Pub Date : 2025-10-27DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00347-2
Garth Andrew Myers
{"title":"Knowing the city","authors":"Garth Andrew Myers","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00347-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00347-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 11","pages":"1018-1019"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145533783","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}
Understanding people’s preferences is crucial for urban planning, yet current approaches often combine responses from multi-cultural populations, obscuring demographic differences and risking amplifying biases. We conducted a large-scale urban visual perception survey of streetscapes worldwide using street view imagery, examining how demographics—including gender, age, income, education, race and ethnicity, and personality traits—shape perceptions among 1,000 participants with balanced demographics from five countries and 45 nationalities. This dataset, Street Perception Evaluation Considering Socioeconomics, reveals demographic- and personality-based differences across six traditional indicators—safe, lively, wealthy, beautiful, boring, depressing—and four new ones: live nearby, walk, cycle, green. Location-based sentiments further shape these preferences. Machine-learning models trained on existing global datasets tend to overestimate positive indicators and underestimate negative ones compared to human responses, underscoring the need for local context. Our study aspires to rectify the myopic treatment of street perception, which rarely considers demographics or personality traits. Urban visual perceptions differ across demographic and personality groups, yet most methods overlook these influences. This study reveals notable location and profile-based differences, highlighting the need for localized, human-centered urban planning.
{"title":"Global urban visual perception varies across demographics and personalities","authors":"Matias Quintana, Youlong Gu, Xiucheng Liang, Yujun Hou, Koichi Ito, Yihan Zhu, Mahmoud Abdelrahman, Filip Biljecki","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00330-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00330-x","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding people’s preferences is crucial for urban planning, yet current approaches often combine responses from multi-cultural populations, obscuring demographic differences and risking amplifying biases. We conducted a large-scale urban visual perception survey of streetscapes worldwide using street view imagery, examining how demographics—including gender, age, income, education, race and ethnicity, and personality traits—shape perceptions among 1,000 participants with balanced demographics from five countries and 45 nationalities. This dataset, Street Perception Evaluation Considering Socioeconomics, reveals demographic- and personality-based differences across six traditional indicators—safe, lively, wealthy, beautiful, boring, depressing—and four new ones: live nearby, walk, cycle, green. Location-based sentiments further shape these preferences. Machine-learning models trained on existing global datasets tend to overestimate positive indicators and underestimate negative ones compared to human responses, underscoring the need for local context. Our study aspires to rectify the myopic treatment of street perception, which rarely considers demographics or personality traits. Urban visual perceptions differ across demographic and personality groups, yet most methods overlook these influences. This study reveals notable location and profile-based differences, highlighting the need for localized, human-centered urban planning.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 11","pages":"1092-1106"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145533784","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 : 2025-10-17DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00334-7
Cities are under growing pressure from climate change, biodiversity loss and social inequities. Yet new research highlights how biological, digital and social innovations can help urban systems to adapt and thrive. This issue of Nature Cities showcases advances from artificial intelligence applications to inclusive policy models to self-healing infrastructure, which offer pathways towards more-resilient urban futures.
{"title":"Beyond bouncing back","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00334-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00334-7","url":null,"abstract":"Cities are under growing pressure from climate change, biodiversity loss and social inequities. Yet new research highlights how biological, digital and social innovations can help urban systems to adapt and thrive. This issue of Nature Cities showcases advances from artificial intelligence applications to inclusive policy models to self-healing infrastructure, which offer pathways towards more-resilient urban futures.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 10","pages":"909-909"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00334-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145317845","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 : 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00335-6
Mathias Jehling, Tobias Krüger, Martin Behnisch, Diego Rybski
The authors discuss the challenges of curbing land take and the complexity of achieving the net-zero limit. They call for a shift in perspective beyond the restrictive logic of traditional land-use planning and suggest that the regenerative potential of cities be unleashed.
