Arnhildur Pálmadóttir has always been fascinated by the power and majesty of volcanoes, having grown up not far from one in Húsavik in northeastern Iceland. But it wasn’t until later, once she had trained as an architect, that it occurred to her that volcanic eruptions have the potential to be used to help lay the foundations of entire cities, while lowering atmospheric emissions in the process.

The idea isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. The problem with Iceland, she says, is that it lacks resources to construct things with. “We don’t have much wood or clay that’s suitable for bricks,” says Pálmadóttir, who, with her architect son, Arnar Skarphéðinsson, has been researching the idea of building with lava as part of a project called Lavaforming. “It started with a shift in thinking. We realised that we needed to use the materials that we have, not just import things.”

Lava is already used in Iceland, which is one of the most volcanically active places on Earth, with an eruption happening every five years on average. In 2024 rock and earth barriers were built near the town of Grindavík when a risk of imminent volcanic activity became apparent. As lava poured from a fissure later that year, threatening inhabitants and the surrounding area, including the Blue Lagoon, the barriers diverted the flow away. But Pálmadóttir and Skarphéðinsson want to harness the lava for sustainable construction. “The important thing is that eruptions happen anyway,” says Pálmadóttir. “The emission of co2 happens naturally but it’s much, much lower than what humans produce [during construction, which is responsible for more than a third of the world’s annual carbon emissions].”

The pair propose several possible ways to use lava, from channelling its flow into trenches to form foundations and extracting it from pockets of magma to 3D-print organically shaped building elements or bricks. What’s more, lava has different properties depending on how it cools (if it’s quickly, it becomes glass-like; if it’s slowly and under pressure, it assumes a solid form). “We aren’t thinking about removing it or adding anything to it,” says Pálmadóttir, who lives in Reykjavík. “It’s more about shaping it. And we don’t need an energy resource to produce it.” She heads up her architecture studio as well as the Icelandic outpost of Danish firm Lendager, which specialises in reusing materials. “What we’re proposing is to use the lava when it is molten, then shape it into structures instead of just letting it run over the landscape.”

So what would building with lava actually look like? To answer this, the architects are bringing their project to the Venice Biennale with Iceland’s national pavilion, where they illustrate the science and potential of the material. They have also produced a film that’s set in an imagined future city, Eldborg, that is built entirely from shaped lava. “In the beginning, when the city is fresh, it’s kind of brutal and a little scary,” says Skarphéðinsson. “But then, with time, moss begins to grow on the lava, like it does in Iceland’s fields. People plant trees and it starts to be seen as more friendly.” No one would hate living there, he hastens to add.

Throughout history, Iceland’s volcanic activity has been experienced as an existential threat. But the architects hope to change this perception. “We are talking about taking a local danger and turning it into an advantage, a little bit like we did with geothermal energy 100 years ago,” says Pálmadóttir. “It was something that people lived close to but didn’t use because it was dangerous. And now we have learnt to use it to warm houses and swimming pools. But the wider concept of the pavilion is not just about lava. It’s about addressing a risk and changing perspectives, hopefully inspiring conversations.”

The project also touches on an important point about resource ownership. “One of the core concepts is that there is no private ownership of lava in Iceland,” says Skarphéðinsson. “If we create a city out of this material, then it would be owned by the people who live in it. And in this respect, we’re also thinking about places such as the Congo, where there are so many riches, so many minerals, but the people who live there don’t get any of the rewards. We want to put forward these questions that aren’t really being asked.”

The project is a call to action over environmental challenges and rethinking outdated practices. “The idea of the film is to help people get used to the idea of something that could happen in the future and figure out how we could achieve that from where we are today,” Pálmadóttir tells Monocle. “We hope that this kind of speculation can be helpful as a tool. It’s important that creative designers, architects and scientists work to visualise a future that’s for the common good, instead of just an investment opportunity.”

A nudist beach. A children’s playground. An embattled mayor. And a chain-link fence. The common thread is a sordid and silly episode that has roiled Seattle’s politics – and its summer by the lake. The saga began in November 2023, when an anonymous donor offered $550,000 (€469,000) to fund a playground in a lakefront park. The gesture quickly raised eyebrows for being situated in a spot known more for lowered trunks.
 
Public nudity is legal in Washington state provided that there is no lewd conduct. Denny Blaine Park has been an informal nudist beach on Lake Washington, Seattle’s most popular swimming hole, since the 1970s. Once a favoured haunt of the city’s lesbian community, it earned the nickname “Dykiki”. Today the patch of green welcomes all who prefer a dip au naturel and has managed to retain a counterculture feel, despite being wedged between waterfront mansions in the lakeside district.
 
