Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-07-17DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00462-8
Andreas Haller
{"title":"Hausberg urbanization in the European Alps","authors":"Andreas Haller","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00462-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00462-8","url":null,"abstract":"In the Austrian city of Innsbruck, the European Alps are never just scenery. They shape how we live, dream and define ourselves — and how we urbanize. The Patscherkofel — our Hausberg, a personal ‘backyard mountain’ — reveals how a tourism city’s soul climbs higher while its roots shift below.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 7","pages":"666-666"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148467694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-07-17DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00482-4
Seyyed Saeed Helli
{"title":"Kashan’s path from ancient culture to the modern creative city","authors":"Seyyed Saeed Helli","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00482-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00482-4","url":null,"abstract":"Traditional architecture in Kashan reflects centuries of adaptation to climate, culture and community life. The revitalization of Kashan’s historic neighborhoods demonstrates how heritage can remain relevant by informing contemporary approaches to urban identity, sustainability and creative development.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 8","pages":"669-670"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148754294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-07-15DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00476-2
Nishant Kumar
{"title":"The Indian street dog crisis and multispecies coexistence in tropical urban futures","authors":"Nishant Kumar","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00476-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00476-2","url":null,"abstract":"Cities in the Global South struggle with human–animal coexistence conundrums. For example, in South Asia, old and new collide: people raise livestock informally and feed free-ranging animals within heterogeneously developed, juxtaposed patches, while digital economies boom amid threats from waste piles linked with zoonotic diseases and conflicts. This is exemplified by the free-ranging dog crises in India. Humanity’s oldest companion now suffers between compassion and rising conflicts. Dogs still scavenge, guard, breed, disperse and die on streets shaped by traffic, garbage, ritual feeding and uneven care. Indian courts, attempting to address the problems, have overlooked the root cause—food subsidies. Sterilization, shelters, fencing or removals cannot succeed when urban landscapes provide food subsidies to animals without corresponding responsibility. Episodes of reactive management must yield to urban planning, acknowledging that multispecies communities in shared living spaces are complex and interconnected. Here, I suggest making compassion accountable to public health, animal well-being and urban ecology. Cities in the Global South struggle with human–animal coexistence. This Perspective argues that, for free-ranging dogs in Indian cities, we are overlooking the ultimate issue, food subsidies that encourage and support dog packs and populations.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 8","pages":"679-687"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148754299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-07-15DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00490-4
Andrea McIntosh
{"title":"Urban climate vulnerability, housing and drug supply","authors":"Andrea McIntosh","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00490-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00490-4","url":null,"abstract":"Shifting illicit drug supplies and extreme weather patterns are heightening health risks for unhoused drug users in cities, but these dynamics are largely absent from climate planning. To address the compounded risks faced by this highly at-risk population, urban climate equity frameworks must integrate attention to the drug supply.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 10","pages":"897-899"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149177743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-07-13DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00481-5
Wei Chen
{"title":"Building future cities with civil engineers","authors":"Wei Chen","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00481-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00481-5","url":null,"abstract":"Bringing together researchers, engineers and industry professionals, the recent International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering (i3CE) highlighted how cutting-edge advances are transforming cities into safer, more sustainable and technologically advanced environments.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 8","pages":"675-676"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148754295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-07-08DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00466-4
Xiaodong Chen, Anda Guo, Pengyu Zhu
{"title":"Mitigation of temperature-induced vegetable price volatility in urban wholesale markets","authors":"Xiaodong Chen, Anda Guo, Pengyu Zhu","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00466-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00466-4","url":null,"abstract":"Vegetables are vital for urban nutrition security, yet their wholesale price stability in response to temperature extremes is poorly understood. Here, analyzing a decade of daily data from 265 Chinese wholesale markets, we find that extreme heat and cold significantly disrupt urban vegetable distribution, raising price volatility. We project that without adaptive interventions, future climate scenarios could translate changes in average wholesale prices into annual national-scale monetary impacts of 57–188 billion CNY by the end of the century. However, our analysis identifies powerful buffers: cities with robust self-sufficiency and efficient transport, alongside vegetables with longer shelf lives and higher market values, exhibit markedly stronger resilience. Most importantly, we show that strategic urban adaptations, such as investing in cold chains and shortening supply chains, could mitigate 56% to 89% of these projected monetary impacts. These findings highlight that targeted investments in urban supply chains are a critical strategy for safeguarding food security in a warming world. Urban vegetable price stability under temperature extremes is poorly understood. Chen et al. show that thermal shocks drive wholesale price volatility, highlighting the need for targeted investments in resilient urban supply chains.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 7","pages":"642-653"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-026-00466-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148467697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-07-01DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00470-8
Matthew Gandy
{"title":"eDNA, forensic ecologies and the barcoding of urban life","authors":"Matthew Gandy","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00470-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00470-8","url":null,"abstract":"The field of urban ecology is being transformed by advances in DNA barcoding, genomics and bioinformatics. The advent of environmental DNA (eDNA), in particular, moves beyond the identification of individual species towards the rapid assessment of entire ecosystems. Urban ecology is being transformed through new sampling and sequencing techniques that are reframing the city as an object of study. The increasing emphasis on eDNA presents a notable elaboration of systems-based conceptions of urban ecology but there has been little engagement with the wider implications of these developments for the conceptualization of urban space. Here I outline the prospects for an alternative conceptual synthesis that lies closer to the concerns of the social and historical sciences. I suggest that a closer engagement with the related field of forensic ecologies can provide a methodological bridge between new advances in DNA sequencing and post-positivist approaches to the study of cities. Environmental DNA and associated techniques are transforming urban ecology and its conception of cities. Matthew Gandy argues for leveraging such ‘forensic ecologies’ for a post-positivist conceptual synthesis with the social and historical sciences.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 9","pages":"795-801"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-026-00470-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148975019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-06-30DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00473-5
Augustine Yaw Asuah, Julien Nsanzimana
{"title":"Land-for-equity approach in Kigali’s informal transformation","authors":"Augustine Yaw Asuah, Julien Nsanzimana","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00473-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00473-5","url":null,"abstract":"The Mpazi rehousing project in Kigali shows how informal settlement upgrading can become feasible when informal land claims are formally valued and embedded within state- and donor-financed redevelopment, highlighting the institutional and financial conditions that make such models possible.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 9","pages":"789-791"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148975002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature CitiesPub Date : 2026-06-24DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00468-2
Renhao Yang (, )
{"title":"Algorithms and the mountain","authors":"Renhao Yang \u0000 (, )","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00468-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00468-2","url":null,"abstract":"The seamless logic of digital platforms often stumbles upon the stubborn reality of geography. Renhao Yang explores Chongqing’s extreme verticality, and reflects on how traditional labor bridges the gap between flat algorithmic maps and the complex terrain of the mountain city.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 7","pages":"573-573"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148467691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}