Nature Cities最新文献_第8页

Global divergence in urban demographic change and migration patterns 城市人口变化和移徙模式的全球差异

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-26 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00447-7

Andrew Zimmer, Nina Brooks, Andrea E. Gaughan, Cascade Tuholske

{"title":"Global divergence in urban demographic change and migration patterns","authors":"Andrew Zimmer, Nina Brooks, Andrea E. Gaughan, Cascade Tuholske","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00447-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00447-7","url":null,"abstract":"Cities are central to economic development, climate adaptation and social stability, yet globally consistent evidence on how city populations are changing remains limited. Here we analyze annual age- and sex-structured population estimates for more than 10,000 cities worldwide from 2000 to 2020 and show that urban demographic change was highly uneven. Globally, the ratio of children and older adults to working-age adults declined from 0.87 to 0.59, but smaller cities remained consistently younger than larger cities, especially in Africa. We also find pronounced spatial variation in urban sex ratios, including strong male surpluses in parts of the Middle East and North Africa, consistent with patterns of labor migration. Finally, we estimate that 45% of urban population growth was attributable to net migration and 55% to natural increase. These results show that national averages can obscure substantial differences between cities, and highlight the value of globally consistent city-level demographic estimates for understanding regional demographic change and informing locally tailored urban planning. Evidence on how urban populations change is still limited worldwide. By examining 10,000 cities, this study uncovers uneven patterns in age, sex and migration, underscoring the importance of detailed, city-level data.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 7","pages":"599-607"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-026-00447-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148467733","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}

引用次数: 0

Bridging urban and rural futures 连接城市和农村的未来

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-25 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00453-9

Péter Batáry

引用次数: 0

Tension between spatial pattern and hydrological adaptability in early Yangtze River Basin settlements 长江流域早期聚落空间格局与水文适应性的张力

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-22 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00446-8

Jiayin Zhang (, ), Fang Wang (, ), Ying Dong (, ), Shaoyi Mao (, ), Changping Zhang (, ), Xie Hu (, ), Chao Ning (, ), Jianli Chen (, ), Jianbao Liu (, ), Yiyong Chen (, ), Jianguo Liu (, ), Qin Fang (, )

{"title":"Tension between spatial pattern and hydrological adaptability in early Yangtze River Basin settlements","authors":"Jiayin Zhang \u0000 (, ), Fang Wang \u0000 (, ), Ying Dong \u0000 (, ), Shaoyi Mao \u0000 (, ), Changping Zhang \u0000 (, ), Xie Hu \u0000 (, ), Chao Ning \u0000 (, ), Jianli Chen \u0000 (, ), Jianbao Liu \u0000 (, ), Yiyong Chen \u0000 (, ), Jianguo Liu \u0000 (, ), Qin Fang \u0000 (, )","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00446-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00446-8","url":null,"abstract":"Early settlements faced hydrological opportunities and constraints that informed transitions to urban living. Along the way, imbalances between urban expansion and infrastructural development and hydrological systems could threaten the sustainability of growing settlements. Here using archeological data and spatial modeling, we examine 2,106 early settlements dating from 8.5 ka BP to 2.72 ka BP in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Basin. We trace how the distribution of settlements and hydrological conditions changed over time, focusing on associated trajectories of spatial pattern and hydrological adaptation. Results show that hydrological factors consistently influenced settlement patterns, even as settlements built infrastructure to manage floods and water access. Despite these efforts, cultural decline still occurred, revealing a persistent asymmetry between settlement pattern and hydrological adaptability. Our findings provide historical insight into how long-term vulnerabilities emerged in flood-prone environments, offering perspectives for understanding both past and future challenges in urban sustainability. Starting with early settlements, water has long shaped the form, fate and location of cities. This study finds that preurban development in the Yangtze River Basin was tied to rivers even as it remained vulnerable to their fluctuations.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 6","pages":"535-544"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148282733","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}

引用次数: 0

Tensions around urban green and blue spaces 围绕城市绿色和蓝色空间的紧张关系

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-21 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00445-9

引用次数: 0

Farewell, elephant slide 再见，大象滑梯

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-19 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00449-5

Qing Qin

引用次数: 0

Unequal spatial patterns and differentiated city roles in the intercity telemedicine system 城际远程医疗系统的不平等空间格局与城市角色分化

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-19 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00442-y

Bowen Xiang, Mengyao Hong, Fang Guo, Wei Wei

{"title":"Unequal spatial patterns and differentiated city roles in the intercity telemedicine system","authors":"Bowen Xiang, Mengyao Hong, Fang Guo, Wei Wei","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00442-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00442-y","url":null,"abstract":"Telemedicine is a key instrument for addressing healthcare disparities, yet the intercity telemedicine system (ITS) remains underexplored. Here, leveraging large-scale consultation data from online healthcare platforms, we reveal the spatial structure and city roles within China’s ITS. First, the ITS shows the structure of a highly interconnected network, enhancing systemic efficiency but also generating new inequalities by concentrating resources in major hubs and limiting patient choices in cities with fewer medical resources. Second, the ITS partly deviates from the traditional hierarchy where patients primarily seek care in the nearest major administrative center; instead, it moves toward connections driven by specific medical expertise and patient needs, while still partially reflecting the logic of face-to-face healthcare. Third, city roles within the ITS are structurally differentiated, characterized by patterns where a few dominant hubs centralize most activity while many others remain on the margins, alongside the rise of cities that leverage digital platforms to attract medical demand from diverse regions outside their own provinces, despite having relatively limited physical healthcare resources. This reflects the dual mechanism of online healthcare platforms: concentrating flows toward top-tier hubs—marginalizing smaller cities in supply roles—while enhancing service accessibility in low-resource cities and expanding the outreach of ordinary cities. Telemedicine platforms are reshaping intercity healthcare by extending virtual care beyond local and provincial boundaries. This study finds that China’s intercity telemedicine system reinforces core–periphery hierarchies while enabling new gateway cities.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 6","pages":"523-534"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148282736","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}

