Pub Date : 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00376-x
Luis F. Amato-Lourenco
{"title":"Urban community gardens level the playing field","authors":"Luis F. Amato-Lourenco","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00376-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00376-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 1","pages":"8-8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146016506","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}
Pub Date : 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00365-0
Aayushi Mishra, Advait Arun, Evan Kodra, Erika Smull, Owen Woolcock, Tom Doe, Justin Marlowe, Auroop R. Ganguly
The US $4.2 trillion US municipal debt market finances over 70% of essential infrastructure, but escalating physical climate risks, such as flooding and wildfires, are exposing the market’s emerging vulnerabilities. Rising disaster costs and insurance retreat threaten property values, and hence municipal tax bases that secure debt repayment. Despite these signals, municipal bond prices have been slow to reflect climate risk adequately. Well-resourced municipalities may use bonds for adaptation, but those facing constrained credit access may struggle to access capital. This US-focused Review identifies three challenges: (1) climate risk is underpriced in municipal bonds; (2) abrupt repricing could affect high-risk and under-resourced cities most by increasing borrowing costs and limiting capital access; (3) misalignment between adaptation planning and municipal finance weakens long-term resilience and affects creditworthiness. Together, these challenges contribute to a climate-debt doom loop that can be triggered by climate shocks. This synthesis offers actionable strategies for cities’ adaptation plans and governance frameworks to disrupt this loop and strengthen municipalities’ financial resilience. Climate risk is underpriced in US municipal bonds, creating vulnerabilities as insurers retreat and adaptation planning remains disconnected from finance. This Review reveals a climate-debt doom loop and proposes governance reforms and disclosure standards to strengthen municipal resilience.
{"title":"Physical climate risk creates challenges and opportunities in US municipal finance","authors":"Aayushi Mishra, Advait Arun, Evan Kodra, Erika Smull, Owen Woolcock, Tom Doe, Justin Marlowe, Auroop R. Ganguly","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00365-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00365-0","url":null,"abstract":"The US $4.2 trillion US municipal debt market finances over 70% of essential infrastructure, but escalating physical climate risks, such as flooding and wildfires, are exposing the market’s emerging vulnerabilities. Rising disaster costs and insurance retreat threaten property values, and hence municipal tax bases that secure debt repayment. Despite these signals, municipal bond prices have been slow to reflect climate risk adequately. Well-resourced municipalities may use bonds for adaptation, but those facing constrained credit access may struggle to access capital. This US-focused Review identifies three challenges: (1) climate risk is underpriced in municipal bonds; (2) abrupt repricing could affect high-risk and under-resourced cities most by increasing borrowing costs and limiting capital access; (3) misalignment between adaptation planning and municipal finance weakens long-term resilience and affects creditworthiness. Together, these challenges contribute to a climate-debt doom loop that can be triggered by climate shocks. This synthesis offers actionable strategies for cities’ adaptation plans and governance frameworks to disrupt this loop and strengthen municipalities’ financial resilience. Climate risk is underpriced in US municipal bonds, creating vulnerabilities as insurers retreat and adaptation planning remains disconnected from finance. This Review reveals a climate-debt doom loop and proposes governance reforms and disclosure standards to strengthen municipal resilience.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 1","pages":"11-21"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146016518","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}
Pub Date : 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00360-5
Yu Deng, Kexin Cao, Mingxing Chen, Ran Liu, Tao Pei, Ci Song, Kaiyong Wang, Tim Schwanen, Cecilia Wong, Pengjun Zhao, Ya Ping Wang, Bojie Fu
Urban redevelopment has been widely implemented to address social, economic and environmental challenges. However, the geography of urban redevelopment, its underlying mechanisms and driving forces remain insufficiently understood, both theoretically and across different metropolitan scales. Here, to fill this gap, we analyze state-owned land transactions between 2012 and 2022 across 326 Chinese cities. We find that China’s city hierarchy exerts a regulatory effect on urban redevelopment. Higher-ranked cities tend to prioritize government regulation over market forces, whereas lower-ranked cities rely more on market-oriented approaches, and this divergence explains varying redevelopment patterns across city hierarchies. Our findings also reflect a shift toward top–down urban governance aligned with central-government policy, with higher-tier cities leading in implementing diverse redevelopment practices to achieve economic and non-economic goals. This study advances our understanding of administrative power in urban governance and offers insights for developing tailored strategies across different city hierarchies. Urban redevelopment is a key government policy and planning strategy to address various urban challenges. This study investigates where, how and to what extent China’s city hierarchy influences redevelopment activities within China’s rapidly evolving urban landscape.