{"title":"Tackling the net-zero land-take question","authors":"Mathias Jehling, Tobias Krüger, Martin Behnisch, Diego Rybski","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00335-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00335-6","url":null,"abstract":"The authors discuss the challenges of curbing land take and the complexity of achieving the net-zero limit. They call for a shift in perspective beyond the restrictive logic of traditional land-use planning and suggest that the regenerative potential of cities be unleashed.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 12","pages":"1114-1116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145761497","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 : 2025-10-13DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00332-9
Lauren Porter, Franziska B. Bucka, Natalie Páez-Curtidor, Monika Egerer, Ingrid Kögel-Knabner
As urban populations grow, planners must create sustainable, yet multifunctional city spaces. Urban soils are vital for green city initiatives, providing essential ecosystem services. Our research challenges the unsustainable practice of land-take and explores constructing (multi)functional soils from mineral and organic parent materials of the urban waste stream. We stack different qualities of organic amendments in innovative mixtures constructed of upcycled mineral soils from local construction projects to assess their potential in maximizing multiple ecosystem services within a constructed soil. Using key soil health indicators, we identify synergies for the parent material mixtures providing essential functions for urban soils: fertility for urban green, runoff infiltration, stormwater contaminant immobilization and stable carbon accrual. The highest joint multifunctionality is obtained by mixing organic amendments of varying qualities and reactivities. Soil-designing practitioners should be knowledgeable of their city’s regional geology, as the effectiveness of amendment mixtures depends on interactions with the geogenic materials. Soils underlie cities and are foundational to parks and other green infrastructure, but urban soils are often polluted or otherwise unsuitable. This study tests the potential for combining sediment construction wastes with high-carbon organic amendments, identifying mixtures that provide essential urban soil functions.
{"title":"Constructing (multi)functional soil using urban organic and sediment wastes","authors":"Lauren Porter, Franziska B. Bucka, Natalie Páez-Curtidor, Monika Egerer, Ingrid Kögel-Knabner","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00332-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00332-9","url":null,"abstract":"As urban populations grow, planners must create sustainable, yet multifunctional city spaces. Urban soils are vital for green city initiatives, providing essential ecosystem services. Our research challenges the unsustainable practice of land-take and explores constructing (multi)functional soils from mineral and organic parent materials of the urban waste stream. We stack different qualities of organic amendments in innovative mixtures constructed of upcycled mineral soils from local construction projects to assess their potential in maximizing multiple ecosystem services within a constructed soil. Using key soil health indicators, we identify synergies for the parent material mixtures providing essential functions for urban soils: fertility for urban green, runoff infiltration, stormwater contaminant immobilization and stable carbon accrual. The highest joint multifunctionality is obtained by mixing organic amendments of varying qualities and reactivities. Soil-designing practitioners should be knowledgeable of their city’s regional geology, as the effectiveness of amendment mixtures depends on interactions with the geogenic materials. Soils underlie cities and are foundational to parks and other green infrastructure, but urban soils are often polluted or otherwise unsuitable. This study tests the potential for combining sediment construction wastes with high-carbon organic amendments, identifying mixtures that provide essential urban soil functions.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 11","pages":"1071-1083"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00332-9.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145533795","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 : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00339-2
Cheng-Kai Hsu, D. Alex Quistberg, Brisa N. Sánchez, Josiah L. Kephart, Usama Bilal, Nelson Gouveia, Carolina Pérez Ferrer, Waleska T. Caiaffa, Amélia Augusta de Lima Friche, Ignacio Yannone, Daniel A. Rodríguez
{"title":"Author Correction: Individual and city-level variations in heat-related road traffic deaths in Latin America","authors":"Cheng-Kai Hsu, D. Alex Quistberg, Brisa N. Sánchez, Josiah L. Kephart, Usama Bilal, Nelson Gouveia, Carolina Pérez Ferrer, Waleska T. Caiaffa, Amélia Augusta de Lima Friche, Ignacio Yannone, Daniel A. Rodríguez","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00339-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00339-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 11","pages":"1107-1107"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00339-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145533793","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 : 2025-10-08DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00331-w