The ostensibly charitable act, then, was seen as a ruse to evict the park’s regulars. Nudity around children being construed as lewd and all. A park advocacy group sprang up and sounded off at public meetings throughout the winter in opposition to the project,leading the city to back off from the proposed play area. The group also pledged to volunteer for park beautification projects and strategise ways to discourage any inappropriate behaviour. But a mystery remained. Who was the donor?

Local journalists filed public records requests for mayor Bruce Harrell’s text messages and found the answer: a shopping-mall magnate who happens to be the park’s nextdoor neighbour. He alleged nude parkgoers were doing more than just sunbathing and texted some naughty photos to prove it. The mayor sympathised in response – “I share your disgust” – and directed his parks department to act.
 
But the rigid strictures of municipal bureaucracy don’t easily mesh with the freewheeling culture of a West Coast nude beach. Ahead of the summer of 2024, the parks department tried to demarcate clothing-required and optional zones but that scheme also crumbled in the face of public opposition. Parkgoers were unwilling to be treated like property parcels on a zoning map. An idea to assign park rangers was also floated. But would they wear a uniform or attempt to blend in? 
 
Then came a shot across the bow. This spring, neighbouring homeowners filed a lawsuit against the city for not clamping down on being lewd while nude. In July, a judge ruled that nudity at the park had become a “public nuisance” due to the prevalence of some bad actors and gave the city two weeks to come up with a plan. The ruling forced the city’s hand and earlier this month, the parks department erected a chain-link fence (albeit wrapped in an opaque green mesh). The barrier separates the park’s beach from its inland grassy section and the department posted signs which, for the first time, formally designates the lakefront area as clothing optional.
 
This month also saw mayoral primary elections. Harrell, a seasoned politician, finished second to a challenger running her first ever campaign. Denny Blaine Park was hardly the only issue on voters’ minds but his clandestine acquiescence to an imperious peeping tom neighbour does not appear to have endeared him to the electorate.
 
The fence has not been universally welcomed. Perhaps inspired by Ronald Reagan’s admonition “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”, someone did just that on the barrier’s first night. It’s a sign that, even as summer comes to a close, the combatants in the Battle for Denny Blaine have not yet laid down their arms – even if they have dropped their drawers. 
 
Gregory Scruggs is Monocle’s Seattle correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

There’s a question that sooner or later confronts those who grow up in a small community: do I stay, or do I go? The overwhelming number of people across Europe that stump for the latter are leaving large swaths of some countries completely hollowed out. Latvia has lost a third of its population in three decades, Bulgaria is on track to lose a fifth of its people by 2050 and some areas in the Scottish Highlands are now emptier than Lapland. It’s a challenge that’s far easier to acknowledge than to address: how do you create an environment that doesn’t just keep people in it but draws back those who have left? The Faroe Islands, a self-governing Danish territory of 18 islands and about 55,000 people in the North Atlantic, could provide an answer. 

Two decades ago, the islands were grappling with steady depopulation. Between 2004 and 2013, more than 2,700 residents under the age of 40 left the Faroes. As in so many peripheral regions, young people sought education and opportunity abroad without reason to return. Yet, by 2022, that trend had not only reversed – but swung back dramatically. The number of under-40s rose by 3,000 in just nine years, a youth boom that has left the Faroes with a median age of 37.1, making it demographically younger than any country in the EU.

So how did they do it? The first step was to enhance connectivity. Building world-class undersea tunnels has made opportunity a two-way street. The Faroese capital, Tórshavn, is now within easy commuting distance of the archipelago’s 17 inhabited islands and smaller villages are now accessible to new residents and visitors, breathing life and money into once-isolated communities. Alongside this, record-breaking 5G speeds – among the fastest in Europe – make remote working feasible even from the most blustery headland. 

Coupled with ambitious pro-family funding – a year of paid leave, heavily subsidised childcare and affordable housing – the Faroes have substantially eased the economic pressures that often drive people to bigger foreign cities.

The final element, which is less tangible but equally crucial, is a cultural shift. The islands have a self-assurance that has allowed them to step out of the Danish shadow. While local pride has always been strong – more than 90 per cent of residents speak Faroese as a first language – it’s now more visible. On shop shelves and in pubs, local beer, whisky and even soft drinks regularly outsell global brands. When citizens see ambitious infrastructure being built, generous support for families and investment in local enterprise, they want in. 

