Issues

Kone: The Finnish lift company moving two billion people a day

“We talk about thinking outside the shaft,” says Jussi Herlin, vice-chair of Finnish lift-engineering firm Kone’s board of directors. He is the fifth genaration of his family to help steer the company; his father, Antti Herlin, is chairman of the board and former long-time CEO. “We build lifts and maintain them – but our real job is designing how people move through built environments,” says Jussi.

Founded in Helsinki in 1910, Kone now operates in almost 70 countries and employs more than 60,000 staff. Its products move a staggering two billion people every day. When Monocle visits Kone’s high-rise headquarters in Espoo to meet 41-year-old Herlin (pictured), we’re told that he is waiting for us on one of the building’s upper floors. So we take one of the company’s signature lifts, which glides silently up 16 storeys and politely pings before its doors slide open. Beyond the HQ’s plate-glass windows are sweeping views of the Baltic Sea and Finland’s coastal archipelago.

Herlin’s great-great-grandfather bought Kone more than 100 years ago, when it was just getting started in the business of lifts. The Herlin family, one of northern Europe’s wealthiest dynasties, has been associated with Kone ever since, both for being its biggest backer and for running the firm for most of its history. The company, which has an annual turnover of about €11bn, manufactures and services lifts, escalators and automatic doors, and prides itself on being a Finnish export. It has continued to service Ukraine’s lifts in metro stations, hospitals and residential buildings throughout the country’s war with Russia. “Functioning lifts are essential infrastructure, especially when cities are under stress,” says Herlin.

The increasing digitisation of how buildings operate is Kone’s next frontier and the firm is hoping to rise to the challenge. Its elevators now connect to the cloud and communicate in real-time with building systems, maintenance teams and, increasingly, with users themselves, to help anticipate maintenance needs, shorten wait times or even turn on the air-conditioning in your office as you enter the building. Sensors monitor everything from vibration and temperature to acceleration and door cycles to ensure smooth travel and to optimise energy use.

These inputs help predict breakdowns and optimise performance. “We can see how a lift behaves over time,” says Jussi. “We use AI to predict issues before they happen and make maintenance proactive. This improves reliability and reduces downtime.” Kone has also opened up its systems to third-party developers, allowing smartphones, delivery robots and more to interact with its lifts.

Elevators are often described as the world’s safest form of public transport. Kone’s business has hinged on providing reliability at scale. Its systems operate in the background of daily life, helping billions of people to get around without thinking twice. But the company’s ambition goes beyond just being dependable behind the scenes. “Our one clear aim is to shape the future of cities,” says Antti Herlin. “We know cities and have enabled them to grow taller, more energy efficient and more accessible for more than a century.”

According to UN projections, by 2050 about two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban environments. Kone sees plenty of opportunity in helping this mass of people to go about their lives smoothly. One of the firm’s innovative products is Office Flow, which offers touch-free access through turnstiles, mobile elevator calls (allowing users to summon and control lifts using a smartphone app) and real-time wayfinding. Meanwhile, Kone’s flagship DX Class elevators feature built-in connectivity, through which third parties can connect its elevators to the likes of service robots, accessibility guidance systems and other advanced people flow solutions. In mass transit, Kone is piloting digital modelling software in metro stations in Helsinki, blending sensor data from escalators and corridors to model crowd patterns. This works to prevent bottlenecks and improve commuter experience at peak hours. “AI is revolutionising urban infrastructure and services,” says Antti Herlin. “We are constantly looking at how we can add technology to what we sell and our ways of working.”

In addition to Kone’s 3,000-plus patents, Herlin points to milestones such as the development of the “machine room-less” elevator in 1996 as evidence of Kone’s ability to lead, not just follow.. One of its latest innovations is Ultrarope, a carbon-fibre hoisting solution that reduces the weight of elevators and allows them to travel further using less power. Another example is energy recovery, in which lifts are equipped with regenerative drive technology, which can recover up to 40 per cent of power used and put it back into the building’s electrical grid.

As cities become more vertical and digital, the way that people move within them is becoming increasingly important – and complex. Kone’s answer is to build tools that are elegant, intuitive and all but invisible. Its products seek to make movement feel seamless, whether you’re stepping into a metro station, navigating an airport or returning home at the end of the day. “That we move two billion people per day is not just an abstract statistic,” says Jussi. “It’s a human reality. And our job is to make every one of those journeys feel effortless.”

The unmissable films, exhibitions, books and music for September 2025

Art

Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010
The National Art Center, Tokyo
If 1980s Japan looked like a vision of the future from afar, the view was markedly different on the ground. While the technology boom brought financial stability, globalisation shook things up creatively. Here, works by more than 50 artists and collectives wrestle with these contradictions.
‘Prism of the Real’ runs from 3 September to 8 December

Kerry James Marshall: The Histories
Royal Academy of Arts, London
US artist Kerry James Marshall’s striking, large-scale paintings co-opt the visual language of white Europeans such as Seurat and Manet to tell the stories of black history. This exhibition of 11 bodies of works – more than 70 pieces in total, including eight new and unseen depictions of the African slave trade – is his largest showing in Europe to date.
‘The Histories’ runs from 20 September to 18 January 2026

Film

The Long Walk
Francis Lawrence
Having directed four of the five films in The Hunger Games series, Francis Lawrence takes on another dystopia. In this Stephen King adaptation starring Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson and Ben Wang, 100 boys must walk until only one remains. If they stop or slow down, they will be executed. It’s surprising that this wretched tale – one of King’s first novels – took so long to reach the screen but it arrives in an era when narratives about human cruelty feel more plausible than ever.
‘The Long Walk’ is released on 12 September

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
Rob Reiner
Legacy sequels often suffer from a hollow self-mythology that drowns out the actual joke but the first Spinal Tap already introduced us to a band convinced of its own hype. The original cast returns to play a group that’s well past its prime. Cameos from real rock royalty blur the mockumentary line but the film understands that ridicule and reverence have always lived side by side in rock’n’roll.
‘Spinal Tap II’ is released on 12 September

The Glassworker
Usman Riaz
Pakistan’s first hand-drawn animated feature is an exquisitely crafted film that balances the intimate and the political. An artisan’s son and a colonel’s daughter meet across a widening gulf of class and ideology that threatens to tear both their relationship and their country apart. The film wears its Studio Ghibli influence on it sleeve but its message feels distinctly relevant.
‘The Glassworker’ is released on 19 September

Books

The Quiet Ear
Raymond Antrobus
Poet Raymond Antrobus long struggled with shame and anger while trying to find a language to fully express his experience of deafness. In The Quiet Ear, he intertwines his story with those of deaf cultural figures whom he discovered in adulthood. Part memoir and part cultural history, it is at times a difficult read but it’s an essential work that will hopefully help to shift attitudes to deafness.
‘The Quiet Ear’ is published on 28 August

Amity
Nathan Harris
Slavery in the US might have officially ended following the civil war but Nathan Harris’s second novel, set in the late 1860s, offers a glimpse of a society that still wanted black Americans in bondage. Harris writes with a sparseness and beauty that mirror the landscape of Mexico, where servant Coleman searches for his sister June, who has run away from their old master, Mr Harper, in pursuit of a better life.
‘Amity’ is published on 2 September

Cursed Daughters
Oyinkan Braithwaite
The irresistibly titled My Sister, the Serial Killer launched Nigerian-British novelist Oyinkan Braithwaite onto the literary scene in 2019. Her follow-up, Cursed Daughters, was worth the long wait. It tells the story of Eniiyi, the latest member of her family living under a curse that condemns daughters to heartbreak. When she falls in love, it’s time for her to finally stop ignoring the gloomy legend.
‘Cursed Daughters’ is published on 25 September

TV

The Girlfriend
Amazon Prime Video
In The Girlfriend, Robin Wright plays a mother with an unhealthy interest in her son’s romantic life. When a beautiful young woman (House of the Dragon’s Olivia Cooke) arrives on the scene to steal her son’s heart and potentially ruin his life, she becomes jealous and suspicious. There’s plenty of salacious double-crossing in this sleazy, erotic thriller with deplorable yet sexy characters.
‘The Girlfriend’ is released on 10 September

Black Rabbit
Netflix
This New York-set show stars Jude Law as a restaurateur and owner of the eponymous Black Rabbit, who finds his meticulously organised life turned upside down when his chaotic brother (Jason Bateman) reappears, wanting to be let back into the family business. After financial difficulties come knocking, the siblings are forced to consort with the criminal underworld, with resentment and bitterness building with every passing hour.
‘Black Rabbit’ is released on 18 September

Task
Sky/HBO
Still thinking about the moody and captivating 2021 hit Mare of Easttown? Its creator, Brad Ingelsby, is back with another procedural thriller, this time set in Philadelphia. It stars Mark Ruffalo as an FBI agent and former priest who is tracking a thief whose motives are far more complicated than greed alone. Tragedy hangs in the air as the story unfolds, blurring the line between right and wrong.
‘Task’ is released in September

Photography

New Photography 2025: Lines of Belonging
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Marking 40 years since the first New Photography exhibition was held at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, this anniversary edition features artists from four cities, including Johannesburg and New Orleans. The images from Mexico City could prove to be the most arresting, thanks to Sandra Blow’s unflinching portrayals of the LGBTQ+ community and Tania Franco Klein’s cinematic vignettes. And make sure that you don’t miss Nepalese visual artist and curator Sheelasha Rajbhandari’s artfully embroidered scenes from Kathmandu.
‘New Photography 2025’ runs from 14 September to 17 January 2026

