The Best Articles in Future Cities

The most useful articles and videos in Future Cities from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.

On this page

Top 5 Future Cities Articles

At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Future Cities by Refind users in 2023.

  1. Why skyscrapers are so short
  2. What Is Trauma-Informed Design?
  3. Paris Pulled Off the Dream of Many City Dwellers Around the World. It’s Been Thrilling—and Complicated.
  4. 8 Sustainability ideas that will change the world
  5. Spatial computing: What designers can learn from Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities

Videos

Watch a video to get a quick overview.

What is ...?

New to Future Cities? These articles make an excellent introduction.

How to ...?

Short Articles

Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Future Cities—all under 10 minutes.

Long Articles

These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Future Cities.

Related Topics

Thought Leaders

We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Future Cities, including:

LSE Cities profile image

LSE Cities

LSE Cities is an international centre carrying out research, education, engagement + advisory activities in the urban field at @LSEnews. Tweets for @UrbanAge_.

Next City profile image

Next City

Next City’s journalism centers marginalized voices while amplifying solutions to the problems that oppress people in cities.

Smart City Expo World Congress profile image

Smart City Expo World Congress

The world’s leading event for cities. Next edition 7-9 Nov 2023 #SCEWC23. @Fira_Barcelona

UCL Urban Laboratory profile image

UCL Urban Laboratory

Crossdisciplinary centre for critical and creative urban research, teaching, practice and participation @ucl. Conference Tickets - https://linktr.ee/UCLurbanlab

What is Refind?

Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful. We favor timeless pieces—links with long shelf-lives, articles that are still relevant one month, one year, or even ten years from now. These lists of the best resources on any topic are the result of years of careful curation.

How does Refind curate?

It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:

  1. We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
  2. In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
  3. Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
  4. Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
  5. Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
  6. In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.

The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.

How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?

We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.

How many sources does Refind monitor?

We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.

Who are the thought leaders in Future Cities?

We follow dozens of thought leaders in Future Cities, including World Economic Forum, LSE Cities, Next City, Smart City Expo World Congress, UCL Urban Laboratory.

Missing a thought leader? Submit them here

Can I submit a link?

Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).

How can I report a problem?

When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com

Who uses Refind?

300k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.

Is Refind free?

Yes, it’s free!

How can I sign up?

Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.