The Faroes’ transformation is remarkable but it raises questions about whether such success can be replicated. Its circumstances are hard to ignore: it’s small, socially cohesive and wealthy, with a GDP per capita of €61,800 (double the EU average). The economy also leans heavily on fishing rights and subsidies from Denmark, providing access to the EU’s markets and research funding. But these are advantages, not magic bullets. Young Faroese once packed their bags for the same reasons as their European peers: a shortage of opportunity.

Perhaps the Faroes’ most striking marker of success is that it makes no attempt to keep its young people at home. Instead, they’re encouraged to gain experience abroad, confident that most will return. For communities everywhere, the question isn’t whether they can replicate the Faroese model. It’s how they can apply its core principle: creating a place so strong in identity and opportunity that it trusts its people to return once they’ve exercised their wanderlust.

Joseph Phelan is a freelance journalist based in London. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Go to a party in the Philippines and you’re likely to find bottles of San Miguel beer but the country’s largest brewery is no fair-weather friend. When disaster strikes – be it a typhoon or a pandemic – San Miguel is usually among the first responders. The conglomerate, which has been a food and beverage company for most of its 135-year existence, diversified this century into petrol, power, infrastructure and banking. It now has the reach to provide food, fuel and other emergency essentials at a speed that the government would be hard-pressed to match. The sense of corporate responsibility comes from the top. Ramon Ang, San Miguel’s CEO and majority owner, is the son of Chinese immigrants. He has set the company the goal of uplifting the lives of 15 million Filipinos by 2030.

Achieving this will require drawing on every arm of the conglomerate and also depends on the efforts of several of Ang’s children who work across the business. Chief among them is his eldest daughter, Cecile. The 43-year-old leads two of the company’s highest-profile projects: the creation of a new multibillion-dollar airport to serve Metro Manila and the overhaul of the capital’s existing hub, Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Cecile is also plotting a new course for the San Miguel Foundation, transforming a reactive body respected for its one-off disaster relief, medical missions and food donations into an active change-maker. Though these projects couldn’t appear to be more different, they all involve fixing problems and making a lasting difference.

“We can give away a million food packs but the next day people will be hungry,” says Cecile, sipping dalandan juice at a hotel next to San Miguel’s headquarters in Ortigas, a business district of Manila. “That’s not the type of foundation that we want to be.” She started her career at a family-owned luxury hotel and she clearly knows the hospitality industry well. “We measure our impact with the number of lives that we have actually changed. And you can’t change lives if you’re only there once a year.”

Cecile has worked for different San Miguel subsidiaries for about 20 years, including oil refiner Petron Corporation. She officially became the foundation’s chair in March but her involvement dates back five years. “We don’t have a set budget as a foundation,” she says. “We knock on every subsidiary’s door to see who is interested in giving us money for our projects. Some resonate with certain subsidiaries more than others.” It was during a stint at San Miguel’s property arm that she was inspired to do something different. Tasked with auditing the company’s idle property holdings, she decided to offer an old beer warehouse in Manila to the foundation. The outcome was the first Better World Community Centre, a school, health clinic and food bank that feeds 400 children a day in Tondo, one of the country’s most impoverished areas.

“These children have never had a place to play safely and don’t get fed so we provide them with meals every day and groceries for their families,” says Cecile, a strong critic of the Philippines’ growing income inequality. Though she lacks her father’s experience of coming from nothing, she has an authentic perspective of her own. Her childhood home is three streets away from the original Better World location. The neighbourhood has since become known for people scavenging for pagpag, a Tagalog term for food from bins. “The area has gone down quite drastically,” she says. “My parents were pretty poor but they weren’t that poor.”

Since the first Better World opened in 2019, the foundation is averaging one centre a year. Every branch works with a different set of charities and not-for-profits. The services on offer, such as free meals, counselling and micro loans, are tailored to the most pressing needs of the specific community. The AHA Learning Centre, an education-focused not-for-profit, is the only anchor partner. “We would like to do more but you have to have the right partners too,” says Cecile. “We are not into just giving money and I don’t believe in padding numbers just so we can say that we have a certain number of centres. We don’t know how successful we are yet because it’s all new but we are trying to commit to something and sticking to that is the most important thing.”

Monocle joins Ang on a visit to one of the newest Better World community centres and a return to Tondo. The Smokey Mountain centre opened in 2023 alongside one of the Philippines’ most infamous landmarks: a smouldering landfill site and slum that the government officially closed in the 1990s. Today, Smokey Mountain is a fraction of the size. Though families still live on the remaining hill, the surrounding community can generally afford to eat, freeing the centre to go beyond the basic needs of providing food and water to focus on providing opportunities for the whole family.