Music

Myd
Mydnight
French DJ, producer and singer Myd has brought together a sparkling cast of collaborators for this dancefloor-ready album. Channel Tres shines on “All That Glitters Is Not Gold”, while Calcutta features on the gentler “9am”. “Song for You” is an Ibiza anthem in the making. Mydnight was informed by Myd’s recent globetrotting and we’re sure that the samba beats on “So High” were inspired by a long night out somewhere sweaty.
‘Mydnight’ is released on 29 August

Saint Etienne
International
Sad news for fans of English trio Saint Etienne: the group’s 13th album will be its last. Unlike The Night, the band’s previous release, International is a poppy electronic album produced by synth-lover Tim Powell (formerly of Xenomania). The record is full of soaring highs and emotive lows with lively early-1990s sounds on tracks such as “Brand New Me” and a tearjerker of a closer, “Last Time”.
‘International’ is released on 5 September

Parcels
Loved
Berlin-based Australian band Parcels is back with another happy-go-lucky album full of scintillating grooves. The euphoric “Yougotmefeeling” is an eminently danceable delight. The languid “Summerinlove” (yes, all the tracks are written this way) is another highlight. Parcel’s sunny sounds have attracted many fans, who will be flocking to see them on tour in Europe and North America this autumn.
‘Loved’ is released on 12 September

Images:
Netflix, Peter Kramer/HBO, Christopher Raphael/Prime, Murray Close/Lionsgate, Kerry James Marshall/ Patrick L Pyszka, Tania Franco Klein

Isaia: The Italian tailor bringing Neapolitan style to the world

“I knocked on so many doors in the US without much luck but now it’s our most important market,” says Gianluca Isaia, the CEO of Neapolitan tailoring company Isaia. Founded as a fabric shop by his grandfather, Enrico, in the 1920s, the business quickly evolved into a bespoke tailoring workshop and was supplying suits across Italy by the 1960s. Gianluca began as a tailor’s apprentice in his grandfather’s enterprise before moving to sales. He took over in the 1990s, redirecting the company towards a largely global clientele.

Under Isaia’s watch, the label has established a network of boutiques across the US, with outposts in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Palm Beach, Florida. Italy now makes up just 10 per cent of the business, which saw €90m in revenues last year. And Isaia is only getting started. More shops in Washington, Zürich and Paris are planned, each designed to offer a taste of the brand’s Neapolitan spirit.

Its flagships usually feature a bar and piano in the same coral hue as the brand’s logo, turning the shop floor into a space where customers can order a bespoke suit (which comes with a personalised label and a hanger featuring the client’s name), socialise and enjoy an aperitivo. “Naples has something that sparks desire – a quality that can’t be copied,” says Isaia, who is dressed in a double-breasted blazer with hand-stitched shoulders, his sandals peeking out beneath matching trousers.

In recent years there has been a renewed appreciation of Neapolitan tailoring, which is known for louche silhouettes and soft shoulders. Parisian heritage houses, such as Balenciaga, have offered interpretations of the wearer-friendly tailoring of the Neapolitan jacket. Isaia has naturally doubled down on its signatures, waving the flag for its home city’s style sensibilities and venturing into new categories to offer a full “Made in Naples” look.

The brand’s recent success includes a highly anticipated womenswear collection. The line debuted during the January edition of Milan Fashion Week with a runway show, which was held inside the historic Circolo Filologico Milanese and received much praise for making Neapolitan wardrobe staples available to a female audience. Relaxed herringbone suits, double-cashmere coats and liquid-silk shirts made their way down the runway, signalling the brand’s ambitions to carve a space for itself in the competitive world of women’s fashion. Isaia’s commitment to “Made in Naples” quality remains as strong as ever. While many labels outsource production, it has invested in a mill in the Piedmontese textile hub of Biella and begun producing more exclusive fabrics. The factory at the company’s headquarters employs more than 300 artisans who oversee the production of every ready-to-wear category. Suits, knits, button-down shirts, denim, ties and leather goods are all manufactured in-house.

On the factory floor, the team wears matching, aubergine-coloured T-shirts embroidered with the brand’s signature coral branch: a symbol of luck in Naples. The whirr of sewing machines is the soundtrack to artisans hand-sewing pockets and cutting out the silk shapes of ties. Around a table, women stitch buttonholes, each requiring 10 minutes of concentration. Isaia employs 60 embroiderers. “You can only find this level of detail in the south of Italy,” says Giuseppe Crispo, Isaia’s production manager, pointing to the soft shoulders and slanted barchetta pockets that distinguish Neapolitan jackets from other varieties. “This world is disappearing.”

This is why the company has set up a new tailoring school and apprenticeship scheme that will help to secure its future, as well as the region’s reputation as a leading player in the fashion industry. “Naples’ tailors exalt the shape of the person wearing their jackets and aren’t afraid of bright colours,” says menswear commentator Fabio Attanasio. “Like a vintage watch or car, the Neapolitan jacket offers a certain unmatched pleasure.”
isaia.it

The Monocle Concierge: Where to eat, shop and stroll in Kowloon

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s complete city guide to Hong Kong

Digital decency: 10 rules for better online behaviour

Technology is everywhere, but our acceptance of its ubiquity is taking a toll: on our health, wellbeing and the quality of our conversations. Did digital media kill our discourse, or did we just let it? Do we need to spend every minute glued to a screen, barking down the line or listening to tinny gibberish on a phone speaker? Of course not, and the tech-peddlers aren’t exactly pinning us down and forcing us to do so either. So perhaps it’s time we all sought a better balance ourselves. 

With this in mind, I’ve whipped together a manifesto for a more dignified relationship with all things digital, from occasionally leaving our devices behind to being a little kinder and more cautious online. So, pop your phone on silent, take out your earbuds, ignore your emails for a moment and read on for ten ideas about firming up the online social contract.

1.
Have some perspective.

Just because you have an opinion (about the news, your neighbour’s haircut or the warranty of the lawnmower you just bought), it doesn’t mean you should broadcast it to the world. So much of what’s smeared online to shame people and companies could be as easily solved with a friendly note, a jot of patience or a deep breath and a tap on the delete key.

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2.
Have heart.

So you’re having your say – great. But did the person that you’re pursuing or decrying deserve the condemnation? Are they the problem or someone who can solve it? Would you have been so thoroughly and unsparingly rude in person? What if the person you’re haranguing knew your name and was standing in front of you? The anonymity of the internet tends to make interactions harsher at a moment in history when a little give and take is much more useful.

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3.
Forgive and forget.

OK, so whoever you were taking a pop at did deserve it after all. But will pursuing a point publicly prove much? Do you feel better? Remember that it’s a human on the receiving end of your indignation: often a college-fresh social media manager, a naïve young girl or boy, or just someone doing their best to wade through the bilge and ire of below-the-belt comments and trolling. Think twice and give people the benefit of the doubt.

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4.
Have some humility.

Those white lies once reserved for CVs or after a third glass of wine have seeped onto websites, posts and online proclamations. Maybe you are a Productivity Jedi or an Online Experience Gatherer – and here’s a photo of you swimming in a friend’s pool necking free champagne… Social media has inflated our sense of self but it’s possible that the world isn’t all that impressed.

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5.
Don’t overshare, part one.

Secrecy is all too scarce a resource. Today, despite what most people tell you, you’re a person not a brand. Get a good night’s sleep and switch off now and again. No one wants to see too much – of you, your home, those dark unexcavated, barely formed opinions that you’re blurting out at the same time as you’re committing them to the public record. Keep a little mystery, have a little dignity, maintain some allure.

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6.
Watch your tone.

Emails are oddly ambiguous ways to communicate and passive-aggressive behaviour is quickly amplified if you don’t check yourself. Take special pains to be clear and pleasant. No excuses, no-one’s too busy for manners and a little decency can go a long way – we’d all feel less stressed if the people on the other end of the keyboard were more positive, polite and kind.

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7.
Don’t overshare, part two.

Fewer emails will make everyone happier. Everyone’s busy – even more so as our work pursues us into our homes and leisure time. When it comes to work, we all need to think more carefully and ask, “Does that last missive need sending?” The office might be paperless but it hasn’t gone away; it has morphed into vast energy-intensive servers packed with useless data, nowhere emails and round-robins that were never opened. Be sparing.

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8.
Be humane.

You’re talking through a phone not to one. It’s too easy to forget the human at the other end. Instant messaging is excellent for efficiency but it takes more than a phone in every pocket to overcome our hardwired human (and hard-to-emulate-online) sense of trust and camaraderie. Don’t cut and paste a response; say something and mean it. Also, marketeers and mass emailers, there’s nothing less flattering than an automated reply or, worse, a cookie-cutter response with the wrong name at the top.

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9.
Ask permission.

Not everyone wants to be in your home movie, your advert, your brand launch, your family video-call quiz, your panoramic phone shot or your selfie. Spare a thought for the passerby who didn’t consent to star in your self-made, one-person psychodrama. Take pictures and capture the important moments, by all means – but leave others out of it unless they have agreed to participate.

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10.
Seek out both sides of the argument.

The internet doesn’t do nuance but you can. Algorithms guide us to people who agree with us and our echo chambers become ever more entrenched to the point of polarity: we don’t recognise the people we disagree with or the common ground we share. That’s dangerous – and it’s up to us to solve it. You might not get a full concession to your opinions. The important thing is how you conduct yourself – and when you decide to walk away.

Monocle’s Quality of Life Survey 2025: The 10 most liveable cities in the world

10.
Tallinn
Best for start-ups
Estonia’s capital continues to attract entrepreneurs seeking Nordic-style living without the high price tag.

