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Cities

An estimated 5.6 million people ride the New York City subway every weekday.

12 Secrets of the New York Subway

History runs deep in the legendary transit system

Cool Finds

Five Fascinating Places to Visit This Obscura Day

Atlas Obscura celebrates all things weird and wonderful worldwide this Saturday

Romp with Ramona, Ribsy and Henry Huggins at Grant Park in Portland.

Cool Finds

Celebrate Beverly Cleary’s 100th Birthday With a Trip to Her Sculpture Garden

Ramona’s creator is even more timeless thanks to Portland’s tribute in bronze

Germany, Hamburg, Speichrstadt and Hafencity district

Age of Humans

Coastal Cities Need to Radically Rethink How They Deal With Rising Waters

“Transitional architecture” is both a futuristic solution to sea-level rise and a hearkening back to older ways of living

Cemeteries of the Future

Do you want to be buried in a coral reef, a skyscraper or on an artificial island?

Super-Natural (2011/2016), Han Seok Hyun. Artist Han Seok Hyun sourced green materials from supermarkets in Boston and his home city of Seoul for this fanciful landscape.

11 Artists Capture What It Is Like to Live in a Megacity

“Megacities Asia,” a new exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, features 19 installations inspired by cities with populations of 10 million or more

Broadcast towers will soon blink for the sake of birds.

Trending Today

Tower Lights Will Soon Blink for the Sake of Birds

With a simple blink, tall towers can go from deadly to bird-friendly

Six of the Wildest Skyscrapers Imaginable

The winners of the annual skyscraper design competition think way beyond the “tall rectangle with windows” model

This Tube is full of mosquitoes.

Cool Finds

The London Underground Has Its Own Mosquito Subspecies

Take a bite out of this strange evolutionary example

This 12,000-year-old city could soon be inundated thanks to a hydroelectric dam.

Trending Today

These Are Europe’s Eight Most Endangered Cultural Landmarks

Unless things change, these historic sites could disappear from the map forever

Trending Today

Watch a Statue of Lenin Being Torn Down in Real Time

It’s hard to topple a 66-foot statue—or contend with the symbols of Ukraine’s communist past

Blu and local activists erased 20 years' worth of his street art from Bologna, Italy.

Trending Today

A Prominent Street Artist Just Destroyed All of His Works

Blu used a chisel and gray paint to make a point

Each year, FLAP lays out birds collected by volunteers in a bid to raise awareness about the dangers of bird/building collisions.

Trending Today

This Pattern Is Made of 2,100 Dead Birds

It’s all part of a bid to raise awareness of the plight of birds that crash into city buildings

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Even 500 Years After His Death, Hieronymus Bosch Hasn’t Lost His Appeal

A trip to the painter’s hometown reminds us how his paintings remain frightfully timely

Are you brave enough to slide down the side of a skyscraper?

Trending Today

A Restored Skyscraper in LA Will Feature a Terrifying Glass Slide

Going to the bank just got that much scarier

Century Partners renovated this house and others on Atkinson Street in Detroit.

A Detroit Startup Is Trying to Shake Up the City’s Housing Market

Two real estate developers are giving longtime residents a stake in their neighborhood’s revitalization

Beijing's CCTV Tower has been compared to a pair of glorious pants.

Cool Finds

These Are 10 of China’s Strangest Buildings

Chinese officials want to ditch the country’s bizarre architecture

Vans like this could help fill one of the big gaps in public transportation.

Is Bridj the Next Phase in How People Will Get Around Cities?

A project in Kansas City will see if a ride-hailing service can work with a government agency to help bring public transportation into the 21st century

Bigelow Aerospace's proposed space station, Alpha, would be made up of sausage-link-esque blocks, each the size of a school bus.

Age of Humans

We Thought We’d Be Living in Space (or Under Giant Domes) By Now

An inflatable space habitat test highlights the futuristic visions we’ve had for housing, from cities under glass to EPCOT

A rendering of the newly reopened Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, California.

Cool Finds

Glow to This Flickering Tribute to Neon

The past shines at the Museum of Neon Art in Southern California

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