Better World Smokey Mountain has 39 classrooms spread across four storeys. On the ground floor, we meet Marille Hernal, a mother who grew up in the neighbourhood, who speaks glowingly about a gender-empowerment class that she has just attended. About 500 children attend the centre every day and the sewing shop will soon start making their uniforms. Other products, made using recycled clothes and fabrics, already generate an income and could one day reach an international market. Cecile has her eye on a shop at the new airport so she takes a keen interest in the quality of the craftsmanship.

“San Miguel is the only corporate foundation with a long-term community project,” says Jaton Zulueta, founder of AHA Learning Centre. In his experience, many international donors usually like to invest in short-term projects in the Philippines that can deliver quick results – outcomes that can only be achieved by selecting the brightest and best students. By contrast, Better World allows his non-profit organisation to behave as an incubator for the most-in-need young people and achieve genuine local engagement. “When the community knows that it is a multi-year programme, the response is different,” he says. “They trust us more because they know we are not rushing children towards outcomes.”

After visiting Better World Smokey Mountain, Cecile has to rush off to attend a meeting about Ninoy Aquino International Airport. San Miguel will officially take over the terminal in September and the transition requires monthly sit-downs with the state-owned operator.

Given all of the headaches of her day job, it would be easy to characterise Cecile’s work as chair of the foundation as her release but that’s not how she sees it – not by a long shot. “We don’t necessarily need a foundation to make us look nice and it is not representative of the bigger picture that we are really doing,” says Cecile, who gives short shrift to examples of corporate whitewashing.

Her motivation and purpose comes from doing her day job – a job satisfaction that she shares with her colleagues. San Miguel is regularly voted as the best employer in the Philippines and staff wear their liveried polo shirts to work with pride. “We started out as a food and beverage company but, after that, we really made this conscious decision to invest in projects that are going to benefit the country, even if they are risky or have small margins,” says Cecile. “As a company, I’m comfortable to say that we do good.”
Cheers to that.

Belém is perched on the northern coast of Brazil, where the Amazon meets the Atlantic, it is a city of unique customs, colours, flavours and fragrances. Ringed by forest and wide, meandering rivers, this is the postcard-picture of the world’s largest rainforest. A fitting place to better understand the perils of climate change and deforestation, maybe. But what Belém is not, is a modern city. And in fewer than 100 days it is set to host the world’s leaders for the UN’s climate change conference, COP30. It should not.   
 
The rain clouds that cling to the city and the wall of humidity that greets you as you arrive only add to the experiential nature of visiting Belém. Having been the entrepôt for Brazil’s rubber trade, the city was once one of the country’s richest, before entering a period of long decline. Now considered among the poorest of Brazil’s state capitals, only around 20 per cent of the 2.5 million population has access to proper sewage systems while 57 per cent of metropolitan residents live in favelas – or informal settlements – with precarious access to water and electricity. Although these problems have long existed, they now have a global audience. In November, tens of thousands of diplomats, delegates, activists, lobbyists, politicians and prime ministers are scheduled to arrive in Belém for the latest iteration of the UN conference – and the city is clearly not prepared for the onslaught. 

With a dearth of hotel options, the price of accommodation is rocketing. Reports proliferate of simple – often grotty – accommodation being flogged for tens of thousands of US dollars. Sensing an opportunity, many residents have put their homes on Airbnb, while owners of the city’s ubiquitous “love hotels” – used for amorous fraternising – frantically engage in remodelling to cater to buttoned-up climate negotiators. The lack of suitable accommodation has prompted some officials to get creative: embassies in Brasília have bought houses in Belém, with a view to using them during the summit and then donating them to the city. The Brazilian government, meanwhile, is planning to park two cruise ships in the harbour to serve as floating hotels for the visiting delegations. These efforts won’t be enough. With prices still sky-high, the UN climate bureau held an emergency meeting, in which representatives of smaller, developing nations called on Brazil to relocate the event, possibly to the political capital, Brasília, or the commercial capital, São Paulo. They claimed the event had become prohibitively expensive.