The Estonian capital is well known for its leafy streets, medieval architecture and raucous nightlife – but it’s increasingly gaining a reputation for its close-knit entrepreneurial network and world-leading digital infrastructure.This is aided by the fact that nearly everyone speaks English, rents are affordable and it’s a mere 10-minute drive from downtown to Tallinn airport, which has direct flights to 60 international destinations. Throw into the mix Europe’s highest number of unicorns per capita, a dense network of venture-capital firms and a steady pipeline of technology talent, and Monocle’s 2025 Best for Start-Ups award feels like a shoo-in.

“Estonia is particularly good for digital infrastructure,” says Martin Sahlen, who moved from New York to Tallinn to launch fintech business Alvin.ai. “It’s a very entrepreneurial country and there is less red tape.” He set up his company in the district of Telliskivi, the epicentre of Tallinn’s vibrant start-up scene, where co-working spaces such as Lift99 sit alongside excellent and affordable restaurants and bars, such as Pudel and Juniperium, and a growing number of museums and cultural venues, including Fotografiska.

Another draw for entrepreneurs is Estonia’s e-residency programme, through which non-nationals can open and manage an EU-based business entirely online, no Estonian address or presence required. Almost everything, from company registration to tax filings, is handled digitally, which means that the actual starting-up process can take just minutes. Taxes, meanwhile, are only applied when profits are distributed – a boon for early- stage reinvestment.

Yet Tallinn’s real draw is its people. “We are really like a community,” says Irina Tokareva, a hub administrator at Lift99. “All foreigners are friends from the first minute.” According to Tokareva, approachability defines the culture here. “You don’t need to book a call through two assistants,” she says. “You can just write to them and say, ‘Hey, I’m building this and I’d love to show it to you,’ and they’ll answer.”

This openness extends to the top of government. Like his predecessors, Estonia’s prime minister, Kristen Michal, has hosted round tables with start-up founders to better understand their needs. Public support is structured too: Startup Estonia, a government-backed initiative based in Ülemiste (another business zone that’s home to dozens of start-ups), plays a central role in connecting newcomers to networks, resources and funding. “If you look at the people who are building new start-ups, they often have backgrounds in multibillion-euro businesses such as Skype, Wise, Pipedrive and Bolt,” says Mirjam Kert of Startup Estonia. “Since 2010, more than €4.5bn has been invested in Estonian start-ups, 92 per cent of it from foreign investors.”

“I chose Estonia because it’s in the same time zone as Kyiv and it was really cheap compared to, say, Berlin or London or New York,” Ukrainian founder Alexander Storozhuk, who relocated his media-technology firm PRnews.io here, tells Monocle in his office at Porto Franco, looking out at the dozens of boats bobbing in Tallinn’s sunny harbour. Safety and quality of life were decisive factors too. “My eight-year-old daughter walks home alone from school and I’m always confident of her safety,” says Storozhuk. Between the agile public services, a highly international founder base and the Nordic-style liveability (minus the price tag), Tallinn punches well above its weight. For founders looking for speed, support and a city where big ideas travel fast, Estonia’s capital is a smart place to start.

9.
Tokyo
Best for cleanliness
Tokyo’s spruce streets and responsible citizens set the benchmark.

For a city of 10 million people – and that’s just the 23 central wards – Tokyo is bafflingly clean. (The population balloons to 44 million if you take in the greater Tokyo area.) To understand why, look at how the Japanese capital operates in the morning. Rubbish vans trundle along residential streets, with binmen jogging alongside their vehicle as they grab bags of meticulously separated household refuse. Meanwhile, an army of kanrinin, the caretakers who look after Tokyo’s apartment blocks, mop entrances and put out rubbish. Shopkeepers and café owners spruce up the area in front of their establishments, picking up any stray litter and cigarette ends (banning street smoking has improved that situation no end).

Volunteers are also out in force. In fashionable Omotesando, a band of hairstylists from some of the dozens of salons in the neighbourhood are in green bibs, picking up litter before opening time. Over by Shibuya station, another group of volunteer helpers – schoolchildren and pensioners – are tackling the detritus on one of the world’s busiest pedestrian crossings.

The lack of street bins is no surprise to anyone who lives here (most disappeared after the deadly sarin gas attack in 1995) and people expect to have to look after their own litter. The sticking point has come with the arrival of unprecedented numbers of tourists who are not necessarily on the same page garbage-wise. It’s not that visitors are looking to dump rubbish but they’re often unsure what to do with their plastic cups and bottles. Overflowing bins are never a good look so refuse-flattening smart bins are being introduced to busier streets and tourist sites.

Public toilets have had a major upgrade in Shibuya with the Tokyo Toilet project, in which 16 creators (including architectural A-listers such as Tadao Ando and streetwear legend Nigo) designed public conveniences that not only look good but come equipped with Toto Washlets and are kept spotlessly clean by a team of people who wear natty boilersuits (as seen in Wim Wenders’ film Perfect Days). Architect Kengo Kuma designed one comprising five wooden huts in Shoto Park. He called it a “public toilet village that is open, breezy and easy to pass through”. The project’s organisers consider clean, well-lit, fully accessible public toilets essential to any city and even “a symbol of Japan’s world-renowned hospitality culture”.

As in every city, there’s graffiti in Tokyo (though not in the same quantities as elsewhere). Clean & Art, a group led by artist Ken Sobajima, is on a mission to eradicate the blight. Passers-by applaud Sobajima and his team as they paint over unwanted scrawls and restore walls. “I used to think that nobody cared,” he says. “But once I talked to people, I discovered that everyone was bothered by it.”

As with most aspects of daily life in Japan, there are deeper philosophical reasons for this preoccupation with spotlessness. Shinto, Japan’s native religion, demarcates clean and unclean spaces, a division that affects everything from the sumo ring to the home. Children absorb this distinction between clean “inside” and unclean “outside” early.

All of this isn’t to say that there’s no rubbish in Tokyo but, overall, it’s much tidier than other cities of a comparable size. Tokyo spends a fortune on keeping things presentable. The Clean Authority of Tokyo’s waste management budget for the central wards is ¥105bn (€640m) this year, of which ¥83bn (€507m) is dedicated to cleaning. But the secret to the city’s sparkle is that it’s not simply the work of city employees: it’s a collective job.

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Tokyo

8.
Lisbon
Best for safe streets
Crime rates continue to fall in this sunny metropolis by the sea.

Speak to one of the hundreds of thousands of Brazilians who call Lisbon home – the largest immigrant community in Portugal – and safety will almost certainly emerge as one of the reasons for their move. In this respect, Lisbon has become the gold standard for many. Europeans and Americans who have recently flocked to the city also cite security as an important factor in staying. “I can walk down any street at any time without having to look behind my back,” says George Dellinger, who moved here from New York in 2022. “I don’t feel vulnerable. There’s a sense that people look out for each other.”

Lisbon has evolved over the past decade from a somewhat sleepy town into a dynamic European capital and it has impressively done so without compromising on the safety of its residents. Crime in the capital is consistently low compared to other European cities; Portugal’s latest annual homeland security report indicates that in 2024 there was the steepest drop in the crime rate (excluding the anomalous pandemic years) in more than 10 years: a fall of 7.6 per cent in Lisbon’s metropolitan area. It also points to a 1.8 per cent decrease in violent crime, with even bigger drops in the city proper.

That said, statistics don’t always tell the full story. Safety is also a collective sentiment and, recently, a few widely publicised violent incidents have rattled some sectors of society and inflamed political rhetoric. Lisbon’s mayor, Carlos Moedas, has acknowledged the public’s unease and called on the government for increased policing in the city.

But, as ever in Lisbon, a lot of emphasis has been placed on community policing, a preventive and participative approach that has garnered attention from across the globe. In contrast to the stock response of cities faced with security issues – more CCTV or increasingly heavy-handed policing – Lisbon invests in more integrated forms of safety that put trust and a human presence at their centre. Police officers are assigned to neighbourhoods for the long term, fostering familiarity with citizens and partnerships with neighbourhood associations and social services. The constant dialogue between these groups means that the police are better equipped to address problems as they arise and deal sensitively with issues around drug use or homelessness through dialogue.

Like any city shaped by tourism, Lisbon has pockets where petty theft is common, especially in the historic downtown areas. But when it comes to the kind of ambient, everyday safety that allows one to move through public space without thinking too much about it, Lisbon continues to offer a rare kind of freedom. An intuitive way to grasp this is by noticing how schoolchildren make their way through the city. They’re often unaccompanied, navigating public transport and streets with an ease that recalls a different era. For parents it’s a powerful indicator. “The number of times I’ve left my purse on the pram while running after my boy in the park… I would never think of doing that in London,” says Perrine Velge, who moved from the UK capital to Lisbon in 2020.

Another indicator can be seen when going out at night. Like other Mediterranean cities, Lisbon has a late-night culture that is dominated not by heavy-drinking young people but a relaxed mix of ages. Eating out, strolling home or sharing a glass of chilled white port in a neighbourhood bar remain part of everyday life, unmarred by disorder. Feeling physically safe in some Western cities is no longer taken for granted, if indeed it ever was. Lisbon is a rare outlier.

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Lisbon

7.
Mexico City
Best for conviviality
Mexico City is attracting those seeking quality over quantity.

For many people in Mexico City, the weekend officially kicks off at about 14.00 on a Friday. In the leafy neighbourhoods of Condesa and Roma, streetside cafés and restaurants fill with residents and visitors alike, seated at tables spilling onto the pavements. Food has always been an important part of Mexican culture and people here have access to a good bite no matter their budget, whether it’s tacos from a street vendor or silver service. A long lunch is more than just eating: it’s an opportunity to savour time with friends and family, embracing the tradition of sobremesa – an unhurried meal in which diners linger around the table for hours.

