The City After the Commute
What happens when a city stops organising every part of its life around the journey to work?
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Reporting · Analysis · Ideas
Live
Ideas
Live: Council weighs the Harbourside data hub
Follow the day’s arguments over a proposed municipal data hub, from the first briefing to the final amendment.
Photo essay
Cities
Between Arrivals
A platform, a crossing, a shelter, a bridge: a photo essay on the places we pass through on the way to somewhere else.
Interview
Ideas
“Start With the People Who Stay”
The designer Marit Solheim on libraries, permission and why a public room should never make people purchase their right to remain.
Watch
Ideas
A Moment of Attention
Not every video needs to compete with the pace of an alert. A short, quiet sequence can change what a story asks of its reader.
Council Publishes Every Repair Date
Residents can now see when each reported pothole, streetlight and broken crossing will be fixed, and who promised it.
Landlords Offered a Rates Holiday for Local Tenants
A new scheme would cut property charges for owners who let empty units to independent businesses.
Transport Committee Backs Winter Ferry Subsidy
Island routes that were due to shrink for the winter timetable will keep their current sailings for another year.
Library Card Now Doubles as a Transit Pass
A pilot in Ardenmouth lets readers tap their card on buses, trams and the Alder Line.
Hospital Trust Trials Plain-Language Discharge Letters
A rewrite of the standard discharge letter, tested with patients, cuts missed follow-up appointments by a fifth.
The Ferry Towns Betting on Winter
Coastal communities built for summer visitors are trying to make the quiet months pay.
River Ports Rehearse for a Quieter Decade
Inland harbours that grew on the back of heavy freight are planning for a future with less cargo and more of everything else.
What Border Villages Know About Trust
In communities that straddle a frontier, cooperation is a habit before it is a policy.
Municipal Diplomats Fill the Gap Between Capitals
Mayors and city officials are building their own channels for cooperation on water, transport and public health.
Review
Culture
The Bookshop That Makes Room for Browsing
An independent shop offers something increasingly scarce: time without a demand.
A City Rediscovers Its Public Rooms
Libraries are being asked to provide something the modern city has quietly misplaced: room to remain.
The Gallery Where Nobody Whispers
A small museum has abolished the hush. The result is louder, warmer and unexpectedly good for looking.
The Table Outside the Bookshop
A pavement table of cheap paperbacks has become the most reliable way into the shop behind it.
The Grid Operator That Publishes Its Own Outages
A regional operator has begun releasing a plain-language report of every failure, within a day. Trust has been the surprise dividend.
What Open Procurement Data Makes Possible
When a city publishes what it buys, small suppliers and curious residents start to find patterns the officials missed.
Who Maintains the Software a City Runs On?
Public services increasingly depend on code that nobody in government owns. A small number of cities are changing that.
The Real Cost of Cheap Sensors
A pilot that filled a district with air-quality monitors discovered that buying the devices was the cheapest part.
Section
Our columnists
The people behind the byline.
Columnist
Nadia Rahimi
Cities and transport editor. Writes about the unglamorous work that makes a place easy to live in: timetables, crossings, benches and the people who maintain them.
6 stories
Columnist
Callum Ferreira
Economy correspondent. Follows household budgets, high streets and the gap between a headline figure and a Tuesday afternoon.
6 stories
Columnist
Ines Moreau-Walsh
Culture critic. Reviews books, rooms and exhibitions, and interviews the people who design the places we gather in.
6 stories
Columnist
Sunniva Halloran
World and politics editor. Reports from places that rarely lead the bulletin, and from the committee rooms that decide what happens next.
5 stories
Columnist
Desmond Achterberg
Technology and infrastructure writer. Interested in who keeps public systems running after the launch party is over.
4 stories
Columnist
Priya Venkataraman
Columnist, The Long View. Writes about institutions, attention and the arguments that outlast the news cycle.
3 stories