The best city stories this week discover a bell designed to make urban running easier, explore an abandoned prison in Northern Ireland and trace the rise of the megacity.
We’d love to hear your responses to these stories and any others you’ve read recently, both at Guardian Cities and elsewhere: share your thoughts in the comments below.
Dawdlers on the pavement? Just ring a bell
Ever tried to wish slow pedestrians out of your way when running down the street? Well, wish no more, for the Runbell is here. As Pop-Up City explains, the gadget was designed by a couple in Tokyo – a city with significant pedestrian congestion – to encourage people to move out of the way and make running in cities safer. No word yet from the pedestrians who may have to contend with a constant ringing in their ears. Well, cyclists get to ring a bell: why not runners?
Megacity map
In a great interactive map, the Economist charts the rise of megacities across the world over the last 65 years – as well as predicting the future of urbanisation. The change certain cities have seen is astounding: Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, had a population of 200,000 in 1950; by 2030, this is projected to stand at 20m. According to their stats, nearly 9% of the world’s population will be living in just 41 megacities by 2030.
Dream cities
There have been many grand plans and fanciful designs for the future of cities over time; this week we took a look at the history of these ideas. Architizer also rounds up some of the imaginary city designs created by artists – from Paris as an über green metropolis of vertical farms, to Archigram’s mobile Walking City.
Coffee v tea in Tehran
On Monday the Tehran Bureau took us on a walk around the pastry shops of Iran’s capital. But the city’s other independent businesses also got attention this week. The Proto City explores Tehran’s coffee shops and tea houses as a lens through which the inequality of the city and its changing culture can be observed: “Tea houses were [and still are] male-dominated spaces ... Coffee shop culture is a feminine culture in which women are trying to build their own space to be modern.”
Exploring the Maze
Bradley Garrett has immersed us in the world of urban exploration before, under the streets of London. In this photographic essay he teams up with Theo Kindynis to share his experiences of trespassing through the abandoned Maze Prison on the outskirts of Lisburn in Northern Ireland:
As we walked from block to block, taking in the hospital, the surveillance control room, the chapel and the kitchens, the sun crested the horizon and painted the Northern Irish sky with stunning pinks and purples ... We were off the map. It was with this awareness that we circled into the labyrinthian architecture. Gates opened to yards where we found gates inside gates. Areas that appeared inaccessible, fences threaded tightly, were puzzles solved by climbing the watchtowers and looking down on the prison, the view of guards and snipers who no longer occupied these spaces. Moving between the spaces of the authorities and the spaces of the prisoners, the political gravitas of where we were, what had happened here, what it meant and to whom, started to sink in.
What do you think about a bell for runners? Have you explored any abandoned buildings? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below
