Topic description and stories

Over half the world’s population lives in urban areas. The quality of life in future cities depends on the innovations we put in place today.

Cambridge awarded £18 million in funding to support UK infrastructure research

24 Mar 2015

Funding announced by the Chancellor in last week’s budget is part of a wider £138 million programme to support the UK’s infrastructure and cities.

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Seeds to skyscrapers

24 Jun 2014

Wood is one of the oldest building materials but its use is limited by its properties. With new funding, researchers aim to stretch these properties...

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Construction

Better building through design

04 Jun 2014

The construction industry could slash its carbon emissions by as much as 50% by optimising the design of new buildings, which currently use double...

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Watercolour of a hand with smallpox by Robert Carswell in 1831

Cities of dreams... and death

28 Feb 2014

The fate of migrants moving to cities in 17th- and 18th-century England demonstrates how a single pathogen could dramatically alter the risks...

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Cambridge unveils plans to become Retrofit City

12 Jun 2013

A new network of public and private sector organisations aims to carry out retrofits across Cambridge, bringing down carbon emissions, cutting energy...

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Cities and how we live in them

19 Feb 2013

More and more of us live in cities where disparate communities jostle for space. Eminent sociologist Richard Sennett will give a public lecture on...

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Palestinian Hajj paintings by the entrance to a reconstructed Synagogue in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Divided cities do not flourish

08 Nov 2012

A landmark study of divided cities such as Jerusalem and Belfast suggests that while physical divisions remain these cities cannot thrive, and that a...

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Cityscape

Apocalyptic thinking and urban resilience

19 Oct 2012

Through analysis of human resilience, particularly in cities, Professor Ash Amin believes that state guarantees of welfare and infrastructure will...

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urban gems

How to crowdsource your happy space

26 Sep 2012

A new online platform will harness crowdsourcing to identify the visual cues that lead people to perceive an urban space as happy, quiet or beautiful...

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London street photo.

Look familiar?

04 Apr 2012

Introducing the online game for Londoners which researchers hope will one day influence the shape of the nation’s capital.

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Traffic

Using real-time road traffic data to evaluate congestion

26 Jan 2012

A new project has shown that by using existing sources of information about traffic flow it is possible to create a minute-by-minute image of...

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The Square Mile by night

Who owns the City?

22 Nov 2011

Foreign investors now own the majority of City of London offices, according to a new study from the Department of Land Economy.

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