Mexico City’s laid-back attitude, which extends far beyond the dining table and into everyday life, is luring many from afar. The city’s population grew by 600,000 between 2019 and 2023 – much of that influx from the US and Canada, countries to where Mexicans have traditionally emigrated. It’s proof that the city’s way of life is catching on. “The people here value quality of life above many things,” says Adolfo López-Serrano, a resident and founder of communications company Base Agency.

Despite being one of the biggest and most hectic cities in Latin America, many neighbourhoods here, such as Condesa and Coyoacán, offer a small-town feel, with inhabitants waking to the sound of birdsong. “The urban fabric is very nice and there’s also great architecture,” says Rodrigo Rivero Borrell, founder of property developer Reurbano. He notes that neighbourhoods around the Paseo de la Reforma were developed consciously, with wide avenues.

“The city is designed for movement, with walkable streets and good public transportation in the central areas,” says López-Serrano. There are almost 400km of bike lanes, which is remarkable for Latin America, and the Metro, with 12 lines covering more than 226km, is the second largest on the continent. The city also has one of the best-connected airports in the region, with direct flights to more than 100 destinations, including London, Los Angeles, Madrid, New York, São Paulo and Tokyo.

Outsiders tend to find Mexico’s capital very inviting. “Being a Latin society, it’s a welcoming place,” says Rivero Borrell. “People want to engage.” It’s also ideal for those seeking to build a business. López-Serrano describes it as “a city where chaos and order happen at the same time, creating the perfect playground for creatives and entrepreneurs”. He adds that in Mexico City, “You can be scrappy and resourceful, and push boundaries. Yet the standards for design, culture and innovation are remarkably high.”

Certain neighbourhoods are astonishingly green. In an effort to improve air quality and mitigate the effects of climate change, more than 44.2 million trees, shrubs and ground covers have been planted throughout the city since 2019, according to Mexico City’s environment ministry. “The central areas are well serviced in terms of parks and public spaces to maintain a healthy lifestyle,” says Rivero Borrell. Being outdoors is woven into city life and you’ll always find people walking their dogs, exercising or dancing salsa in one of the 244 parks or plazas here. There are few better ways to foster a sense of community.

Enjoy Monocle’s complete city guide to Mexico City here.

6.
Zürich
Best for mobility
The city that spawned its own transport model isn’t resting on its haunches.

In 2024, Verkehrsbetriebe Zürich (VBZ), the body that owns and operates Zürich’s transport network, recorded approximately 304 million annual passengers across its buses and trams – a 2.1 per cent increase on the previous year. For Switzerland’s largest city, which has spawned a set of much-imitated but never bettered mobility policies known collectively as the Zürich Model, it was further proof that superiority need not induce complacency. The most appealing cities reflect the best things about their nations (as most of this line-up can attest) but perhaps nowhere is that more in evidence than on Zürich’s transport network, which exudes a Swiss air of efficiency. “Where else do passengers greet you when they’re getting on and off?” asks Sinan Yigitler, a bus driver who moved to Zürich from Germany with his family. Could it be that a calm, clean and cheap transport experience makes passengers more cheerful?

An enduring symbol of Zürich is its tram network. Pale blue and white, these sleek road trains glide through leafy boulevards and along lakefront promenades, the doleful clang of their bells and the soft whoosh as they pass providing the city’s muted soundtrack. Since 2002, Zürich’s buses have run for 24 hours on weekends, ferrying home the stragglers from bars and clubs as the city settles into silence.The Zürich model grew out of a realisation on the part of the city’s government in the 1960s and 1970s that it had to offer public transport of a high-enough standard to tempt commuters out of their cars and so avoid gridlock on its streets (nearly 280,000 people commute into Zürich every day a number not far off the city’s population of 360,000).Today, 327 intersections are equipped with sensors that detect approaching vehicles and adjust signals to prioritise the transit of trams and buses over cars.

But the city’s ambitions go well beyond trams and buses. The Zürich Model places great value on modal split, meaning that all facets of the network must be constantly improved to ensure the vitality of the whole. Under the government’s 2030 bike plan, the number of cycle lanes and cyclist-first traffic lights are due to be expanded, while its 2040 mobility strategy focuses on connecting the fast-growing northern and western suburbs to the rest of the city. Projects such as the Tramtangente Nord, a planned orbital tram line that binds outer districts without passing through the city centre, aims to improve capacity where it’s needed most.

“We need to redistribute street space to give more room to pedestrians and cyclists,” says Simone Brander, the head of Zürich’s civil engineering and mobility department. This ethos is deeply felt by the people who operate the system too. “It’s an important part of my life and the people here are like my second family,” says Astro Ajvazi, a VBZ instructor who trains the next generation of tram operators.

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Zürich

5.
Vienna
Best for housing
The Austrian capital’s architecture and social housing stock are the envy of the world.

In October 1930, Vienna’s socialist mayor, Karl Seitz, gave a speech at the opening of a new housing block, the Karl-Marx-Hof. “When we are no longer here, these stones will speak for us,” he said. Today the building that he was inaugurating is probably the best known of Vienna’s Gemeindebauten, social housing that has become emblematic of the city’s high quality of life. Nearly a century on, some 6,000 Gemeindebau flats are still built every year, in a continent where many cities have given up on the principle of social housing. The new ones are less monumental than their forebears but the tradition of naming them after eminent public figures remains. Karl-Seitz-Hof opened in 1931.

Housing authorities have also stuck to the principle of distributing council flats across all districts to prevent economic segregation. Another key plank of urban cohesion is the comparatively generous income cap for applicants: €59,320 a year for a single person and €88,400 for a couple at the time of writing. The upshot is that more than half of Vienna’s two million residents live in some form of subsidised housing, whether in Gemeindebauten or state-supported co-operatives. One of the better-known examples of the latter is the sprawling Alterlaa complex (pictured) in the city’s south, home to about 10,000 people and an architectural pilgrimage site for many visitors to the Austrian capital.

Freelance journalist Susanne Jäger has lived in her 43 sq m council flat in the heart of old Vienna since 2014. She also spent part of her childhood in municipal housing. “The Gemeindebau programme has always been part of my life,” she tells Monocle in her Fischerstiege apartment, which is across the road from Vienna’s old city hall. On the ground floor is an office of the Social Democrats – the party of Seitz and the current mayor, Michael Ludwig – alongside a bookshop and an after-school care centre for residents. Jäger hadn’t planned to stay long but the low rent – about €370 a month without utilities a decade ago, now €420 – persuaded her otherwise. “I was never offered a better deal,” she says. She is also struck by the city’s efforts to support tenants who are in difficulty. In her hallway, a poster from city hall reassures residents that they won’t be left in the lurch if they fall behind on payments. “Vienna is the only landlord that tries to keep you in rather than kick you out,” says Jäger.

Of course, social housing is only one strand of Vienna’s mixed housing stock. Roughly a third of the population lives in privately rented flats, with one in five of those in buildings constructed before 1945 – the so-called Altbauten (“old builds”). Most are solidly built, with thick walls, high ceilings, grand tiled entrances and fabulous façades (especially the Jugendstil buildings from the 1890s and 1900s). Balconies or terraces are rarer but there’s often a large courtyard, or Hof, and sometimes a private back garden. The Altbauten are highly sought after, with prices per square metre ranging from about €6,200 in the eighth district to €19,000 in the first. Rents, however, are far more manageable, hovering between €14 and €20 per square metre for both old and new.

Vienna is still very much a city of renters and their rights are staunchly defended, especially in older properties. Homeownership is fairly modest compared to other European capitals, accounting for less than 20 per cent of the population – though that might soon change. Though construction has slowed somewhat, attractive new developments are springing up citywide: in the Nordbahnviertel, near the Danube, on the site of an old railway station, and in Aspern Seestadt on the northeastern fringe. The latter is one of Europe’s largest urban development schemes. In a city where housing is treated as a right rather than an asset, these particular Neuebauten attract less local ire than they might elsewhere.

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Vienna

4.
Barcelona
Best for urban greening
The Catalan capital is proactive about enacting radical policies and its approach to the environment is achieving solid results.

After three years of drought, the return of rain to Barcelona this spring was more than just a meteorological relief: it marked a moment of renewal for a city that’s doing more than most to stay in step with nature. The Spanish phrase “En abril, aguas mil” (“In April, a thousand rains”) was uttered with smiles, as residents joked about living in London or Paris. And when the sun came back out, Barcelona looked greener than ever, in more ways than one.

Faced with issues such as increasingly regular water shortages, pollution and population density, the city adopted a strategy to green its streets and public spaces. The flagship Superilles (Superblocks) initiative – first proposed by environmental researcher Salvador Rueda and trialled by city hall in 1993 – has rethought car-dominated intersections in favour of people-first places lined with trees, shaded areas and space for community life to blossom.

On a recent morning, the intersection of Girona and Consell de Cent streets, now a bustling square, was busy with people chatting on benches, tourists sipping coffee on the terrace of Bar Betlem and older folks pausing for respite from the sun under a plane tree. In Barcelona, life happens on the street. If you offer residents space to socialise, they’ll use it. The shift away from cars brought less visible but real benefits, including a 22 per cent reduction in co2 emissions, preventing hundreds of deaths each year. Small businesses on newly pedestrianised streets also had an increase in footfall as people chose to walk these greener, cooler, calmer routes. Bird life has benefited too. There are now more than 80 species nesting across city parks.