{"title":"Regulatory effect of China’s city hierarchy on urban redevelopment","authors":"Yu Deng, Kexin Cao, Mingxing Chen, Ran Liu, Tao Pei, Ci Song, Kaiyong Wang, Tim Schwanen, Cecilia Wong, Pengjun Zhao, Ya Ping Wang, Bojie Fu","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00360-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00360-5","url":null,"abstract":"Urban redevelopment has been widely implemented to address social, economic and environmental challenges. However, the geography of urban redevelopment, its underlying mechanisms and driving forces remain insufficiently understood, both theoretically and across different metropolitan scales. Here, to fill this gap, we analyze state-owned land transactions between 2012 and 2022 across 326 Chinese cities. We find that China’s city hierarchy exerts a regulatory effect on urban redevelopment. Higher-ranked cities tend to prioritize government regulation over market forces, whereas lower-ranked cities rely more on market-oriented approaches, and this divergence explains varying redevelopment patterns across city hierarchies. Our findings also reflect a shift toward top–down urban governance aligned with central-government policy, with higher-tier cities leading in implementing diverse redevelopment practices to achieve economic and non-economic goals. This study advances our understanding of administrative power in urban governance and offers insights for developing tailored strategies across different city hierarchies. Urban redevelopment is a key government policy and planning strategy to address various urban challenges. This study investigates where, how and to what extent China’s city hierarchy influences redevelopment activities within China’s rapidly evolving urban landscape.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 1","pages":"48-57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146016515","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}
Pub Date : 2026-01-02DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00363-2
Yonghua Zou
As facial recognition becomes widespread in urban spaces, it promises security but deepens social exclusion. Yonghua Zou argues that cities must redesign technology governance to safeguard trust, equity and inclusiveness, and offers insights to address what he calls the ‘safety–segregation paradox’.
{"title":"Urban safety–segregation paradox in facial recognition","authors":"Yonghua Zou","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00363-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00363-2","url":null,"abstract":"As facial recognition becomes widespread in urban spaces, it promises security but deepens social exclusion. Yonghua Zou argues that cities must redesign technology governance to safeguard trust, equity and inclusiveness, and offers insights to address what he calls the ‘safety–segregation paradox’.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 1","pages":"4-5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146016516","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}
Pub Date : 2026-01-02DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00358-z
Dagmar Haase
Not only are increasing numbers of people in cities suffering from climate change, hotter temperatures, and drought, but so is green infrastructure, which is inherently there for recreation and cooling. This Comment argues that the entire green patina of the city is needed to adapt effectively.
{"title":"A green patina unlocking cities’ potential to adapt to climate change","authors":"Dagmar Haase","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00358-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00358-z","url":null,"abstract":"Not only are increasing numbers of people in cities suffering from climate change, hotter temperatures, and drought, but so is green infrastructure, which is inherently there for recreation and cooling. This Comment argues that the entire green patina of the city is needed to adapt effectively.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 1","pages":"6-7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146016514","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}
Pub Date : 2026-01-02DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00373-0
Yuxin Zhang, Xinyan Huang, Asif Usmani
{"title":"The challenge of optimizing building renovations for urban sustainability and fire safety","authors":"Yuxin Zhang, Xinyan Huang, Asif Usmani","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00373-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00373-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"3 1","pages":"2-3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146016512","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}
Pub Date : 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00324-9
Zehua Pang
After studying in and travelling through the metropolises of southern China, PhD student Zehua Pang observes the transformation of his hometown of Xuzhou, a medium-sized northern city that is redefining itself on its own terms.