Wenxi Liao, Madison Appleby, Howard Rosenblat, Md. Abdul Halim, Cheryl A. Rogers, Jing M. Chen, Liat Margolis, Jennifer A. P. Drake, Sean C. Thomas
Green roofs have been increasingly implemented in cities globally to enhance urban ecosystem services. However, temporal trends in green roof vegetation health and the effects of design considerations at a large scale remain unclear. Here we used very high-resolution multispectral remote sensing imagery to quantify the temporal changes in vegetation health and associated roof characteristics across 1,380 individual green roof units in Toronto from 2011 to 2018. Results show an average increase in vegetation health and a decline in vegetation patchiness as green roofs age. We identify unit area, building height and vegetation type as the primary roof characteristics influencing vegetation health, with area positively and building height inversely affecting vegetation health. In terms of vegetation type, sedum mats are generally healthier than woody plants and grasses. Additionally, we identify critical thresholds in roof characteristics that support sustained vegetation health. These findings present a robust analytical framework for the long-term assessment and design optimization of green roofs in complex urban environments. Green roofs enhance urban ecosystem services, but the long-term vegetation health and design’s impact is underexplored. This study shows a temporal increase in vegetation health and identifies key factors and thresholds that support sustained vegetation health, offering guidance for effective green roof planning and design.
{"title":"Remote sensing for healthy vegetation on green roofs","authors":"Wenxi Liao, Madison Appleby, Howard Rosenblat, Md. Abdul Halim, Cheryl A. Rogers, Jing M. Chen, Liat Margolis, Jennifer A. P. Drake, Sean C. Thomas","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00331-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00331-w","url":null,"abstract":"Green roofs have been increasingly implemented in cities globally to enhance urban ecosystem services. However, temporal trends in green roof vegetation health and the effects of design considerations at a large scale remain unclear. Here we used very high-resolution multispectral remote sensing imagery to quantify the temporal changes in vegetation health and associated roof characteristics across 1,380 individual green roof units in Toronto from 2011 to 2018. Results show an average increase in vegetation health and a decline in vegetation patchiness as green roofs age. We identify unit area, building height and vegetation type as the primary roof characteristics influencing vegetation health, with area positively and building height inversely affecting vegetation health. In terms of vegetation type, sedum mats are generally healthier than woody plants and grasses. Additionally, we identify critical thresholds in roof characteristics that support sustained vegetation health. These findings present a robust analytical framework for the long-term assessment and design optimization of green roofs in complex urban environments. Green roofs enhance urban ecosystem services, but the long-term vegetation health and design’s impact is underexplored. This study shows a temporal increase in vegetation health and identifies key factors and thresholds that support sustained vegetation health, offering guidance for effective green roof planning and design.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 10","pages":"990-999"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145317839","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 : 2025-10-03DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00322-x
Kathryn F. Atherton, Chikae Tatsumi, Isabelle Frenette, David Heaton, Ian A. Smith, Lucy R. Hutyra, Pamela H. Templer, Jennifer M. Bhatnagar
The tree microbiome, the community of bacteria and fungi that live in and on trees, is a critical determinant of tree and ecosystem functioning, but human-caused disturbances can disrupt natural microbe–tree relationships. Here we show that urbanization shifts the structure and composition of the oak tree microbiome, reducing mutualistic root and leaf symbionts and increasing decomposers and pathogens, including those relevant to plant, animal and human health. These shifts correlate with urban stressors such as heat, drought and atmospheric aerosol deposition. Urban tree microbiomes also show altered biogeochemical cycling capabilities, with higher potential for nitrogen loss through greenhouse gas (N2O) production and reduced capacity for methane consumption relative to rural trees. Urbanization reduces overall tree microbiome diversity, particularly among non-pathogenic microbes, potentially diminishing the ecological and health benefits of environmental microbiomes in cities. Urbanization disrupts oak tree microbiomes by reducing beneficial fungi and increasing plant and human pathogens across leaves, roots and soils, with consequences for tree health, urban climate mitigation and potential human exposure to pathogens.