Alongside the broader Pla Natura scheme for planting is the new Parc de les Glòries, a 4.3-hectare green space with broad promenades and more than 9,000 sq m of vegetation. The redevelopment brought swaths of land into community use, planted more than 1,000 trees and stitched together a new green corridor in the heart of the city. But the strength of Barcelona’s approach is in smaller, more targeted solutions. Participatory digital tools for citizen feedback, such as Decidim, have helped residents to have a bigger voice in shaping their city. “Barcelona also shows how micro-greening solutions, such as pocket parks and green roofs, can offer access to nature even in compact areas,” says Amalia Calderón Argelich, a post-doctoral researcher at the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability. “Inclusive design practices – such as improved lighting, accessibility and safe park layouts – are adaptable models for dense cities.”

Liveability is the aspiration but, as in many great cities, there is a tension between plans and outcomes. In the Poblenou neighbourhood, where the 22@ project transformed an industrial zone into a gleaming district of green avenues and modern infrastructure, property prices have soared by almost €3,000 per square metre in just 10 years. With this shift has come accusations of gentrification with the loss of the neighbourhood’s former identity and the displacement of its residents. “Though greening plans are ambitious, gaps persist,” says Calderón Argelich. Gentrification and “touristification” remain hot topics as every new park can trigger a rise in house prices. Without some protective policies and civic oversight, says Calderón Argelich, well-meaning projects risk undermining the equity that they aim to promote. “Resilience depends on protecting these frameworks from political volatility.”

3.
Athens
Best for nightlife
The Greek capital is never boring and one of Europe’s few truly 24-hour cities.

More than 15 years since a debilitating debt crisis, the Greek capital has become the discerning night owl’s stamping ground. The country’s economy grew by 2.3 per cent in 2024, which, while not exactly stratospheric, is enough to elicit envious glances from its Western and Northern European counterparts. Athenians now speak of those dark days of high inflation and unemployment as being in the past and, in hindsight at least, it seems that this ancient city was able to turn adversity into opportunity, kick-starting a cultural renaissance that has transformed abandoned spaces and post-industrial areas into some of Europe’s most exciting nightlife spots.

At 02.00 on a Friday night, people fill Menaichmou Street in the buzzy Neos Kosmos neighbourhood, glasses in hand. Their laughter and chatter compete with a wall of sound emanating from the street’s many establishments, including natural wine bar Epta Martyres and spritzeria Bar Amore. It’s the same story on Meandrou Street in Ilisia, where Junior Does Wine rubs shoulders with Quinn’s; and Vissis Street, once known only for its hardware shops, which is now home to cocktail hub Kennedy among other excellent bars. All typify the way that an infusion of young, creative people from across the globe has invigorated a once slightly sleepy and rundown city. “In the summer, everyone spills out onto the street,” says Eleni Georgiou, a young jewellery designer. “The atmosphere is lively yet laidback. It’s like the whole city becomes one big open-air gathering.”

A relaxed attitude towards licensing laws might be assumed as a given in this part of the world but Athens’ laissez-faire approach is born more of political than geographical circumstances. After the fall of Greece’s military junta in 1974, a country that had been denied individual freedoms was fierce about protecting its hard-won rights.Twenty years later, in 1994, a stern-faced minister for public order, Stelios Papathemelis, introduced a law mandating nightclubs to close at 02.00 to rein-in a perceived air of permissiveness. Contravention of the “Papathemelis Law”, as it came to be known, became a badge of honour in Athens and today clubs, especially in areas such as Exarchia, stay open as long as there are people inside having fun.

A post-pandemic boom in tourism has transformed Athens from a stop-off en route to the islands into a destination city. In 2024, 7.9 million people visited the Greek capital, a 12 per cent increase on the year before. Many of these came to see the Acropolis but others were here to experience a place that is being explicitly marketed as a 24-hour city. The Athens Metro – which is being significantly expanded with the construction of the new Line 4 – runs from 05.00 until 02.00 on weekends. Anyone looking to travel between 02.00 and 05.00 will find that taxis are both cheap and plentiful.

Though an influx of affluent foreigners has led to a rise in prices, especially in the property market, Athens remains affordable compared to other European cities – a glass of wine costs, on average, less than €6. Starting a meal at 22.00 is not unusual for Greeks, especially during the hot summer months, and when you eat late, you drink, dance and go to bed late too. It’s not just the hardcore ravers who leave the clubs at 07.00 in July. Those coming out blinking into the dawn light might take a trip to Metaxourgeio for a restorative spanakopita (spinach pie) or gyro, while, for the more adventurous, there’s always the short metro ride to the beach.

Whereas many other cities, especially in Europe, have been on a trajectory of diminishing nightlife returns over the past 10 years, Athens is dancing to a different tune. As Nena Dimitriou, writer of the weekly “Café-Bar” nightlife column in the Athenian daily Kathimerini puts it, “No one is ever bored in Athens.”

Click here to enjoy the full Monocle city guide to Athens

2.
Madrid
Best for health
A favourable work/life balance and delicious food are a winning formula in the Spanish capital.

On a sunny Friday morning in late May, Madrileños of all ages roam the counters at Mercado de la Paz, browsing fresh fish caught that morning, glowing red tomatoes and cheese from all four corners of the country. This Salamanca institution is one of dozens of mercados in the Spanish capital – food markets found in almost every neighbourhood that hint at why Madrid’s citizens are such a healthy bunch. The city has the highest life expectancy (86.1 years) of any metropolis in Europe.

These figures are down to a unique combination of assets – meteorological, economic and social. Excellent weather and food, strong intergenerational bonds and a natural gregariousness mean that residents work to live rather than live to work. “Socialising is very Madrileño,” Manuel Martínez-Sellés, the president of the city’s Official College of Physicians, tells Monocle. “Keeping physically and intellectually active benefits both the quantity and the quality of life.”

Then there’s the city’s excellent healthcare. Spain is renowned for its public hospitals, which combine the best in training with an almost unparalleled (in Europe, at least) system of data-gathering. As a result of decades of centre-right dominance, the Madrid region now has the highest private health-insurance coverage in Spain about 37.5 per cent. “Good public-private collaboration often allows for more efficient and decisive medicine,” says Martínez-Sellés. “In Madrid we have the best hospitals in Spain, 11 medical schools (more than many European countries), the nation’s leading biomedical research centres, strong and responsive primary care, shorter waiting lists for surgery than in other regions, very active prevention and early diagnosis programmes, and exemplary out-of-hospital emergency services.”

But Madrileños know that health is about more than medicine. Their wellbeing is rooted in socialising and outdoor activity, and this includes, for many, a regular glass of wine and slice of jamón ibérico. Walk Madrid’s plentiful plazas on any night of the week and you will see children kicking a ball around while the adults enjoy el paseo, the traditional twilight stroll, or knock back a crisp glass of beer. A quarter of Spaniards smoke and alcohol remains a part of daily life but an acceptance of the importance of these things at a social level is part of what makes the people of this city such an outgoing – and therefore longer-living – bunch.

Spanish urban planning has helped communities to flourish and loneliness is less common than elsewhere. “Healthy ageing is about enabling people to continue doing what they value as they grow older,” says Vânia de la Fuente-Núñez, a doctor, anthropologist and expert in ageing. “It shifts the focus away from simply having or not having a disease and instead looks at how well a person functions and feels in their environment.” De la Fuente-Núñez serves on the board of Grandes Amigos, a Madrid-based non-profit that promotes intergenerational relationships and addresses social isolation among older people. The organisation runs a volunteer network that promotes interaction between people of all ages and support for the elderly.

Of course, all of this jollity is more than helped by the weather. With as many as 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, Madrileños are often to be found exercising, jogging or cycling around the city’s 60 sq km of green space, swimming in one of its 25 public pools or playing tennis or padel at one of the 698 public courts. For less sporty residents, simply wandering the city’s streets on a sun-soaked evening is a life-enhancing, and possibly extending, experience.

1.
Paris
Best all-rounder
Our city of the year. The French capital’s strengths are multitude.

“I can honestly say that there’s no city in the world in which I would rather live,” says Charles-Antoine Depardon, an architect and advisor on urban development to Paris’s city council, as he strolls through the Tuileries on his way to work at the Hôtel de Ville. “It is an extraordinary cocktail.”

Depardon might be biased but on a spring morning, as the French capital’s avenues resound to the click-clack of hard leather shoes on spruce concrete, it’s hard to argue with him. Last year’s Olympics provided Paris with the platform to showcase its chic 21st-century self. The city delivered a rousing performance that also served as a fitting coda to a decade of revival under mayor Anne Hidalgo, whose ambitious (and, sometimes, controversial) urbanism interventions have made it cleaner, greener and safer, while maintaining and protecting the things that give it its inimitable charm. Paris in the 21st century looks a lot like it did in the 20th century but that’s a large part of the appeal. And today it is also a more international, outward-looking city than it has ever been.

One of the most notable changes has been the huge expansion of the cycle-lane network, which led to bike usage doubling between 2023 and 2024, and the overhaul of the once-creaking Métro, the backbone of which is the speedy new Line 14. This takes passengers from Paris-Orly Airport in the south to the new Saint-Denis Pleyel station in the north in just 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in its bid to become the greenest major city in Europe, Paris has embarked on a gargantuan effort to plant 170,000 trees by 2026. At the time of writing, more than 120,000 are in the ground, many of which will be used to cultivate new urban forests, such as the one inaugurated in June 2024 at the Place de Catalogne. “Paris is a far more pleasant place to live today,” says Lindsey Tramuta, a journalist who hosts a podcast called The New Paris and has called the 11th arrondissement home for 19 years. “It was always a beautiful city to walk in but that’s even more the case now.”

