Apartment City

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption What has been achieved in 30 years of redevelopment in Cardiff Bay? Future development of Cardiff Bay needs a more coordinated approach to ensure its success, the man behind its reinvention 30 years ago has said. Lord Crickhowell has hailed the overall regeneration of the former derelict docklands as a major success. But he is fiercely opposed to the latest plans to redevelop land for flats, including a 24-story building. Three decades after he sparked plans for one of the biggest overhauls the city has seen, what has been achieved? Image caption Cardiff Bay waterfront in 1977 - derelict before regeneration Once the epicentre of Wales' booming coal and export industries, by the 1980s, Cardiff Bay had become an abandoned wasteland of derelict docks and mudflats. A victim of a dramatic fall in trade following World War Two and competition from other ports saw its decline and a plan was put in place to bring it back to lif...

RIO DE JANEIRO ― Seven years ago, Vila Autódromo was little more than a tranquil fishing village on the edge of Jacarepagua Lagoon, next to the racetrack for which it was named. Like the hundreds of other favelas that dot Rio de Janeiro ’s landscape, it had long been neglected by the city government , and it lacked many basic public services that are standard in the fast- growing wealthier neighborhoods just across the water. But to the more than 600 families that lived there, it was home. “This was a paradise,” said Luiz Cláudio Silva, who lived in Autódromo for more than 20 years. “I thought that I would live here for the rest of my life.” By the time the Rio Olympics are over, just 20 of the families who lived in Autódromo in 2009, the year the International Olympic Committee chose the city to host the games, will remain. The community, which sits less than a mile away from Rio’s Olympic Park, was crushed so that the city could build new access roads to connect Olympic venues . ...