This Article calculates how three barriers (water, steep mountains and national borders) limit urban growth and interconnectivity for more than 13,000 cities around the world. It found that natural barriers are associated with denser, smaller, greener and less land-hungry cities.

Urban architecture and cloud cover from climate change have reduced sunlight exposure for city residents. Examining 1,353 US cities with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data to map day length, sunshine, cloud cover and urban structures, this study finds that cloud cover and three-dimensional urban structures account for an equivalent reduction of 102 and 19 days of sunlight, respectively, with this reduction being expected to intensify.

Using near-real-time daily carbon emission datasets from 48 cities in China, this paper explores post-COVID-19 during which Chinese cities experienced economic growth and reduced greenhouse gas emissions—a low-carbon recovery. Six low-carbon-recovery cities (mainly megacities) saved, on average, 1.2 times as many lives per 100,000 population than the 42 other cities.

Using bibliometric techniques, this Article assesses the evolving landscape of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 research, highlighting publication trends, thematic focus areas, authorship patterns, keyword co-occurrences and citation networks.

Flood management solutions are typically local and do not consider how the space–time connectivity of floods is exacerbated by built infrastructure. Through a case study of the 2014 flood in Southeast Michigan, which flooded where there was no rainfall, this Article examines key factors contributing to urban flooding and the implications of design choices on inundation.

This study performs a systematic review of empirical evidence for climate change adaptation in coastal cities around the world. It found that reported adaptation is mostly slow, narrow, and not transformative as coastal cities predominantly focus their adaptation on past and current challenges, and not future scenarios of risk.

Urban archaeology in the humid tropics advances a new and diversified ontology of urban spatial forms, functions and processes that enriches and expands the frame of reference for what cities were in the past, what they are in the present and what they can be in the future.

Interdisciplinary dialogue is crucial in framing new perspectives on urban life and in developing analytical frameworks suited to the complex realities of urban contexts.

Delivering fair, long-term resilience for tomorrow’s cities means acting now to break cycles of risk accumulation. Inclusive future visioning can help by placing the voices and experiences of those at risk at the start of urban policy, planning and project processes, and integrating this with the best science to reimagine what cities and neighborhoods are for, and could be in the long-term.