When Baron Haussmann reimagined Paris in the 19th century, he made its streets more spacious and airy, and therefore less susceptible to disease and crime. Today there remains a steadfast commitment to prioritising quality over quantity when it comes to designing the urban environment. The draw of the city’s cultural behemoths – such as the recently renovated Tadao Ando-designed Bourse de Commerce – remains world-beating, as does its retail prowess.

All of this, combined with the policies of the country’s most pro-business president in a long time, has helped Paris to draw and foster enough talent to snatch London’s double crown as Europe’s top venture-capital city and its leading technology hub. “Paris lends itself far more to an office-based culture than cities such as San Francisco or London,” says Jordane Giuly, the founder of fintech company Defacto. He points out that the French capital’s gentle density is conducive to cross-pollination between start-ups and preferable to the vast distances that one needs to traverse in its rivals.

That said, even with the recent business boom, property prices in Paris have fallen over the past two years. Though some areas remain pricey, the city has largely kept its soul, in large part due to housing policies that have helped to keep low-income residents and their businesses in the heart of the city. More than a quarter of Paris’s inhabitants live in social housing, while small businesses, such as neighbourhood butchers and the city’s famous independent bookshops, have benefited from measures protecting their existence. This idea of mixité sociale (socially and economically diverse districts) has also helped to inject new life and dynamism into a gastronomic scene that had begun to feel threatened by rivals – and now some waiters, like many of the new business owners, are even happy to speak English. C’est la vie!

Click here to enjoy the full Monocle city guide to Paris

Editor’s letter: Andrew Tuck on the best cities to call home

In the summer of 2007, Monocle launched its inaugural Quality of Life Survey as we searched for the best cities in the world to call home. Though other city-ranking indexes existed, we felt that they came to some poor conclusions. Had their compilers, we wondered, ever looked up from their spreadsheets of metrics to ask a few simple questions: is this city, which sounds good on paper, a fun place to live? Is it accepting of outsiders? Can you go to a bar at 01.00? Is it easy and pleasant to get around by foot, tram or bicycle? We were suspicious that the authors of these reports, well-meaning statisticians, hadn’t visited all of the cities that they lauded. So we saw an opportunity to create a survey that homed in on true liveability – what it was really like to reside in a place. Yes, we would gather statistics but we would also ask our network of correspondents and editors to tell us what was really happening in their hometowns.

Not surprisingly, some cities have always flourished in our survey – often medium-sized metropilses that have invested wisely in infrastructure for generations, have nature on their side and sit in wealthy nations. So, this year, we wanted to put more cities in the spotlight – places that might struggle to get to the front of the pack if you take in every data point but are clear winners when you consider one key metric. I won’t spoil all of the fun here but for 2025 we have chosen 10 winners – yes, we have an overall champion but also nine more cities that deserve to be garlanded for their safe streets (without having your every move watched on CCTV), start-up culture and nightlife. Congratulations to all of the upstarts that made the podium this year.

While we’re on the topic of Quality of Life, are you coming to our annual conference on this very subject? It’s taking place in Barcelona from Thursday 4 to Saturday 6 September. There’s a welcome reception on the first day, followed by a day of talks and panels looking at how we can improve our cities, retail, hospitality and the world of work – and a fun dinner that night. Then, for the final day, after breakfast, we have organised trips to ateliers, galleries and more, all with special access. There’ll be no lanyards; you’ll be looked after by Monocle staff; and, by the end of the event, you will have met numerous people with ambitious ideas and great perspectives on the world. You can sign up at monocle.com/events or email my colleague – and head of events – Hannah Grundy at hg@monocle.com.

In 2023 we organised another one of our talk series, The Weekender, in Asheville, North Carolina. We had a great few days exploring the city as we met chefs, campaigners and ceramicists, and we had a pop-up shop at Citizen Vinyl. Being in this lush outpost in the Blue Ridge Mountains was a special experience. It’s why last September’s news that whole parts of the city had been washed away in the floods that followed Hurricane Helene really hit home at Monocle. For this issue, Alexis Self visited the city to see how it has responded and how the determination of people to rebuild has come to the fore, even as huge challenges remain. Perhaps that’s something else we should evaluate when creating our city survey: the ability of a community to come together, to find common purpose.

This being summer – in the northern hemisphere, at least – we have also ensured that this issue has plenty of moments of pure joy. We have dedicated our Expo to 21 things to make your summer pop (from the perfect sliders to the best outdoor cinema) and, in our culture pages, have compiled a sunny checklist of music, books and films to entertain you on your poolside lounger.

And there’s one final story, also in culture, that’s important to highlight: our report on kiosks. Magazines such as Monocle only thrive in cities that care about having an informed and entertained citizenry. It’s painful to watch as city halls hand the licences for their kiosks to people who just want to use them to sell soft drinks. The reason why kiosks fail is that they don’t have inspirational owners. If you don’t believe me, meet the people who keep their city’s kiosks thriving. We need these media stars.

Finally, thank you for reading Monocle – whether purchased from a newsstand or as a subscriber (well, you do get a discount on your conference ticket). As always, feel free to drop me an email – at@monocle.com – with ideas, feedback or just your Barcelona confirmation.

Ten building blocks to solve the housing crisis

There’s perhaps no urban issue that vexes and divides us as much as housing. Everyone who lives in a city should be able to find a safe and comfortable abode but even when we treat that aspiration as the bare minimum, we quickly move on to perilous ground once we start debating the issue’s myriad other conundrums.

Ours is a time of great prosperity in which billions of people have flocked to the centres of commerce and industry. This has exacerbated housing shortages but also inspired ingenious solutions to problems such as overcrowding, transportation and poor design. Monocle spends a great deal of time speaking to those who aim to create better housing in different places across the globe through vision and imagination rather than bluster. Here are our two cents – or perhaps we should say 10.

1.
Bring back the lodger
Build a stepping stone to independence by opening up unused spare rooms

Whatever happened to the lodger? In the past, the gap between living at home with your folks and finding a place all of your own was often bridged by a period spent renting a spare bedroom in someone’s home – then suddenly everyone wanted to skip the middle bit. But being a lodger has much to recommend it. It can be affordable, prevents large houses from being occupied by a single person and often brings together a young renter with an older homeowner. Multigenerational living can be fun when it’s a choice.

The return of the lodger could also help to ease housing shortages and loneliness, as well as increase energy efficiency. Unlike major developments, opening up spare rooms requires no cranes, no concrete and no lengthy planning battles. It’s a nimble, low-impact way to help relieve urban housing stress.

2.
Build beautiful
Set rigorous design standards
and don’t be afraid to enforce them

As we race to build new homes in ever-more packed cities, beauty should not be sidelined. The places that we inhabit influence our emotions and the ways in which we interact with one another. While focus has rightly been placed on meeting environmental criteria, it’s time for cities to add stricter aesthetic requirements to their design codes too.

Done well, attractive new developments can enhance their surroundings and lift the spirits of their inhabitants. Just look to the neighbourhoods of Vauban in Freiburg and Nordhavn in Copenhagen: both are celebrated not just for their green credentials but for being pleasing to the eye too.

3.
Get into prefab mode
Make modular housing part of the solution

“Prefab” and “modular” need not be dirty words in the world of domestic construction. Faced with a housing shortfall of 3.5 million homes over the next
five years, Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has pledged ca$26bn (€16.5bn) in financing for prefabricated homebuilders to help solve the country’s housing crisis.

According to the country’s government, prefabricated and modular housing can reduce construction times by as much as 50 per cent, costs by up to 20 per cent and emissions by up to 22 per cent compared to traditional construction methods. Modular construction also allows homeowners with an empty roof or a garden to scale up as their families grow and their needs change.

4.
Legalise backyard homes
Support gentle density and the era of the mid-rise

Many urban areas suffer from a binary choice: leafy low-rise suburbs or high-density tower blocks. Cities should also be investing in the middle-ground option: mid-rise, context-sensitive developments. From backyard homes and duplexes to in-fill developments, these options can help to create community-minded mixed-used neighbourhoods. Strict regulations and zoning laws have limited housing supply so it’s time to allow for low-to-mid-rise housing that can slip in alongside terraces and detached homes. It works, as the city of Auckland can attest. Now a decade into its Unitary Plan, it has rezoned more than half of the city’s residential land to let homeowners build up to three extra dwellings per lot. Same pretty street, more nice neighbours.

5.
Use it or lose it
Name and shame the owners of long-term vacant units

If homes are primarily seen as an investment, it will be impossible to fix the housing shortage. For too long, many have viewed property as a means by which they can hold an appreciating asset, often in a currency other than their own. And these so-called assets are frequently left empty. Some cities are beginning to fight back, cleverly using data to identify the scale of the problem. In 2023, Melbourne’s government examined water consumption and calculated that 100,000 homes in the city were unoccupied or underused, while Paris monitored census data and electricity usage, and found 262,000 empty dwellings. Both cities have seen calls to increase taxes on the owners of such uninhabited properties.

6.
Make transit the first stop
Compel developers to invest in better public-transport links

A move to the suburbs is not a social death sentence if you can easily zip into town on public transport. The building of big developments should come with an obligation on the part of the developers to improve local transport connections. Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation’s Rail 1 Property model is a good template. It builds high-rise residential and commercial buildings above metro stations, funding the transit system while creating vibrant, car-free communities. Another example is London’s Battersea Power Station redevelopment, which required a contribution of £270m (€320m) on behalf of the developers towards the construction of two new Underground stations.

