On measuring cities: data coverage, rankings, frameworks and the agents that keep them current.
21,733 closed landfill sites, the permitted waste estate, 11,640 quarries, mining waste, onshore petroleum wells and the groundwater and drinking water sources underneath them.
Read article →40,567 of the highest-graded listed buildings, 32,281 scheduled monuments, the conservation areas that remove permitted development rights, and the 4,877 assets on the Heritage at Risk register.
Read article →Green belt, brownfield registers, article 4 directions, conservation areas and agricultural land classification — the designations that decide what may be built in England without asking, and where land is being offered forward.
Read article →The motorway and trunk A-road network as continuous routes, every numbered motorway junction, and the 2,676 rail stations, 976 metro stops, ferry terminals, airports and coach stations that connect to it.
Read article →Every UK renewable and storage project above 150 kW, the fossil and nuclear stations the renewables register cannot carry, the substations and licence areas behind them, and the offshore export cables that bring wind power to land.
Read article →A map of British water from catchment to coast — the river network with measured flow, every monitored storm overflow, the flood warning areas behind them, and the shoreline policy that decides which stretches of coast get defended and which do not.
Read article →Which are the world's smartest cities in 2026? Washington D.C., Seattle and Boston lead an evidence-based ranking of 386 cities across 71 nations — scored on what each city verifiably has, not how residents feel, with every score linked to its public sources.
Read article →Smart city frameworks are the structured checklists used to measure how smart, sustainable and resilient a city is. This guide compares the major frameworks — ISO 37120/37122/37123, NIST IES-City and U4SSC — and how to choose between them.
Read article →A smart city uses data and technology to run better for the people who live in it. What that actually means — the areas that matter, and how to tell real progress from marketing.
Read article →Traditional city surveys take months, cost a fortune and go out of date almost immediately. AI now keeps the picture of a city current all year round — and shows its sources.
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