{"title":"Beyond the metropolis myth","authors":"Zehua Pang","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00324-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00324-9","url":null,"abstract":"After studying in and travelling through the metropolises of southern China, PhD student Zehua Pang observes the transformation of his hometown of Xuzhou, a medium-sized northern city that is redefining itself on its own terms.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 12","pages":"1251-1251"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145761503","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}
Pub Date : 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00369-w
Cities remain under pressure, given world events and global change. This issue of Nature Cities highlights ways in which they struggle to find balance, what balance might look like and how cities are wayfinding through this often-surreal terrain.
{"title":"Cities finding their way","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00369-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00369-w","url":null,"abstract":"Cities remain under pressure, given world events and global change. This issue of Nature Cities highlights ways in which they struggle to find balance, what balance might look like and how cities are wayfinding through this often-surreal terrain.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 12","pages":"1111-1111"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00369-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145761514","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}
Pub Date : 2025-12-15DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00352-5
Lining Guo, Feng Liu, Wenshuang Zhu, Jingliang Cheng, Longjiang Zhang, Bing Zhang, Wenzhen Zhu, Shijun Qiu, Zuojun Geng, Guangbin Cui, Quan Zhang, Weihua Liao, Bo Gao, Xiaojun Xu, Tong Han, Zhenwei Yao, Wen Qin, Meng Liang, Kaizhong Xue, Qiang Xu, Jilian Fu, Jiayuan Xu, Nana Liu, Peng Zhang, Wei Li, Dapeng Shi, Jia-Hong Gao, Su Lui, Zhihan Yan, Feng Chen, Yunjun Yang, Jing Zhang, Dawei Wang, Wen Shen, Yanwei Miao, Junfang Xian, Le Yu, Kai Xu, Meiyun Wang, Zhaoxiang Ye, Xiaochu Zhang, Xi-Nian Zuo, Yongqiang Yu, Hui Zhang, Chunshui Yu, on behalf of the CHIMGEN Consortium
The mechanism by which the increasing environmental challenge of urbanicity impacts the brain, personality and mental disorders remains unclear. Here, grounded in life history theory, we tested the hypothesis that age at menarche (AAM) mediates the effects of early-life urbanicity on adult regional brain volumes and personality traits associated with mental disorders. In a sample of 2,950 young Chinese women, we discovered that higher levels of early-life urbanicity were associated with earlier AAM, which in turn correlated with reduced medial prefrontal volume and lower levels of agreeableness and reward dependence in adulthood. Urbanicity-related factors, particularly family socioeconomic status, also influenced these neurobehavioral traits through AAM. The urbanicity- and AAM-related brain and personality traits were changed in patients with major depressive disorder and schizophrenia. These findings suggest that life history theory may serve as a mechanism through which early-life urbanicity influences the adult brain and personality traits associated with mental disorders in women. It is unclear how early-life urbanicity influences adult neurobehavioral traits. This study reveals that earlier menarche mediates the relationship between early-life urbanicity and adult neurobehavioral traits associated with mental disorders.
