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Los Angeles, United States

See Street Art Around the World via Google

Thousands of new images help preserve the art form

In the future, what role will cars play in our lives?

Round Table

Are Cars Driving Into the Sunset?

Our love affair with automobiles is changing in the face of climate change and denser urban living

Personal environmental monitors, such as TZOA (shown here), measure air quality and stream that information to users who may otherwise have no idea what they are breathing.

With Wearable Devices That Monitor Air Quality, Scientists Can Crowdsource Pollution Maps

Emerging technology means anyone with a smartphone can become a mobile environmental monitoring station

Smog over Shanghai

Trending Today

China’s Smog Might Be to Blame for the East Coast’s Rough Winter

A NASA visualization shows how particles from East Asia can swirl into Pacific storms—a source of precipitation for the U.S.

FireCast 2.0 targets the most fire-prone buildings, many of which haven't been inspected in years.

How Data and a Good Algorithm Can Help Predict Where Fires Will Start

The New York City Fire Department is using a tool called FireCast to predict which buildings are most likely to have fires

Trending Today

Amsterdam Is Out of Bike Parking

The city will create 40,000 new bike parking spaces by 2030

Mexico City's growth is similar in some ways to that of the 15th century Aztec capital that once stood there.

New Research

Modern Cities Grow the Same Way As Ancient Ones

Scientists find that despite time and location, the productivity of settlements grows faster than their populations

New York saw 4,500 annual cases by 1907. Mallon was linked to 47, and 3 deaths.

The Frightening Legacy of Typhoid Mary

With concerns about infectious disease in the news, a look back at history’s most famous carrier

Someone Built a Bold New Font Out of Buildings

Created out of aerial photography, you’ll never guess where the “O” comes from

Google's driverless car prototype. Is this the cab of the future?

Cabs of the Future Won’t Have Drivers

Recent moves by Uber and Google may foreshadow a battle over who will control fleets of autonomous cars on city streets

"Young people run down a snowy hill with enthusiasm, ca. 1940" in Chicago

Cool Finds

Visit 1940s Chicago With a Film Discovered at a Garage Sale

The film, produced in around 1945, offers a thorough, fact-filled tour of the city

Gogoro is releasing an electric Smartscooter, a lithium-ion battery pack and a charging station at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas.

Will Electric Scooters Take Over the World’s Mega Cities?

A well-funded startup called Gogoro unveils its e-scooter and a plan to install ATM-like battery stations in urban areas

(Clockwise from top left) Katrin Macmillan, Ashutosh Saxena, Richard Lunt and Horace Luke are hard at work on exciting new projects.

Eight Innovators to Watch in 2015

From food science and robotics to solar tech and sustainable architecture, these folks are poised to do big things

NASA is using nighttime pictures of Earth to track energy use during cultural holidays.

NASA Can See Your Holiday Lights From Space

Scientists can use holiday lights during Christmas and Rammadan as a proxy for overall energy use in urban areas

New Research

In the Past 40 Years, 105 City Neighborhoods Gentrified; 2,000 Slipped Further Into Poverty

America’s Move Toward Concentrated Poverty

Sunrise at Red Rocks Park in Colorado

When America Invested in Infrastructure, These Beautiful Landmarks Were the Result

Explore eight of the Works Progress Administration’s most impressive structures.

The first crop for Local Roots Farms to grow is lettuce.

Future of Energy

Turning Shipping Containers Into Urban Farms

In a clever recycling experiment, the startup Local Roots Farms is growing organic, hydroponic produce in America’s food deserts

New Research

Manhattan Insects Eat the Equivalent of 60,000 Hot Dogs Each Year

Millions of urban insects act as efficient, largely unnoticed garbage disposals

New Amsterdam, Now New York, on the Island of Manhattan by Johannes Vinckeboons

Cool Finds

New Amsterdam’s First Laws: Drink Less, Fight Less

New Amsterdam was controlled by the Dutch from 1624 to 1664

Hunting and gathering, Metro sapien-style, in Vancouver's Granville Island Public Market.

Anthropocene

Humans Are Becoming City-Dwelling “Metro Sapiens”

To achieve sustainability, the human species needs to embrace its urban side, argues public health researcher Jason Vargo

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