7.
Encourage community power
Bend a few small rules in order to make a lot of big changes

Macro interventions in the housing market by the relevant authorities – at both the local and national level – are important but these take time and tend towards the bureaucratic. Nobody knows what’s better for a place than the people who live there. While order and basic structures are necessary, citizens should know when to break (or, let’s say, “bend”) rules too. Excessive regulation can slow change to a crawl. So, if you see an abandoned green space that’s overgrown with weeds or drowning in litter, why not lobby to turn it into a garden or vegetable patch? The hubbub of outdoor socialising brings life to the streets and can make an area safer, as long as it’s done responsibly. The same can apply to allowing children to play outside.Yes, even if it is a dreaded ball game.

8.
Turn nimbys into yimbys
Help locals to buy into planning decisions by putting more power in their hands

Inside every Nimby (“not in my back yard”) is a Yimby straining to get out. There is growing evidence that many objectors simply resent not being involved in the planning process and feel that building decisions are being made without
due consideration towards the potential concerns of the area’s residents. One possible solution for transforming Nimbys intoYimbys is to give members of the neighbourhoods involved the ability to sign off on – or even propose – new buildings or building extensions. If people believe that new homes could be available to previously priced-out relatives or friends, then objections might melt away.

9.
Properly regulate short-term lets
Don’t let Airbnb-style rentals rip the heart out of cities

The laissez-faire attitude to short-term rentals has hollowed out many inner-city neighbourhoods across Europe and provoked an electoral backlash. Spain has ordered the platform to remove 66,000 property listings for unlicensed apartments, while Barcelona plans to ban all short-term rentals by 2028. Airbnb counters that it isn’t to blame for housing shortages but it’s clear that the market needs more regulation. Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema, has proposed a novel solution. In the Dutch capital’s most rapidly gentrifying areas, the government will vote on whether to reduce the maximum number of nights for which properties can be rented out from 30 to 15.

10.
Train more builders
You can’t create more housing without enough construction workers

Countries suffering a housing crisis often announce ambitious building targets only to discover that they lack the required construction workers to achieve them. Importing foreign builders is often politically fraught so there has been a renewed focus on training young people, while making construction a more appealing and sustainable profession.

The UK’s Labour government recently unveiled a plan to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029. Faced with more than 35,000 unfilled vacancies in the building sector, it also announced a scheme to train as many as 60,000 construction workers. This £600m (€710m) investment will also include the establishment of new technical colleges, thousands of apprenticeships and more than 40,000 industry placements.

Illustrations: Jonny Glover

After the storm: Asheville’s road to recovery after Hurricane Helene

“That was a coffee shop and on the other side of that wall was a yoga studio,” says Joe Balcken. The co-owner of Wrong Way River Lodge & Cabins is showing Monocle around the River Arts District (RAD) in Asheville, North Carolina, as we survey the damage caused by Hurricane Helene. It’s the first of several times over the next three days that our powers of imagination will be called upon to reconstruct a group of buildings from a pile of rubble. Balcken owns a set of 16 A-frame cabins that stand on stilts about a kilometre downriver from here. Or perhaps we should say upriver. “The French Broad is one of the few rivers that flows south to north,” says Balcken, with a soft Appalachian lilt. “We call it the wrong-way river, which is where we get our name.”

From this corner of western North Carolina the Appalachian Mountains begin their gentle descent towards northeastern Alabama. It’s a land of thickly forested hills that turn smoky blue in the twilight, which has long drawn people from all over the US for whom a life lived among nature is an ideal worth pursuing. Beside a more established Appalachian community that prides itself on rural self-sufficiency, these new residents have created a kind of redoubt against the ravages of modernity. This is a place where people can live outdoors, be creative and still have access to excellent food, culture and healthcare. But on 27 September 2024, a much less welcome newcomer barrelled into town.

“At around 22.00 I started getting phone alerts from the NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and it was alarming,” says Balcken. “They were saying that this would be a historic event, like nothing else we had ever seen. Every colour indicator was in the red for severity and impact.”

Down in the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Helene was gathering steam. And as it sped toward the Florida coast, whipping up winds of 220km/h, within 24 hours meteorologists upgraded its severity from a category-1 storm to a category-4 hurricane. Due to record-hot sea temperatures, Helene was able to hold an extraordinary amount of atmospheric moisture, which it unleashed as torrential rain in places at its peripheries, such as Asheville.

At the Grand Bohemian Hotel in the city’s Biltmore Village neighbourhood, general manager Matthew Lehman and his staff were holed up in the reception area. “We just watched the water rise and rise and rise,” he says. “By 10.30 it was two feet deep and we were leaving to go upstairs.” Some areas saw 700mm of rainfall in 24 hours, well above the 420mm threshold that constitutes a once-in-a-thousand-years flood. Both the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, which converge in Asheville, burst their banks, toppling buildings, uprooting trees and carrying cars and other detritus miles downstream. The city lost running water and power, and telecommunications were knocked out in much of western North Carolina, leading to an information blackout. Whole communities were destroyed. An announcement from Black Mountain police chief Steve Parker reported: “Neighbourhoods are gone from flooding or mudslides. They’re having to leave bodies behind, houses are on fire.” A few days later, the then-governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, said that “the devastation brought by Hurricane Helene is beyond belief… Communities were wiped off the map.” The state’s final death toll was 107, more than a third of which were in Buncombe County, the county that contains Asheville.

Monocle visits the city in mid-April, when spring is rearing its leafy head. Though evidence of flooding isn’t difficult to find, downtown Asheville went largely unscathed and Main Street’s bars and restaurants are abuzz. Over the past 20 years or so, the city’s hospitality and tourism-related businesses have come to represent an ever-greater proportion of its economy. According to Explore Asheville, a tourism marketing agency (with which Monocle has collaborated in the past), visitors spent $3bn (€2.6bn) in Buncombe County in 2023, contributing 20 per cent of its total GDP. For these businesses, Helene couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Western North Carolina contains some of the most abundant deciduous forests in the US and come October the hills around Asheville burst into a riot of fiery yellows, oranges and reds. “Most restaurants here, because of how dead January, February and March are, use these [autumn] months to kind of bank up, put cash aside to get through the winter,” says Meherwan Irani, chef-proprietor of Chai Pani, an Indian restaurant group that has helped to put Asheville on the culinary map. Visitor numbers were down 74 per cent in October 2024 compared to the previous year and 57 per cent in November. Six months after the hurricane, Asheville had an unemployment rate of 6 per cent (13,000 people) – the highest in North Carolina, according to the state’s Department of Commerce. “At last count, 21 independent restaurants had either closed or not yet reopened,” says Irani.

And yet, along with the river mud, Helene stirred up that particularly Appalachian spirit of can-do and compassion. Stories of strangers helping strangers are countless, as are those of the hospitality industry directing its resources towards those in need. “For two days after Helene hit, there was no communication – no internet, no cell phone,” says Irani. “So, a group of us was drawn almost magnetically downtown.” Irani was due to open Botiwalla, a small sister restaurant to Chai Pani, the day after the hurricane made landfall. Its downtown building was one of very few places not to lose power. “We looked at everything in the walk-in and our first instinct was… Well, I’m sure there’s a lot of hungry people around Asheville,” says Irani. “The co-owner of another restaurant comes in carrying a big tub of lamb and says, ‘What can you do with this?’”

Soon chefs and other hospitality staff were working in the Botiwalla kitchen in what Irani describes as “a kind of triage but with lamb”. When World Central Kitchen, a charity that helps distribute food to people in disaster areas, arrived on the scene days later, they flew a helicopter that would land and take off 10 times a day, bringing hot meals, many of which were prepared at Botiwalla, to people cut off by the flooding. A more traditional triage was established at Double Crown, a West Asheville bar owned by Chris Bower, who also runs the Eda Rhyne Distillery in Biltmore Village. “The bartenders created an emergency medical centre inside and outside of the bar,” says Bower, who, at two-metres-tall and with shoulder-length hair and a long beard, looks like a bluegrass banjo player. “The fire department was sending people there to get emergency care and prescriptions.” And just outside Marshall (a small riverside town about 30km from Asheville that was hit hard by Helene), Kevin Ward and Jeramy Stauffer, who together run the prefabricated home company Nanostead, decided that their hillside location would be a suitable stage for the relief effort. “We showed up a couple of days after the storm with our grill and some hot dogs,” says Ward, who is also heavily bearded. “Within a couple of days we had a kitchen set-up serving 1,500 meals a day.” The Marshall Relief Alliance, as Ward and Stauffer’s group came to be known, hosted dinners and musical evenings throughout the cold Appalachian winter and became a hub both for people seeking help and those looking to assist others.

Autumn 2024 wasn’t only an inopportune time for Helene to hit from an economic perspective. The hurricane arrived towards the end of a particularly venomous US presidential election campaign and the disaster became a focal point for the forces feeding nationwide polarisation. On 2 October the then-president, Joe Biden, flew in a helicopter over the flood-hit areas. On 21 October the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, visited the town of Swannanoa, which was badly affected by Helene and is home to a poorer, more rural population than Asheville. Trump sought to amplify grievances related to the perceived ineffectiveness of the federal government and particularly the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which deals with natural disasters and their aftermath.

Rumours circulated online that Fema was intentionally withholding aid or diverting resources towards illegal immigrants at the Mexican border, and even that the Biden government had engineered the storm in order to seize the region’s lithium deposits. After Fema had to pause relief work in certain areas due to threats from local militia, Chuck Edwards, a Republican congressman who represents many of the worst-hit areas, penned an open letter intended to dispel the rumours. It included the line, “Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock… Nobody can control the weather.” Weeks later, Edwards stood behind Trump in Swannanoa as he repeated the falsehood that Fema was spending money meant for Helene on illegal immigrants.

