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Within six or seven years, could we be seeing ‘artificial trees’ in use to combat climate change, soaking up carbon dioxide from the ambient air? That’s the hope held out by Klaus Lackner, whose invention was the star of the recent Air Capture Week in London. |
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What makes a city ‘livable’? The answer depends, at least in part, on the location of the city in question. These three ideas present solutions to urban challenges in Africa, the Middle East, and South America, and each hopes to make their city more livable in the process. |
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Poor water quality and inadequate distribution is more than a rural problem, with communities of varying sizes across the globe struggling to provide clean water for their inhabitants. This Big City recently got the chance to talk to the founder of an innovative project aiming to address this challenge. |
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In December 2006 a century-old Ceiba tree was cut down in the San Agustín neighborhood of Havana, the Cuban capital. But this was more than a tree. It was the symbol of the city and of the cultural heritage of this Caribbean nation, and its loss inspired a positive change. |
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At Rampton Drift in South Cambridgeshire, 13 houses built over 40 years ago are being fitted out with £320,000 of energy-saving and micro-generation technologies. And the whole process is being monitored through Facebook. |
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We see them every day, popping up on our Twitter feeds, filtered through blogs, or even scattered throughout the New York Times: maps portraying not the usual locations or destinations, but data. Through mapping intangibles, citizens are shaping the culture of their cities. |
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Could urban farming move from buzzword to a genuine business opportunity for cities? The Plant – a former meatpacking building in Chicago now home to fish and vegetable farms – believes so, creating an urban farm that is self-sufficient in more than just an environmental sense. |
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Start-ups all over the world are spotting opportunities to incentivise home and commercial retrofit projects, making sustainable cities a more achievable goal in the process. Here’s three of our favourites. |