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CitiesToBe

@citiestobe

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Exploring the inspiring complexity of contemporary cities
Ideas · Stories · Essays · Voices · Photography
A think lab for city lovers—by @antevertibcn

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What makes a city truly livable?

Can we keep urban life alive in a world that never stops accelerating?

In uncertain times, better cities matter more than ever.

And at Citiestobe, we believe getting there starts with better questions.

Welcome to the new Citiestobe by Anteverti. Fresh ideas for better urban futures.

🔗 Explore it — link in bio by @citiestobe

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8 months ago

We’re proud — and honestly, a little excited — to announce that the CitiesToBe Photo Award 26 is open.

Since 2020, our international urban photography competition has invited photographers from around the world to look at cities honestly, not as postcards or data, but as lived, contested, layered experience. For the third edition, and for the first time, we’re asking a specific question: what role do ‘third places’ still play in the contemporary city?

The café, the square, the library, the bar. Spaces of informal, open and egalitarian social interaction that are neither home nor workplace, where the unexpected unfolds and the city becomes something shared. As algorithms curate our urban experience and public space faces growing pressure, their role is more uncertain and more necessary than ever.

We invite photographers from around the world to submit a photographic project of 10 to 20 images exploring this question. Free to enter. Open until September 30.

1 winning project: €1,500 · 5 finalists: €500 each

Submit your project → link in bio

We’re also honoured that the CitiesToBe Photo Award ‘26 is part of the programme for Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture, a distinction awarded by @unesco and the @uia_architects. by @citiestobe

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4 months ago

Integration is not a feeling. It's a practice.

It doesn't happen by proximity, or by liking the local food. It's built through language, reciprocity, and participation — day after day, by choice.

Cities that attract global talent face a real challenge: how to capture the energy of mobility without losing the rootedness that makes a place worth living in.

This month's question on @citiestobe, @antevertibcn's urban think lab: is a win-win-win actually possible? | Link in bio by @citiestobe

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5 months ago

Cities are complex. That’s exactly why we love them, and why we’re heading to Torino.

This week, CitiesToBe will be at Utopian Hours, the international city making festival by @stratosferica_org_, now marking ten years. Two days of ideas, debates and new ways of imagining what cities could become, with a line-up that includes @carolynsteel.sitopia, Zahra Ebrahim, @sirpetercook, @immykaur (@civic_square), Christine Murray, Léon van Geest (@dakendagen010), Wim Walschap (@herzogdemeuron) and many more.

Our Editor-in-Chief, Sergio García i Rodríguez, will be on the ground to listen, ask questions and bring back conversations and fresh perspectives on urban complexity. Because complexity doesn’t call for simpler answers, but for better questions.

Follow along on @citiestobe, @antevertibcn’s urban think lab. And if you’ll be in Torino too, come say hi! by @citiestobe

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10 hours ago

You arrive in a city’s most famous neighbourhood and something feels off. The façades are beautiful and the streets are full, but the local bakery is now a souvenir shop and no one seems to live there anymore. It looks real. It doesn’t feel alive.

For anthropologist Yeon Sue Park, founder of Culture Matters, authenticity can’t be manufactured. Like fermentation, it emerges from conditions no one fully controls: people, histories, encounters and time.

In our conversation, she explores tourism, human connection and what it takes for a city to remain itself while being visited.

On @citiestobe, @antevertibcn’s urban think lab | link in bio by @citiestobe

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6 days ago

Today we commemorate #WorldHabitatDay.

For more than 3 billion people, having a safe, secure and adequate place to call home remains out of reach. The 2026 theme, “Adequate Housing for All”, is a call to shift from diagnosis to action.

Building the cities people deserve, together. anteverti.com by @citiestobe

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9 days ago

From the activists reclaiming public space from commercial saturation, to the urbanists who spent decades fighting for streets designed at human scale, to the sociologist who simply sat and watched how people actually use a plaza.

These five documentaries invite us to ask who cities are built for — and who gets to shape them. A curated selection by @citiestobe — @antevertibcn’s urban think lab | link in bio

— films by William H. Whyte, @gary_hustwit, Gwenaëlle Gobé, Andreas Dalsgaard & @tyrnauer by @citiestobe

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10 days ago

A city can meet the recommended 30% tree canopy target — and still fail on health equity. If green infrastructure is concentrated in certain neighbourhoods, it doesn’t tackle the question of who actually benefits.

In our conversation on @citiestobe, Matilda van den Bosch — researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and the Biocities Facility of the European Forest Institute — explores green infrastructure as a public health tool, the 3-30-300 rule, and what a city designed around healthy living might actually look like | Link in bio. by @citiestobe

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12 days ago

We’re extending the deadline of the CitiesToBe Photo Award 26!

We’ve received so many inspiring projects exploring third places that we didn’t want to close the door just yet.

Our international urban photography contest will now accept projects until October 10th.

This is the last chance to join photographers from around the world in exploring this edition’s question: what role do ‘third places’ still play in the contemporary city?

1 winning project: €1,500 · 5 finalists: €500 each

Submit your project → link in bio

We’re honoured that the CitiesToBe Photo Award 26 is part of the programme for Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture, a distinction awarded by @unesco and the @uia_architects.

— images by @farnazdamnabi, @ariel_maceo86, @sleepingrounghdanataylor, @tvanbr_photo, @kevin_krauthartner and @nunoserrao by @citiestobe

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14 days ago

Hannah Arendt argued that harm doesn’t always come from conscious decisions. Sometimes it comes from thoughtlessness — from following rules without stopping to reflect on their purpose or their effects.

Oscar Chamat-Nuñez — Senior Urban Planner and Metropolitan Governance Specialist — applies that lens to cities.

On @citiestobe — @antevertibcn’s urban think lab | link in bio by @citiestobe

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16 days ago

When a crisis hits, cities reveal who they were built for. Laura Jones — Global Head of Health and Wellbeing at Save the Children International — has seen it firsthand.

Her conversation with CitiesToBe explores what urban emergencies look like and what it takes to build cities that can protect their most vulnerable residents.

Read it on @citiestobe — @antevertibcn’s urban think lab | link in bio by @citiestobe

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a month ago

Jingyue Central Park belongs to a new generation of large-scale public spaces — where ecological design, digital innovation, and long-term operational thinking were treated as a single problem from the very start.

In Changchun, Shuishi designed a space where environmental performance, social value and operational sustainability are treated as inseparable priorities.

More inspiring public space projects on @citiestobe — @antevertibcn’s urban think lab | link in bio by @citiestobe

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19 days ago