Swannanoa town is still a site of devastation in April: roofs caved in, cars overturned and riverbanks strewn with debris. We meet Regae Eager and her husband, John Barnes, outside their home. They are replacing two rosebushes uprooted by the floods that were planted in memory of Eager’s mother and Barnes’s son. “We’re the only ones on this side that made it,” says Eager, her voice hoarse as she gestures towards what remains of her neighbours’ homes. Most of the people we have spoken to have been either positive or ambivalent about Fema’s response to the disaster but Eager heaps scorn on the agency. “We had no rescue, no warning,” she says. “The dam broke at the same time the reservoir stopped doing its job, so it was coming from up there and down there.” She points up the side of the valley and down towards the river.

Whether or not Fema is responsible for the fact that some areas were cut off with no water or power for months and have still to receive much in the way of financial assistance, the situation hasn’t improved since Trump re-entered the White House. Indeed, many feel that it has got worse, with the new president’s threats to disband the agency hindering both its ability to continue working and the faith that people have in soliciting its help. Comments made by Trump and others have likely discouraged many from seeking federal assistance, which, experts say, could undermine the whole region’s recovery. Months after the storm, just 15 per cent of eligible North Carolina households had applied. The newly appointed Democratic governor of North Carolina, Josh Stein, announced on 23 May that the Trump administration had denied the state’s request for Fema to honour a Biden-era commitment to fund all debris removal.

The total cost of the damage in North Carolina is estimated at $60bn (€53bn), which is nearly double the state’s annual budget. But despite the work that still needs to be done, the overwhelming impression is that of a community brought together by the disaster, rather than torn apart. Appalachia is often characterised as an insular place, wary of outsiders, but everyone Monocle meets strongly hopes that visitors will start filling the region’s forests, rivers and bars again as soon as possible. “I have come across so many people who have intentionally visited this city to support us after the storm and that’s been really cool,” says Bower. “You know, so much of the messaging we get is so jaded and cynical but people care about people.”

A large part of downtown Asheville’s charm comes from its mix of independent businesses. Indeed, it seems unlikely that there would have been the same amount of cross-community support if huge corporations dominated the local commercial inventory. “Asheville has always been anti-national chains,” says Irani. “There isn’t a McDonald’s, there isn’t a Subway, there isn’t even a Starbucks…The first chain restaurant that came to downtown, in my memory, was a Baskin-Robbins. And you should have heard the hullaballoo around that.” Locals fear that the price of rebuilding quickly will be a compromise on some of the values that make Asheville so distinctive. “The biggest threat is gentrification by disaster,” says Ward. “There’s a culture of capitalising on situations like this, where people will come in and buy up the land.” But Irani is bullish on the city’s long-term prospects and believes that the reception spring tourists received bodes 1 well for the summer months. “Tourists coming into town now are being welcomed with open arms and treated as heroes,” he says, smiling.

Down at the RAD, the area of Asheville worst hit by Hurricane Helene, the mood too is one of dogged defiance. The skaters, who see themselves as four-wheeled pioneers of the neighbourhood’s reinvention from warehouse district into creative community in the late 1990s, are still here, coolly gliding back and forth across the concrete. And inside a large inflatable tent, the sound of serrated metal on wood cuts through the eerie calm. Mark Joseph Oliver runs Foundation Woodworks, an art gallery and community workshop that once occupied one of the large warehouse buildings devastated by Helene. “We had 18ft of water [in the studio],” he says. “I had about $40,000 (€35,189) worth of personal projects lost.” But as he surveys an assemblage of new machinery, some donated and some bought with grants, he smiles. “We’re still here doing it and we’ll be here for a while, because we love this place and we don’t know any other way.”

A few metres from where we’re standing, workers are beginning to rewire and paint a large building called the Marquee, which served as a covered market for local makers and artists. By the end of summer, it should be filled once again with the laughter and chatter of buyers and vendors. We notice some wooden sculptures on a table by Oliver’s workstation. “Those are some works that we rescued from the flood,” he says. They look remarkably intact, with perhaps a richer, more characterful patina for their time spent weathering the storm.

Five striking news kiosks taking a stand for their communities

1.
News & Coffee
London

Launched in Barcelona in 2019, News & Coffee now brings first-rate print media and coffee to 10 locations across Europe. Each kiosk has settled into its neighbourhood and so it is with the company’s second London location, this time in King’s Cross.

News & Coffee can be found in Granary Square inside a Paperhouse – one of four kiosks designed by the London-based Heatherwick Studio in 2002. Over time these booths had lost their original purpose and the arrival of News & Coffee returned the Paperhouse to its intended function. “The conversation we had was, ‘How do we feel about bringing paper back into the Paperhouse?’” says Gautier Robial, one of News & Coffee’s three founders.

Granary Square provides a moment of calm in the bustling capital. In the warmer months it comes alive with children running in and out of fountains, live music and open-air cinema programmes. For Robial, this lively environment is the secret to the kiosk’s success. “People are rediscovering the joy of stopping by and having a chat while they wait for their coffee,” he says. “The newsstand is at the crossroads of so many layers of society; some that we don’t always notice. I always say that we have the same role as a public bench.”

2.
Aedicola Lambrate
Milan

A ritual close to the heart of many Milanese is a trip to the neighbourhood edicola (newsstand) to catch up on events. So when a group of friends living in the city’s Lambrate district saw a “for sale” sign attached to their local news kiosk two years ago, concerns about losing their source of print media quickly turned into a discussion about buying the space. “The location, set on a corner with a large pavement, was a gathering place for the community,” says Michele Lupi, a former editor in chief at the Italian editions of GQ and Rolling Stone, who now works for Italian fashion group Tod’s. “Newsagents had been there in one form or another since the early 1900s. It would have been a pity to lose it.”

Within a year, Lupi and a trio of partners – Paolo Iabichino, Martina Pomponio and Alioscia Bisceglia (frontman of Italian band Casino Royale) – refurbished the stand, complete with bright-yellow signage. It now stocks national and foreign publications as well as books. Talks with writers and live radio events are hosted on-site to engage residents. “We’ve had a great response,” says Lupi. “When we opened, neighbours came by with prosecco and plates of pasta to celebrate.”

3.
Quiosque das Amoreiras
Lisbon

Few shops in Lisbon enjoy better foot traffic than the small yellow newsstand just below the popular Amoreiras complex, which is home to residences, offices and a shopping centre. Passers-by are drawn it by the kiosk’s vast selection of national and international print media. “I have magazines that you won’t find anywhere else in Lisbon,” says Xavier Sepúlveda, who has owned the newsstand since 2019.

His inventory includes prominent English-language fashion, design, lifestyle and political magazines, as well as niche titles on music, film and wine. “We also carry quite a few French-language magazines such as Le Monde Hors-Séries and L’objet d’art,” says Sepúlveda, noting the proximity of the stand to the French lycée. Among the top sellers are decor magazines such as House & Garden, as well as the Portuguese Observador Lifestyle. The kiosk caters to the tastes of local patrons but Sepúlveda also stocks publications pertaining to his personal passions, and as the owner of a motorcycle shop it’s little surprise that he has a fine selection of titles about the two-wheeled beasts.

4.
Quiosco KGB007
Madrid

“I might be the smallest but I’m the strongest,” says Rafa Martín Piña from behind the counter of his quiosco redondo, one of eight ornately roofed, round-shaped newsstands in central Madrid. The 58-year-old has worked here since he was 14, observing the streetscape transform. “Only the pharmacy and the café opposite remain,” he says. “We’ve outlived the cinemas, the banks, every beard and bigote (moustache) style.” When the legendary literary Café Comercial (which sits opposite) was revived in 2017, the new owners financed an overdue restoration of the kiosk.

“I’m known as a spot for cinephiles and music lovers,” says Piña, pointing to more than 3,000 DVDs and a few hundred vinyl albums stacked alongside printed press. The name of his kiosk, KGB007, which he insists is entirely arbitrary but playfully cinematic, sums up the essence of his offering: information that sparks the imagination. His quiosco also serves as an informal help desk. When Spain suffered a near-nationwide power cut in April, dozens of people, their phones suddenly inoperative, flocked to him for guidance. “When it comes to printed media, we often say that we’re the resistance but this extends to the survival of neighbourhood meeting points too.”

5.
Banca Cinza
Rio de Janeiro

Banca Cinza is a recent addition to Rio de Janeiro’s eclectic mix of newsstands. Founded in 2024 by Jonas Aisengart, it sits in front of popular bar Chanchada, which Aisengart also runs. Cinza is in the bohemian Botafogo neighbourhood and has expanded the offerings of kiosks in the city by adding independent zines and art projects to the usual fare of traditional newspapers and magazines. Also on sale is ice-cream from Brazilian brand Sorvetiño as well as a neat selection of vinyl records. “My background is in art – I studied painting,” says Aisengart. He works alongside graphic artist Peu Lima to select the more artistic publications for the kiosk. “This is a way for me to reconnect with the art world within the commercial space of a newsstand,” he says.

The name Cinza (meaning grey) references the colour of Rio’s traditional newsstands but also works as an acronym for Cultura independente, notícias, zines e arte (Independent culture, news, zines and art). Among the bestsellers are illustrated titles by André Dahmer, who creates comic strips for Brazilian daily Folha de São Paulo and for Piaui (Brazil’s answer to the NewYorker). And if choosing the right reading material becomes thirsty work, you only have to cross the road to find a cold beer.