Cities & Planning

With top-tier tech talent and a deep farming heritage, Seattle and the broader Pacific Northwest are emerging as one of the country’s key hubs for agriculture technology.

How Switzerland Engineered Itself into Becoming the World's Greatest Transit Nation

Diversified economies are critical for cities to sustain their growth and development, but they are also costly because diversification often requi...

Even after almost two hundred years of technological change, U.S. cities continue to follow a consistent pattern that influences how they diversify and adapt over time. A new investigation from the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) shows that across 170 years of U.S. economic history, the growth of ci

Circular retail is not just about what we buy, but how and where we buy it.

From the discovery of iron working techniques, about 3,200 years ago, up until the widespread exploitation of fossil fuels, about 250 years ago, iron and steel were rare, precious materials. The average person, across the whole world, almost certainly had less than 500 grammes of it. A knife, probably; some tool of their trade, possibly. Even members of the elite — warriors who fought in full armour, for example — probably owned no more than 30kg of iron and steel.The use of fossil fuel changed all that, of course. There's about one car for every two people in the UK, and the average car now weighs 1857Kg, so that's almost a ton per person in cars alone, not to mention all the steel we now have in buildings and infrastructure. But it's fossil fuels that have made that possible. In future, we can't use them. So how much steel will we have?

Russians developed trenching techniques to grow citrus well beyond its normal range. Photo: lowtechmagazine.com In a logical world, you’d growContinue Reading

During the first half of the twentieth century, Soviet citrologists grew (sub)tropical plants in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius – outdoors, and without the use of glass or any fossil fuel-powered assistance.

[Image: View larger! From “Celestial Detector,” 2025 Lisbon Architecture Triennale; all text by Geoff Manaugh, all images by John Becker/WROT Studio.] I had a new piece of short fiction commissione…

I was in Maastricht, Netherlands, for a couple nights last week, mostly as a way to break-up my trip across the Atlantic and thus help get over jet-lag before attending an archaeology conference (w…

Seattle is considering new rules for electric cargo bikes to help ease congestion while boosting the city's effort to reduce harmful greenhouse gases.

Editor’s Note: Reporting for this article was made possible by the Guerry Beam Memorial Reporting Grant award from the Institute for Journalism and

Over the past three decades, the Cuban people have made great strides in scaling out and up the practice, science and movement of agroecology. This ... read more

Facing eviction for environmental degradation, this Brazilian favela decided to go green – and prove that more sustainable slums can give back to their residents.

Energy experts — and even Greenpeace — underestimated solar power's rapid global growth. Now many believe solar is set to become the world's biggest power source within the next decade. But it is falling prices — rather than environmental benefits — that might be driving that change.

Following a history of disinvestment and destructive climate disasters, communities across the archipelago are developing living blueprints of food sovereignty.

The device is claimed to be able to capture 1.6 gallons (6 liters) of drinking water per day.

Over the past decades power grids have undergone a transformation towards smaller and more intermittent generators – primarily in the form of wind and solar generators – as well as smal…

Night City's urban design highlights the problems, and solutions, real cities deal with around walkability, housing, and mixed-use areas

Author and activist Bill McKibben says solar power's rapid growth and dramatic price drop is the biggest untold story of our times. He wants to change that.

# Despite the fact that LIHI's proposed affordable housing project has been advancing for nearly three years, public opposition has kicked up in recent weeks. The new campaign contends that such a prime Bainbridge Island site isn't appropriate for affordable housing.

Groundwater creates rain.

Over on his YouTube channel [Construction General] shows us how to convert a drain into a hydropower facility. This type of hydroelectric facility is known as a gravitation water vortex power plant…

CoolAnt is a passive cooling system for buildings, developed by New-Delhi-based architect Monish Siripurapu. The name isn't just a twist on refrigerant; Siripurapu was inspired by anthills, which are passively cooled. Air circulates through the tunnels and vents of an anthill, reaching moisture-laden mud. Hot air escapes through upper vents,

# Tech workers like me don’t enjoy being a bargaining chip to protect our CEO’s bottom line. And we know better than anyone else that their claims are false: corporate giants can afford higher taxes.

# Railroad giants like BNSF have often deferred maintenance on their tracks and pressured government to pay for it. This had led some officials to consider taking over ownership, like Washington State did with the Palouse River & Coulee City (PCC) Railroad. Collin Reid lays out the case for greater government intervention in freight rail.

Sculpting and tending the landscape to restore the water cycle

Grätzloasen – low-cost, urban ‘parklets’ built by volunteers – are on the rise in Vienna as sceptics are being won over by the splash of welcome greenery and boost to community spirits

Introduction

Titans like Musk would love us to believe innovation means top-down solutions that only enrich the wealthy. In fact, we all have the power, says Eleanor Drage, research fellow at Cambridge University