{"title":"Pathways from early-life urbanicity to adult neurobehavioral traits via menarche timing","authors":"Lining Guo, Feng Liu, Wenshuang Zhu, Jingliang Cheng, Longjiang Zhang, Bing Zhang, Wenzhen Zhu, Shijun Qiu, Zuojun Geng, Guangbin Cui, Quan Zhang, Weihua Liao, Bo Gao, Xiaojun Xu, Tong Han, Zhenwei Yao, Wen Qin, Meng Liang, Kaizhong Xue, Qiang Xu, Jilian Fu, Jiayuan Xu, Nana Liu, Peng Zhang, Wei Li, Dapeng Shi, Jia-Hong Gao, Su Lui, Zhihan Yan, Feng Chen, Yunjun Yang, Jing Zhang, Dawei Wang, Wen Shen, Yanwei Miao, Junfang Xian, Le Yu, Kai Xu, Meiyun Wang, Zhaoxiang Ye, Xiaochu Zhang, Xi-Nian Zuo, Yongqiang Yu, Hui Zhang, Chunshui Yu, on behalf of the CHIMGEN Consortium","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00352-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00352-5","url":null,"abstract":"The mechanism by which the increasing environmental challenge of urbanicity impacts the brain, personality and mental disorders remains unclear. Here, grounded in life history theory, we tested the hypothesis that age at menarche (AAM) mediates the effects of early-life urbanicity on adult regional brain volumes and personality traits associated with mental disorders. In a sample of 2,950 young Chinese women, we discovered that higher levels of early-life urbanicity were associated with earlier AAM, which in turn correlated with reduced medial prefrontal volume and lower levels of agreeableness and reward dependence in adulthood. Urbanicity-related factors, particularly family socioeconomic status, also influenced these neurobehavioral traits through AAM. The urbanicity- and AAM-related brain and personality traits were changed in patients with major depressive disorder and schizophrenia. These findings suggest that life history theory may serve as a mechanism through which early-life urbanicity influences the adult brain and personality traits associated with mental disorders in women. It is unclear how early-life urbanicity influences adult neurobehavioral traits. This study reveals that earlier menarche mediates the relationship between early-life urbanicity and adult neurobehavioral traits associated with mental disorders.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 12","pages":"1226-1239"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145761505","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}
Pub Date : 2025-12-12DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00350-7
Andrew Renninger, Neave O’Clery, Elsa Arcaute
Cities generate wealth from interactions, but citizens often experience segregation in their daily urban movements. Here, using GPS location data, we identify patterns of this experienced segregation across US cities, differentiating between neighborhoods that are sources and sinks—exporters and importers—of diversity. By clustering areas with similar mobility signatures, capturing both the diversity of visitors and the exposure of neighborhoods to diversity, we uncover a generic mesoscopic structure: rings of isolation around cities and internal pockets of segregation. Using a decision tree, we identify the key predictors of isolation and segregation: race, wealth and geographic centrality. We show that these patterns are persistent across time and prevalent across all US cities, with a trend toward larger rings and stronger pockets after the pandemic. These findings offer insights into the dynamics that contribute to inequality between neighborhoods, so that targeted interventions promoting economic opportunity can be developed. Cities are engines of innovation and economic growth, but they also struggle with segregation, which works against both. This study finds rings of isolation around US cities and pockets of segregation within them, a pattern persistent over time and intensified since the pandemic.
{"title":"US cities are defined by rings and pockets with limited socioeconomic mixing","authors":"Andrew Renninger, Neave O’Clery, Elsa Arcaute","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00350-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00350-7","url":null,"abstract":"Cities generate wealth from interactions, but citizens often experience segregation in their daily urban movements. Here, using GPS location data, we identify patterns of this experienced segregation across US cities, differentiating between neighborhoods that are sources and sinks—exporters and importers—of diversity. By clustering areas with similar mobility signatures, capturing both the diversity of visitors and the exposure of neighborhoods to diversity, we uncover a generic mesoscopic structure: rings of isolation around cities and internal pockets of segregation. Using a decision tree, we identify the key predictors of isolation and segregation: race, wealth and geographic centrality. We show that these patterns are persistent across time and prevalent across all US cities, with a trend toward larger rings and stronger pockets after the pandemic. These findings offer insights into the dynamics that contribute to inequality between neighborhoods, so that targeted interventions promoting economic opportunity can be developed. Cities are engines of innovation and economic growth, but they also struggle with segregation, which works against both. This study finds rings of isolation around US cities and pockets of segregation within them, a pattern persistent over time and intensified since the pandemic.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 12","pages":"1172-1182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00350-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145761507","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}
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