Metropolis

Every city faces different challenges.

In Cairo, the belief is that sharing expertise between cities internationally will help fortify experience for everyone. As new cities join the Metropolis International Training Institute (MITI), Cairo will continue to share policies and practices, but with an increasingly wider circle of cities. This Octover, MITI Cairo joined the other MITI centers at the Institute's headquarters in Seoul to continue fortifying their exchanges.

MITI has run on this exchange since 1996: officials from cities worldwide training alongside centers built for their region - Cairo, alongside MITI Seoul and MITI Mashhad, each shaped by their own part of the world.

Now, that circle is growing. Three new centers, #Antalya, #MexicoCity and #Guangzhou-Nansha, are joining the network, giving #Cairo, #Seoul and #Mashhad new cities to exchange with, and more local governments direct access to training shaped by their own context.

For Cairo, that means one thing: more cities to learn from, and more to give.

🎥 Hear more from MITI Cairo Director @Magy Abo-Hashish on what this expansion means.

Metropolis is the global network where cities support cities.

#MITICairo #CitiesSupportingCities #UrbanLearning

Istanbul is bringing public health directly to the people. Here’s how.

"Improving public health starts where people live their daily lives." — Dr. Önder Yüksel Eryiğit, Head of the Department of Health Affairs, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality

With its Healthy Nutrition and Active Living Initiative, Istanbul is bringing healthy choices directly into the places people already spend their time:

🔹 Bringing healthy food and exercise options into parks, neighbourhoods, and everyday public spaces… not just clinics or gyms

🔹 Building on direct collaboration between the local government and communities, rather than top-down programming

🔹 Designed to make healthy living part of daily routine, not something people have to opt into separately

“Across a city of more than 16 million people, the initiative connects preventive health services, community-based programmes, digital tools and active living opportunities — bringing healthy living closer to Istanbulites in their everyday lives" says Dr. Eryiğit — a reminder that public health successes happen in parks and neighbourhoods as much as in clinics.

How is your city bringing healthy living into everyday public spaces?

🔗 Learn about Istanbul's health festival: zurl.co/QYnj5

Celebrating urban innovations shortlisted by the 2026 Guangzhou Award. The Metropolis network partners with @uclg_org and the City of Guangzhou on the @GuangzhouAward to showcase the creative initiatives changing cities across the globe. This summer, we're celebrating the innovations shortlisted for the 7th Guangzhou Award.

#GuangzhouAward #CelebratingUrbanInnovation #7thGuangzhouAward #PublicHealth

Five cities sent their food experts to #BuenosAires, not to teach, but to help a peer go further.

Around World Food Day, representatives from #BeloHorizonte, #Bogotá, #Cartagena, #Montevideo and #Rosario joined local teams in a city with a lot to be proud of. Buenos Aires has built a food system that reaches people where they are, from community kitchens and school gardens to neighborhood farmers’ markets and public nutrition workshops.

The goal was to help take it to the next level. The visiting experts brought hands-on experience from their own cities, along with the FoodCLIC methodology, an approach to food system change built on four pillars:

🌿 Co-benefits across sustainability goals

🌿 Stronger urban-rural links

🌿 Inclusive participation

🌿 Connections between food and other policy areas

To give useful feedback, the experts first needed to see the system at work. They spent time in a school garden with families, students and neighbors, then visited a community kitchen and helped take the first steps toward building its greenhouse. Together with local staff, they reflected on the strengths and challenges of what they had seen.

What stayed with the experts most was how much Buenos Aires gave back. They arrived to share their knowledge and left with ideas they plan to carry home.

Cities rarely start from zero. Often, the best solutions are already growing in a neighborhood somewhere. Exchanges like this one put technical expertise where it is needed and let learning travel in both directions.

This visit was part of a Metropolis Solutions Lab, where city representatives work with peers to tackle shared urban challenges. It was funded by FoodCLIC, an EU-funded project on food sustainability.

Our thanks to the cities and participants for generously giving their time and sharing their knowledge. Cities learn best from one another.

📸 See a few moments from the visit below.

👉 Interested in learning more about the FoodCLIC methodology? foodclic.eu

Metropolis is the global network where cities support cities.

#WorldFoodDay #UrbanFoodSystems #CitiesSupportingCities

Bogotá is fixing its housing-and-heritage paradox. Here's how.

Bogotá faces a dual challenge: a housing deficit affecting thousands of households, alongside a growing stock of vacant, underused buildings sitting empty in the city's central areas. Instead of building outward, Bogotá is looking inward.

Reúsa y Revitaliza, launched in July 2024, turns dormant buildings into housing, heritage, and climate action without direct public subsidy:

🔹Led by Renobo, in partnership with Mayor Galán's administration, it’s the first program of its kind in Colombia

🔹Connecting building owners, private developers, and the city so empty buildings actually get put back to use

🔹Helping to cover the risk for private investors, so they're willing to fund the work without the city having to pay for it directly

The results:

🔹On track to deliver around 450 homes — 5% of the 9,000 the city is targeting by 2027

🔹 Cuts the carbon footprint of construction by 50–75% compared to building new, while keeping up to 90% of the original materials

🔹 A model for how public institutions can catalyze private investment through coordination and early-stage risk reduction, rather than subsidy.

"By repurposing existing buildings, we're creating new housing opportunities while also delivering significant environmental benefits." — Jimena Niño, International Relations Advisor, @Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá

What would your city do with its vacant buildings?

🔗 Learn more about @ERU - Empresa de Renovación y Desarrollo Urbano de Bogotá 's initiative: zurl.co/pwNDz

Celebrating urban innovations shortlisted by the 2026 Guangzhou Award. The Metropolis network partners with
@United Cities and Local Governments and the City of Guangzhou on the @Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation to showcase the creative initiatives changing cities across the globe. This summer, we're celebrating the innovations shortlisted for the 7th Guangzhou Award.

#GuangzhouAward #CelebratingUrbanInnovation #7thGuangzhouAward #Housing

São Paulo is fixing school food waste. Here's how.

Through a partnership between two city departments, Management and Education, São Paulo set out to answer a simple question: what if better communication, not more food, was the fix for waste in public schools?

🔹 Using simple, low-cost nudges (not new spending or infrastructure) to change how students choose and engage with school meals

🔹 Improving how meals are presented and communicated, making healthy options more appealing

🔹 Built to be a permanent part of how the city runs and designed as a model other cities can copy

The results:

🔹 More students participating in school meals

🔹 Significantly less food thrown away

Proof that evidence and behavioral design can be as powerful a lever as budget when it comes to improving public services.

"Innovating is not just about creating new solutions, but about transforming the way government works." — Marcela Arruda, Municipal Secretary of Management, São Paulo City Hall

What's one small nudge your city could test to cut waste or improve a public service?

Celebrating urban innovations shortlisted by the 2026 Guangzhou Award. The Metropolis network partners with @uclg_org and the City of Guangzhou on the @GuangzhouAward to showcase the creative initiatives changing cities across the globe. This year, we're celebrating the innovations shortlisted for the 7th Guangzhou Award.

@prefsp

#GuangzhouAward #CelebratingUrbanInnovation #7thGuangzhouAward #FoodWaste