Foreign Policy

Public Transit

Predicting the Future of Cities After the Pandemic

Two more stories to enter into the archive for the great debate of the coronavirus pandemic: How will the public health crisis change the future of cities?

May 15, 2020 - Foreign Policy

Beijing, China

A New Government Planned Mega-City Shapes Up Next to Beijing

Planners for the Xiong’an New Area hope to cure the ills of "megacity disease"

June 10, 2017 - Foreign Policy

Moscow, Russia

Moscow's Erratic Shift Towards a Walkable City

Moscow's Mayor has pushed an agenda to beautify the city, create social spaces, and make the city more walkable, but critics see the move towards walkability as more of a forced march.

August 23, 2016 - Foreign Policy

On the Political Effects of Transportation Infrastructure

A comparison of road conditions in Rwanda and Mali—the former an autocracy with sterling roads, the latter a democracy where poor road conditions reveal a deep divide in the country.

September 1, 2014 - Foreign Policy

Oil Wealth Transforms Canada

Writing in Foreign Policy, The Tyee's prolific environmental writer, Andrew Nikiforuk, blasts Canada for becoming a "rogue, reckless petrostate" due to its economic dependence on exporting oil. He holds Prime Minister Stephen Harper responsible.

June 27, 2013 - Foreign Policy

Santa Barbara sidewalk

How Walkable Communities are Key to Modern Geopolitics

The "great global project" of this century, says Patrick Doherty, is how to "accommodate 3 billion additional middle-class aspirants in two short decades." In a bold essay, he outlines how the U.S. must lead the global transition to sustainability.

January 15, 2013 - Foreign Policy

Density Giveth and Taketh Away

In a prescient article for the events of this week, John Seo looks at how the global march towards increased density (in technology, land use, and financial markets) has consequences, both beneficial and catastrophic.

October 30, 2012 - Foreign Policy

Chinese Cities are Huge, But What's it Like to Live There?

We get it, China's cities are big and getting bigger. But what's it like to live there? Isaac Stone Fish takes a closer look at the quality of life in Chinese cities, and finds them almost uniformly monolithic and unlivable.

August 15, 2012 - Foreign Policy

Look to China to Glimpse the Future of Cities

The era of American cities such as Chicago and New York leading the way in urban innovation went out with the close of the 20th century, says Dustin Roasa. Its China's turn to show the world what the city of the future will look like.

August 14, 2012 - Foreign Policy

Chinese Cities Following Unsustainable Trail Blazed by Western Planners

As part of a Foreign Policy magazine special report on cities, Peter Calthorpe examines the form of China's urban growth, which is beginning to resemble the car-oriented development of the United States in the 1950s and 60s.

August 13, 2012 - Foreign Policy

India's Energy Problem: Coal Shortage or Too Much Coal?

Dueling pieces in Foreign Policy and the Christian Science Monitor come to completely different conclusions on the connection between the great Indian blackout of July 31 and the country's reliance on coal.

August 9, 2012 - Foreign Policy

Striking Architecture for the Poor

That was former Medellin, Columbia mayor Sergio Fajardo's plan to rebuild his city, an idea that turned out to be transformational.

April 27, 2011 - Foreign Policy

The Example of Miami, a Global City

Miami could be the next major American city, and one that other global cities should try to emulate, according to this interview with economist Saskia Sassen.

September 10, 2010 - Foreign Policy

Inside a Growing Chinese Megacity

Through the example of the booming megacity of Chongqing, this article explores how urban growth is occurring in China, and what it means to plan a rapidly growing city.

August 23, 2010 - Foreign Policy

Creating Smart Cities and Replicating Silicon Valley

Google CEO Eric Schmidt discusses what makes a city smart and successful in this interview with Foreign Policy.

August 21, 2010 - Foreign Policy

Power Balace to Shift From Nations to Cities

The rise of megacities and innovation hubs is leading to a balance shift that will make cities, not nations, the most powerful drivers in the world economy, according to Parag Khanna.

August 19, 2010 - Foreign Policy

Is A Denser Urban World Inevitable?

Writing in Foreign Policy, Joel Kotkin argues that increasing urbanization and density are not inevitable realities.

August 18, 2010 - Foreign Policy

U.S. Megaprojects Are Not in the U.S.

Some say the age of mega infrastructure projects is over in the U.S., but this piece from Foreign Policy argues the U.S. megaproject lives on -- just not inside the U.S.

December 14, 2009 - Foreign Policy

U.S. is 9th in List of Most Prosperous Countries

The Legatum Institute, a London think tank, has published a report ranking countries in terms of prosperity. The U.S. took a big hit for health care.

November 3, 2009 - Foreign Policy

Megacities, Mammoth Problems

Six of the world's fastest-growing megacities are examined in terms of their most pressing problems and what they are doing to address them.

June 16, 2006 - Foreign Policy

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