The original decision to host COP30 in Belém came from the very top; upon his election in 2022, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva frantically and effectively lobbied the UN for its selection. At the time, his logic was clear: the city would serve as a visual reminder of both the importance of nature in tackling climate change and the vulnerability of the communities most affected by it. Since then, the government has invested around $1bn (€862m) into getting the city ready, with substantial investments in sanitation, drainage, renovation and hospitality. Organisers, meanwhile, were quick to shoot down the requests to move the event to another location. “There is no Plan B” is now the official line. This attitude might come back to haunt them. As the clock ticks down, Brazil must either pull a rabbit out of the hat or risk having its landmark summit labelled a failure – even before negotiators start talking.

Bryan Harris is a journalist based in São Paulo. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Branding an airline is one of the most challenging but also satisfying endeavours for creatives. Design decisions need to be made to ensure the brand can live across a complex system of timings, movement, space and weight. You must consider the choreography between passengers, ground staff and cabin crew, while conveying a distinctive, stand-out visual brand. Here are seven considerations to help designers and airlines alike hit such a lofty mark.

1. 
Build a world
Livery design is important but it’s not your whole brand. There are worlds of colours, hues, typefaces, patterns and textures. Design a system that can flex, a diverse system that fits from lounge to cabin and from uniform to communication.

2. 
Show some tail
Every aircraft has one (at least for now) and it’s the prime place for your brand design. Ensure that your symbol, colour and scale of design stands out in the pageantry of the airfield.

3.
Your routes reflect you
Consider not just your origin but where you fly to. Allow the destination to arrive in the experience, whether that’s reflected in the cabin crew’s accessories, the menu’s signature drink or the soundtrack that sets the tone for discovering new places. Change things up and don’t be afraid to embrace novelty.

4. 
Sense of touch
Use print where possible to break up the monotony of screen information: think a creamy paper for an in-flight menu; a crisp, folded route map or a flickable guide to the top spots in your destination. Such pieces underline the service offering, get passed around, stimulate conversation and are taken home as keepsakes.

5. 
Keep it tight
Aircraft cabins are small and constricted. Optimise the choice and design of amenities and don’t go overboard with packaging. Excess waste ends up in the aisle and makes the environment feel messy and chaotic. Nobody wants that.

6. 
Own your ambience
What kind of mood do you want to create throughout the experience and how is this conveyed and modulated across the lounge, cabin and in your imagery? Forgiving lighting, music, scent and temperature control are all aspects of your brand that can have a profound effect on people’s comfort.

7. 
People matter
Your crew are your most valuable touchpoint, so empower them to live the brand. Train their voice, coach their conduct and give them the right tools to do their job with confidence and flair. Don’t be afraid of rules and regulations. It’s an airline, after all.

About the writer: Ariel Childs is CEO and executive creative director at Winkreative. The branding agency that has worked on numerous projects in the aviation industry, including the rebranding of Swiss International Air Lines and Air Canada. To read more about the ups and downs of the aviation industry, pick up a copy of Monocle’s mobility-themed September issue. 

Some cities suffering the consequences of mass tourism have begun concealing and cordoning off small, tucked-away pockets for locals to enjoy without tourists. Amsterdam has its hidden swimming spots shared only via word-of-mouth, and much of Dubai’s coastline is fenced off for private beaches. Historically, affluent Londoners have picnicked in private squares and residents around New York’s Gramercy Park have flaunted their keyholder privileges. These spaces offer locals a chance to reconnect and foster tighter-knit communities away from the madding crowds.
 
This is a privilege that the citizens of Venice, that most tourism-impacted of cities, have been unable to experience, until now. In August, the city’s narrow calli heave with a volume of visitors that causes the majority of Venetians to escape for a faraway beach chair. But a slice of the city has been taken back by locals. Poveglia, a small, overgrown island just off the far end of the Lido that once housed a hospital has been turned into a Venetian-only green oasis.

The “Poveglia Per Tutti” (Poveglia for Everyone) campaign began nine years ago, when the island, which had been abandoned since the 1960s, was put up for auction with a starting bid of €0. A group of citizens determined that another piece of the lagoon need not become another luxury hotel. They started a crowdfunding campaign to purchase Poveglia for themselves. Contributions poured in from 4,600 people – almost one-tenth of the population of Venice’s islands – who quickly raised more than €460,000 to secure a six-year lease, outbidding the mayor of Venice. After a lengthy bureaucratic process, a long-term lease was granted this month. The activists plan to build a small boat dock and create paths, communal areas and a vegetable garden, while caring for the island’s small ecosystem, including its population of rabbits.

