'Guardian Cities' Calls it Quits

Chris Michael, editor of Guardian Cities, writes today to announce another sad development for the urbanism and planning Internet:

After many years of renewed generosity from the Rockefeller Foundation, whose arms-length support meant that we retained full editorial independence in every way, Cities is closing its doors.

The news of the site's closure is located toward the end of the story, after a well-deserved victory lap, or sorts, touting the site's many successes of journalism. Michael also makes a promise that the final days of Guardian Cities will be devoted to making a more forceful argument for five big, ambitious interventions to improve cities. Also, urbanism will still be a subject of The Guardian's journalistic energy:

The Guardian, of course, will continue to focus on urban journalism – in our terrific international news coverage, our Environment, Science, Health, Technology, Education, Society and Culture desks, the Global Development site, our groundbreaking project The Upside, and elsewhere. I strongly encourage you to follow those sites by signing up to some newsletters and social media accounts. You can also follow me on Twitter or Instagram where I’ll continue to aggregate the best of the Guardian’s urban content.

The demise of Guardian Cities is the latest in a string of media-landscape-altering changes, after Curbed cut back on its local sites and Bloomberg bought CityLab. The Rockefeller Foundation has also been central to changes to the institutional centers of planning in recent years, namely by pulling funding for the 100 Resilient Cities program.