

Like all cities, Athens wonders whether its massive cash investment for the Olympics was worth it. But the real payoff (ironic for this millennia-honored city) may be in increased citizens to historic preservation, together with an interesting tie to the new subway system.

Eugenie L. Birch For Citiwire

Istanbul — A Megalopolis That’s Beginning to Work

Istanbul

This fabled world city has a remarkable story to tell. Recently the European Union awarded it the highly competitive “European City of Culture 2010,” title, the first for a non-EU member. More important, Istanbul is becoming a viable model for the 21st century megacity — places of 10 million or more inhabitants, likely (cumulatively) by 2050 to house 20 percent of the world’s urban population.

Anthony Flint For Citiwire

Coastal Cities Challenged

New Orleans

Even with aggressive action on climate change, scientists agree that a global temperature rise of some kind is inevitable, triggering sea level rise, more intense storms, and an array of other chain-reaction disruptions to life as we know it. And in the typically sinister way that the climate cataclysm plays out, these impacts will hit hardest in the places most people live.

Neal Peirce For Citiwire

Industrial Graveyard To Hot Innovation Center

Barcelona

How can a city resuscitate an entire depressed, old inner city district, many of its blocks marked by the skeletons of abandoned factories? Even more challenging–how to transform the same area into a high-powered knowledge hub that adds jobs by the thousands and draws dozens of high-powered national and international firms?