When arguments about overtourism arise, Venice is invariably Exhibit A. But the city has long been defined by its visitors, a steady stream of merchants and later tourists have propped up its economy. At the same time, the number of permanent residents continues to dwindle – with the population now well below 50,000. Losing locals is the real threat: who will want to visit a place with no discernable population? Residents have spearheaded grassroots campaigns to resist tourist numbers (see, most recently, the protest actions skewering the celeb-packed Bezos wedding in June) that often cause a stir but rarely change their lived reality. Following persistent activism, the municipality has banned the docking of cruise ships, and last year it introduced a €5 entry charge for all daytime visitors. Still, these initiatives haven’t stemmed the flow of sightseers that descends on Venice year-round. The idea behind Poveglia per Tutti – that parts of the lagoon should be run exclusively by and for locals – is really an attempt to stem the flight of Venetians from their own city. 

It might seem like a resignation: shouldn’t people be working to make their city liveable instead of retreating into secluded corners? Venice certainly needs investment if it is to remain afloat – and tourists can still be a lifeline. But ask any gondolier: balance is key. Until a more equitable solution is made, Venetians deserve a little exclusivity. There are simply too many people in the world with the desire and means to see the city built on water. It no longer merits its old nickname of La Serenissima (the most serene). The locals that decide to stay, weaving their daily lives between gawking crowds and souvenir shops, deserve to have a calming, communal refuge. 

Admittedly, during the opening week of the art and architecture biennales, I join these hordes who catch their breath when the train crosses the lagoon and pulls into Venezia Santa Lucia. Next year, I would be curious to check out the progress on Poveglia, where Venetians will no doubt be installing park benches and planting peach trees. Then again, perhaps this is one project that deserves to be left in peace. 

Stella Roos is Monocle’s design correspondent. For more design insight and analysis, subscribe to Monocle today.

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Just as travellers were bracing for another summer of delays, broken air-con and apologetic announcements, Germany’s transport minister, Patrick Schnieder, pulled the emergency brake at Deutsche Bahn (DB) and dismissed its CEO, Richard Lutz, after eight years at the helm. The list of grievances is long: punctuality at an all-time low, a network in disrepair, mounting deficits and a much-vaunted overhaul that’s barely left the station.

Lutz’s departure might have been inevitable but the problems he left behind are anything but solved. With major track renovations delayed until at least 2036 and passenger satisfaction circling the drain, the state-owned transportation operator now finds itself at a crossroads. “The state of the railway is dire,” says Schnieder, while promising to present a new strategy and possibly a new CEO on 22 September. But can a new face at the top get the Bahn back on track – or is the rot too deep for a quick fix?

Monocle sat down with German rail expert Christian Böttger to talk about what went wrong, what needs to change and whether the nation’s once-proud railway can still be rescued.

The dismissal of Deutsche Bahn’s CEO felt abrupt. Did it come as a surprise to you?
Hardly. Everyone knew that Lutz had been on the chopping block for a while. He presided over years of missed targets and a culture of glossing over problems rather than fixing them. What is surprising is the timing. Pulling the plug in the middle of the summer holidays without a new strategy or a fresh face ready to step in has caused a sudden vacuum at the top of a company that already runs on chaos. It’s hardly the confident reset an ailing railway needs.

Deutsche Bahn’s woes run deep. Trains are delayed or cancelled, bridges are crumbling and public frustration is mounting. How did it come to this?
The narrative put forward by DB and politicians is that somehow, the country’s rail infrastructure fell into disrepair overnight. No one can explain how it happened, and frankly, nobody seems keen to find out. In truth, soaring traffic has overwhelmed an ageing network while workforce planning has failed, leaving shortages in drivers, controllers and technicians. At key hubs such as Köln or Frankfurt, even a minor disruption now triggers delays across the entire network. Meanwhile, management has become bloated yet oddly absent when problems arise. There are plenty of people in charge – just never the right ones when something goes wrong.

Has it always been like this?
Historically, the railway never held much prestige – neither in East nor West Germany. But after reunification, the newly merged DB became a respected company. Passenger numbers rose, freight transport surged and public confidence grew as sleek new high-speed lines began operating. Then its leadership shifted its focus abroad, selling assets to finance the company’s foreign ventures.

Why?
The management level became obsessed with becoming a global logistics giant, chasing shipping contracts between China and the US or getting involved in mining logistics in Australia. Instead of reinforcing its core mission, DB weakened itself from within, trading long-term resilience for short-term financial gain. This decline wasn’t immediately obvious but the rot was already setting in. Years of neglect, asset-stripping and poor governance eventually caught up with the company, leaving behind a sprawling, inefficient organisation that now struggles with the fundamentals of providing reliable passenger rail. Last year, punctuality in long-distance services fell to 62.5 per cent – the worst figure in decades. Only recently has there been political will to redirect DB’s focus back to its core responsibilities at home.

