The climate crisis is worsening many of the economic and social inequalities already faced by women and girls, making it harder to access health care, education, employment, and other necessities. Women in rural communities are especially vulnerable because many depend directly on agriculture and natural...

Inequality and Urbanism Today’s cities are hotbeds of inequality. Urban real estate is one of the most expensive kinds of land in the world. It attracts billionaires looking to store their wealth and hedge funds looking to garner predictable returns: New York’s avenues, Paris’s thoroughfares, and...

When we think of premodern governance, we often default to an image of concentrated authority: imposing rulers presiding over intricately layered hierarchies—pharaohs, emperors, and kings whose power seemed inseparable from the territorial and demographic scale of the states they commanded. This imagery reinforces a widely...

In early January, several currency trackers briefly displayed the Iranian rial’s value as “$0.00,” unable to process the speed and scale of the depreciation, making it unexchangeable on important international trading platforms. The fallout quickly translated into a protest in Teheran’s bazaar district and...

Sri Lanka’s 2024 elections have fast-tracked reforms that began after the country’s 2022 economic crisis, when mass protests forced limits on presidential powers. In 2025, the new government has been pushing further toward a parliamentary system, which was in place during...

Amid ongoing discussions over Donald Trump’s plans for trying to resolve conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, the U.S. president has maintained steady pressure on NATO allies for months. After his 2024 election victory, Trump again raised the prospect of annexing the Danish territory of...

In thousands of ways, we are taught to accept the world we live in as the only possible one, but thousands of other ways of organizing homes, cities, schools, societies, economies, and cosmologies have existed and could exist. ...

You’ve seen them in front of houses and public spaces like food stores, parks, schoolyards, and coffee shops; small, birdhouse-like cases that anyone can take a book from or leave a book in for others to enjoy. ...

On February 1, 2024, Ukraine secured a €50 billion aid package from the European Union (EU), aimed at bolstering its defense capabilities and facilitating the country’s reconstruction. Dozens of other countries, along with Western-dominated multilateral lenders like the International Monetary Foundation (IMF)...

The way we build our structures and organize our cities can have a significant impact on the way we live, interact, and even survive these complex times on our planet. As the realities of climate change increase the frequency and scale of natural disasters in...