引用次数: 0

Scaling intra-urban climate fluctuations 缩放城市内气候波动

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-19 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00441-z

Marc Duran-Sala, Martin Hendrick, Gabriele Manoli

{"title":"Scaling intra-urban climate fluctuations","authors":"Marc Duran-Sala, Martin Hendrick, Gabriele Manoli","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00441-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00441-z","url":null,"abstract":"Urban-induced microclimate variations, such as urban heat islands and air pollution, scale with city size, producing distinctive relations between average climate variables and city-scale quantities (for example, total population). However, these relations are sensitive to city boundary definitions and overlook intra-urban variability. Here we overcome these limitations by using high-resolution data of urban temperatures, air quality, population and street networks from 142 cities worldwide, showing that their marginal and joint probability distributions collapse onto a set of general functions inspired by finite-size scaling in statistical physics. Through a logarithmic relation linking urban spatial features to climate variables, we find that average street network properties are sufficient to characterize the full variability of temperature and air pollution fields within and across cities. These findings show that intra-urban climate variability follows general scaling functions, enabling the integration of climate information into reduced-complexity models of urban systems to better inform future urban planning. Urban scaling relations linking microclimates to city size are strongly influenced by how city boundaries are defined and overlook variability within cities. Using high-resolution global data and finite-size scaling ideas, this study derives a unified scaling function that overcomes these biases and enables climate information to be more effectively integrated into statistical descriptions of urban systems.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 6","pages":"545-554"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148282740","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}

引用次数: 0

Commuter loss and retention in US employment centers during COVID-19 and its aftermath 在2019冠状病毒病期间及其之后，美国就业中心的通勤人员流失和保留

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-12 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00436-w

Bartosz Bonczak, Shlomo Angel, Constantine E. Kontokosta

{"title":"Commuter loss and retention in US employment centers during COVID-19 and its aftermath","authors":"Bartosz Bonczak, Shlomo Angel, Constantine E. Kontokosta","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00436-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00436-w","url":null,"abstract":"We assess the economic resilience of US employment centers as a function of both the initial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery rates by analyzing commuter behavior between 2019 and 2024 using large-scale, anonymized mobile phone geolocation data covering more than 20 million monthly devices. After creating a methodology to identify employment centers, we develop a time-dependent spatial network of commuting patterns and use machine learning models to test the influence of employment center, worker and origin neighborhood characteristics on commuting levels over time. We find that central-city employment centers lost more commuters than suburban ones yet recovered faster, that centers with workers from Democratic-leaning districts tended to lose more commuters, and that one-quarter of employment centers did not recover from the initial pandemic impact. Our analysis is intended to understand the shifting spatial structure of cities and to help policymakers assess the localized effects of future exogenous shocks. COVID-19 reshaped commuting to dense US employment centers, challenging assumptions about central business districts and urban resilience. Core city centers lost more commuters than suburban ones, but recovered faster, while one-quarter never returned to pre-pandemic levels.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 6","pages":"486-499"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148282730","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}

引用次数: 0

Global mapping of city-level economic growth decoupling from fossil fuels 与化石燃料脱钩的城市级经济增长全球地图

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-11 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00440-0

Amirhossein Hassani, Daniel Dean Moran, Matti Kummu, Sam-Erik Walker, Sina Masoumzadeh Sayyar, Kerstin Stebel, Philipp Schneider

{"title":"Global mapping of city-level economic growth decoupling from fossil fuels","authors":"Amirhossein Hassani, Daniel Dean Moran, Matti Kummu, Sam-Erik Walker, Sina Masoumzadeh Sayyar, Kerstin Stebel, Philipp Schneider","doi":"10.1038/s44284-026-00440-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-026-00440-0","url":null,"abstract":"Cities seek to generate economic prosperity while reducing their dependence on fossil fuel combustion, yet tracking such progress at the city level remains challenging because of the limited and inconsistent emissions and economic data. Here we introduce an objective, globally consistent framework to measure decoupling between fossil fuel use and economic growth, either through reduced fuel use or shifts toward cleaner/more efficient combustion, proxied by tropospheric nitrogen dioxide columns combined with second-level administrative gross domestic product per capita based on purchasing power parity data. Analysing 5,435 cities globally over 2019–2024, we identify significant trends for 2,475 cities and classify them into 4 decoupling states. We find that 80% of these cities, mainly located in China, Europe and North America, enjoy relative decoupling, whereas 16%, mainly located in India and the Middle East, experience fossil fuel-dependent growth. Beyond these patterns, the described scalable satellite-based methodology can be revisited regularly to monitor city-level green growth and support urban policy effectiveness. Tracking urban economic decoupling from fossil fuels is challenged by limited data. Using satellite NO2 and gross domestic product data, this study found that 80% of 2,475 cities with significant satellite NO2 trends showed relative decoupling, offering a scalable tool to monitor green growth.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 6","pages":"555-566"},"PeriodicalIF":15.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-026-00440-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148282741","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}

引用次数: 0

Data-centric monitoring for safe urban water networks 以数据为中心的安全城市水网监测

IF 15.3

Nature Cities Pub Date : 2026-05-11 DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00448-6

Yingzheng Fan (, ), Hongqiang Ren (, )

引用次数: 0