In 2024, former transport minister Volker Wissing promised the “most modern rail in Europe” and an infrastructure overhaul by 2031. How realistic is this?
DB has long been adept at managing its ministers, and most lack the expertise to push back. The rail operator presented Wissing with a convenient script – blame infrastructure – which is good for publicity but entirely detached from operational reality. No infrastructure programme can succeed unless DB itself changes. The company’s sprawling bureaucracy needs streamlining, its governance tightening and clearer lines of accountability established. Today, not even the federal government has effective control.

How much influence do politicians actually have then?
In principle, DB was designed to operate at arm’s length from the government, with state funding tied to specific contracts. But no such contract exists for long-distance rail. So when the transport minister lashes out at DB for underperformance, he’s criticising what is, in effect, his own operation. As the rail operator’s performance has declined, politicians have tightened their grip while still demanding more without paying properly – all while DB has built a powerful lobbying machine of its own, creating a cosy but inefficient relationship that leaves neither side truly accountable.

What could DB learn from, say, Switzerland?
The Swiss have a strong infrastructure, a disciplined system, sufficient staff numbers and, crucially, a consistent transport policy. But let’s not forget that Switzerland is a small country with far fewer planning headaches than Germany. If you take away the mountains, you’re left with a densely populated country. If cargo has to get through a village in a narrow valley, the choice is clear: either 10 freight trains or a thousand lorries. Most people would rather have the trains.

The federal cabinet just approved a €107bn support package through to 2029. Is that enough to get Germany’s railways back on track?
Right now, funding is the least of my concerns. Without a serious overhaul of DB’s management structures, outdated technologies and cumbersome regulations, even a generous injection of capital won’t get us far. The state must take clearer ownership of its role. A separation of infrastructure from operations would also be advisable to secure the network’s independence and create a fairer playing field for competition. But even that won’t matter unless DB addresses its acute workforce shortage. There have been endless summits on staffing but little action. Who will maintain the tracks, drive the trains and manage the signals? Before we talk about budgets, we need to talk about who’s going to do the work.

Christian Böttger is a professor at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and one of Germany’s leading experts on rail transport. He has advised the Bundestag’s transport committee on several occasions.

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1.    
We start this weekend with a health and security warning for all of our UK readers venturing out for a last blast of summer sunshine, for our Canadian and US audience gearing up for Labo(u)r Day weekend, for children of all shapes and sizes and adults hovering around five feet in height. For the past three years I’ve been monitoring the arrival of robot floor cleaners at airports, rail stations, office concourses and shopping malls around the world. I’ve been paying particularly close attention to their recent arrival at Zürich Airport and how they manage to interact with the waves of arrivals and departures. While I’ve yet to spot any head-on collisions, there are certainly plenty of near misses and much dodging and weaving as these robots have a tendency to make abrupt stops and spins. But this is not the problem. Far from it. The real danger is considerably more menacing than a simple scrape with an automated vacuum cleaner – pint-sized families could soon be consumed by rapidly mutating clusters of MDBs (monster dust bunnies). 

The MDB, closely related to the more harmless domestic variety, can grow out of nowhere, multiply at speed and becomes a threat one to two weeks after a facility manager at a global transport hub lays off 25 cleaning staff and replaces them with a few robots. If David Attenborough isn’t on the case with his film crews just yet, he should be. Robot cleaners might make perfect sense from a cost perspective and can do an OK job cleaning surfaces but they’re simply not made to get into corners or tackle what’s under the rows and rows of seating between gates 63 and 65. The harmless little dust bunny that used to scurry away when you sped past with your Rimowa wheelie has now been gorging on other bunnies, bits of food and the strands and scraps of exotic fluff that collects in hard-to-reach spaces. 

The other day I spotted a pair of MDBs so large that I thought they were going to devour a pair of toddlers who’d been let out of their tandem pram. Pooooofffff!!! They could have vanished in a flash but the MDBs decided the pair weren’t so appetising and tumbled behind a check-in desk instead, waiting for the right moment to strike. Next time you think that you’ve misplaced your phone or coffee at a boarding gate, you didn’t. A matted, greasy and stinky MDB got to it first. Airports might think that they’re being clever by replacing staff with automated cleaning devices but just look around and you’ll see that robots are leaving thousands of square metres uncared for and it’s only a matter of time before a MDB gets sucked into the engine of an A350 or invades a cockpit. You read it here first. 