{"title":"Disruption of the oak tree microbiome with urbanization","authors":"Kathryn F. Atherton, Chikae Tatsumi, Isabelle Frenette, David Heaton, Ian A. Smith, Lucy R. Hutyra, Pamela H. Templer, Jennifer M. Bhatnagar","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00322-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00322-x","url":null,"abstract":"The tree microbiome, the community of bacteria and fungi that live in and on trees, is a critical determinant of tree and ecosystem functioning, but human-caused disturbances can disrupt natural microbe–tree relationships. Here we show that urbanization shifts the structure and composition of the oak tree microbiome, reducing mutualistic root and leaf symbionts and increasing decomposers and pathogens, including those relevant to plant, animal and human health. These shifts correlate with urban stressors such as heat, drought and atmospheric aerosol deposition. Urban tree microbiomes also show altered biogeochemical cycling capabilities, with higher potential for nitrogen loss through greenhouse gas (N2O) production and reduced capacity for methane consumption relative to rural trees. Urbanization reduces overall tree microbiome diversity, particularly among non-pathogenic microbes, potentially diminishing the ecological and health benefits of environmental microbiomes in cities. Urbanization disrupts oak tree microbiomes by reducing beneficial fungi and increasing plant and human pathogens across leaves, roots and soils, with consequences for tree health, urban climate mitigation and potential human exposure to pathogens.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 10","pages":"958-968"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145317843","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 : 2025-10-03DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00250-w
Mennatullah Hendawy, R. R. Riad, S. H. Elgredly
Media covers cities in myriad ways. This study examines the mediatization of an urban megadevelopment project, analyzing Al-Ahram Egyptian national press coverage of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital City project. We used thematic analysis and discourse analysis to investigate the technical media advertising of the project through a sample of 111 news headlines from 2015 (the project launch year) to 2019. The analysis revealed key shifts in planning news over time, reflecting the ways in which urban politics virtually, visually and discursively reinforce physical, exclusive urban growth. Media coverage tended to emphasize visual enticement, design spectacles and short-term financial returns while affordability and accessibility for the urban majority received comparatively less attention. More broadly, this study indicates how media not only communicates and visualizes urban futures but also has the potential to recreate them, as neoliberal urban policies advance through a mutually reinforcing relationship between media and the urban planning processes. Media informs how we see our cities and ourselves. Using news headlines, this study reveals how the press coverage of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital City project reinforced a vision of urban growth that echoed commercial aspirations.
{"title":"The mediatization of urban development and Egypt’s New Administrative Capital","authors":"Mennatullah Hendawy, R. R. Riad, S. H. Elgredly","doi":"10.1038/s44284-025-00250-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-025-00250-w","url":null,"abstract":"Media covers cities in myriad ways. This study examines the mediatization of an urban megadevelopment project, analyzing Al-Ahram Egyptian national press coverage of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital City project. We used thematic analysis and discourse analysis to investigate the technical media advertising of the project through a sample of 111 news headlines from 2015 (the project launch year) to 2019. The analysis revealed key shifts in planning news over time, reflecting the ways in which urban politics virtually, visually and discursively reinforce physical, exclusive urban growth. Media coverage tended to emphasize visual enticement, design spectacles and short-term financial returns while affordability and accessibility for the urban majority received comparatively less attention. More broadly, this study indicates how media not only communicates and visualizes urban futures but also has the potential to recreate them, as neoliberal urban policies advance through a mutually reinforcing relationship between media and the urban planning processes. Media informs how we see our cities and ourselves. Using news headlines, this study reveals how the press coverage of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital City project reinforced a vision of urban growth that echoed commercial aspirations.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"2 11","pages":"1084-1091"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00250-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145533787","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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