City Stories
A key challenge in this new Human Age is to lessen the ecological footprint of the world’s cities, even as their populations expand. The Anthropocene tells the stories about resilient urban coastal infrastructure, low carbon transportation systems, and nature-inspired architectural designs.
One Man’s Trash . . .
Mining landfills for metals and energy
Which disease that mosquito gives you depends on a landscape’s human footprint
The most common insect-borne diseases change dramatically as a landscape goes from lightly-inhabited forest to jam-packed city, scientists find.
Using less steel, cement, and copper in homes and cars could take a huge bite out of emissions
Material efficiency in home construction could save up to 50 billion metric tons of carbon emissions by 2050; for cars, the savings is up to 26 billion metric tons
Buy High, Sell Low
Like it or not, retreat from the coasts has begun. The only question left is whether it will be managed or chaotic.
To pay for green infrastructure, cities are turning stormwater into an economic resource
But clever new financing instruments come with their own risks
The Circular Economy Made Real
In more and more pockets of the industrial landscape, the byproducts of one process are becoming the raw materials for another, trash is getting a useful second life, and waste is becoming a thing of the past.
A crop-by-crop comparison of urban vs conventional farms yields turns up some surprising results
A first-of-its-kind meta-analysis of urban farms in 53 countries suggests that city plots can produce up to 4 times more food than conventional ones.
Amphibious Architecture
Amphibious structures are not static; they respond to floods like ships to a rising tide, floating on the water’s surface.
Discarded electronics could become a huge source of gold in the United States. Here’s how.
In a first, researchers assessed the kinds of electronics that will be discarded in the future and the materials they contain to see how a national e-waste recycling strategy might pan out.
The Future Will Not Be Dry
In a world of melting ice caps, storm surges, and tropical cyclones, the most resilient cities aren’t the ones that fight the water back—but the ones that absorb it.