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On the topic of keeping surfaces spic and span, I landed from Chicago earlier this morning and I was impressed. Granted, I was mostly in and around Lincoln Park and the nicer stretches of North Lakeshore Drive but European (Lisbon, Athens, Paris pay attention) and many North American cities (you too Toronto) could take a few cues on keeping streets and vertical surfaces spotless from the good people of Chicago. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of graffiti, the well-planted avenues, the attention paid to the urban canopy and the absence of so much as a candy wrapper in the gutter. While this was only a 24-hour trip and my first visit in about a decade, I’m keen to go back and spend more time walking around other neighbourhoods and getting a better measure of the place.

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Finally, get your agenda prepped and at the ready for this time next week. We have an autumn packed with events spanning from intimate evening gatherings in our shops to bigger formats in Abu Dhabi, Zürich and London. And if you can’t wait for those, we can still find you a seat in Barcelona at our Quality of Life Conference – 4 to 6 September.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns. 

Venice in high summer can feel crowded and airless. Fortunately, Veneto offers an array of easy day trips that swap the city’s crush for cool hills, shaded cafés and quiet canals.

1.
Trieste
(Just over two hours by train)

The Austro-Hungarian outpost dubbed “Vienna by the sea” joined Italy a century ago but its roots still show. Visit Libreria San Marco and the century-old Caffè Torinese for a flavour. Pastry shops such as La Bomboniera and Pasticceria Pirona serve sachertorte and Viennese sweets while the Portopiccolo spa, built into an old stone quarry on the sea, has steam pools facing the bay.

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2.
Bassano del Grappa
(An hour and 15 minutes by train)

A charming cluster of red, medieval roofs overlooking the covered wooden bridge of the Ponte degli Alpini, this town on the river Brenta gives its name to the famous spirit best enjoyed at Tipic bar or the 1779 Grapperia Nardini distillery. Stock up at the delicatessen of El Bocon del Prete or the Bottega del Baccalà for the local dried-cod delicacy of the same name.

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3.
Chioggia
(50-minute drive)

Crisscrossed by canals, Chioggia earned the mantle “Little Venice” without suffering the crowded consequences and featured in Luca Guadagnino’s 2020 film We Are Who We Are. Try a boat trip from Piazzetta Vigo to peruse the island’s lace shops and bustling fish market, where restaurants such as Al Bersagliere serve the catch of the day.

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4.
Bonotto Foundation
(An hour and 10 minutes by car)

The largest collection of fluxus art (a movement from the 1960s and 1970s) in Italy can be found at the factory of the Bonotto textile company. Owner Luigi Bonotto befriended the late German artist Joseph Beuys, Yoko Ono and a slew of creatives who came to do informal residencies next to his Vicenza factory-turned-museum.

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5.
Bagni Alberoni
(Less than an hour by boat and bus)

In Italy, beach clubs define seaside summers and few are as iconic as Bagni Alberoni (the backdrop to Thomas Mann’s seminal 1912 novella, Death in Venice). Located on the southernmost beach of the Lido, its stretch of sand is lined with cabins, umbrellas and striped deckchairs. Alberoni’s restaurant serves Venetian fare, including homemade spaghetti with mussels and clams.

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6.
Tomba Brion and Museo Gypsotheca Antonio Canova
(The former is a 70-minute drive)

Just a stone’s throw from each other in towns beyond Treviso are masterpieces by two vastly different luminaries of Italian art. Carlo Scarpa designed the Tomba Brion cemetery in 1968 – his last, and some say best, work. Nearby, Canova’s gallery of plaster casts displays the romantically inspired figures by the neoclassical sculptor.

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7.
Villa Feltrinelli and Lefay Garda Resort & Spa
(A two-hour and 30-minute drive)

D H Lawrence called Garda “one of the most beautiful places on Earth” and the 19th-century Villa Feltrinelli is perhaps Italy’s most tranquil and charming location. Close by, Lefay Garda is a great spa in which to unwind.

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8.
Vigne di San Pietro
(One hour 20 minutes away by car)

Veneto is wine country. A greater share of Italy’s grapes are grown here than in any other region. Pencil in a few niche vineyards to explore what’s most distinctive about the producers here and start with Venissa, on the Mazzorbo island of Venice, where the Michelin-starred restaurant serves fish and vegetables surrounded by its vineyards. Further afield, the Vigne di San Pietro grows some of Veneto’s best natural wine near Lake Garda.