Mohamed Elshahed founded Cairobserver, Egypt’s first architecture and urbanism website. He speaks with Senior Editor Jonathan Guyer about the city's grit: which historic areas are at risk, what residents say about their own neighborhoods, and how the government reacts to endemic problems.

Government bulldozers flattened the Badia East squatter district in Lagos earlier this year. Suppose its nine thousand residents had drawn maps, kept records, and documented their community’s dynamism over the past thirty years. Would it have been quite so easy to evict them?

The urban centers of the New Economic Powers are bent on GDP growth to become influential global cities. Yet the Western model being emulated is itself facing serious sustainability challenges. It is necessary to ask whether material possessions and use of natural resources are the best measure of prosperity.

Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971 in hopes of ending U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. He speaks with Managing Editor Scott MacLeod about America’s latest whistleblowers, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden—and explains how unchecked power threatens the human race.

The modern metropolis is vulnerable to all sorts of sudden and gradual threats, from hurricanes and earthquakes to the consequences of global warming. To cope, society must be resilient and the city managed well. Be prepared! Here’s an Urban Dweller’s Guide to the Elements.