This study looks at Jiang Han Road in Wuhan, one of the most influential shopping streets in the city center, and examines the impacts of digitalization in the post-COVID era. It found a shift in the economic activity towards socialization in the digital space, and revealed key socioeconomic-spatial patterns fostering the adaptive capacity of the street.

Using data from cities in China between 2000 and 2019, this study examined the influence of strategic interactions between mayors on carbon intensity. It found a relationship between carbon reduction in neighboring cities and the level of reduction in the reference city, in addition to an ‘imitation competition’ between cities to either reduce or increase emissions.

This study designs a new model based on medium-resolution satellite imagery to assess building damage from war, using the cases of Syria and Ukraine. It found that building damage has broader consequences for the population affected, especially when accounting for hospitals and schools.

This study assesses the effects of working-from-home on vehicle miles traveled and transit ridership during the pandemic and finds a direct and negative relationship between them: a 1% decrease in onsite workers corresponds to a 0.99% decrease in vehicle miles traveled and a 2.26% decrease in transit ridership.

Forests hold and absorb carbon, addressing a root cause of climate change. Given the rise of cities, many current and potential forests surround cities in ‘peri-urban’ areas. These peri-urban forests may play a particularly important role in providing ecosystem services and promoting livable cities. This study geographically assesses peri-urban areas available worldwide for planting trees under different scenarios, finding enormous capacity.

This study looks at the changes in Chinese port cities in relation to demography and emissions reductions to examine the relationship between health and emissions. They found that even though shipping-related PM_2.5 decreased, mortality associated with long-term exposure to it increased by 11%.

In this interview, Peter D. Blackmer, Assistant Professor of Africology and African American Studies at the Eastern Michigan University, spoke to us from Detroit to discuss the value of grassroots perspectives in urban research and oral history as a method.

Toyia Watts, President of Charlevoix Village Association in Detroit, speaks as a long-term resident of a neighbourhood targeted for gentrification.

Over millennia, cities have evolved into new versions of themselves. This issue of Nature Cities explores pressing urban alterations in this moment of history, including conflicts wrought by gentrification and the unfolding iterations of climate change.

We share our cities with more than just other people. Author and lawyer Min Lim reflects on how one urban ark has changed and might change to support her feathered travelers.

An unfolding global polycrisis has accentuated the critique of contemporary urbanism, which has failed to be inclusive and developmental, especially in the Global South. A shift in trajectory will require a shift in our imaginaries, inclusionary processes and institutions.