city flags

The US Chemical Safety Board's updated animation of the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion, which killed 15 workers. It was released ahead of a process safety training application.

Reason TV profiles Elvis Summers, a Los Angeles musician who crowdfunded dozens of tiny homes for homeless people. City officials moved to remove them while pushing a multibillion-dollar housing plan.

A short BBC clip narrated by David Attenborough showing crows in Japan using city traffic to crack nuts, dropping them at intersections and retrieving them when the light changes.

A feature-length documentary on how the City of London and Britain's overseas territories built a global web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions after the empire declined. It traces how this network captured and hid wealth from around the world.

A KOMO News documentary about Seattle's homelessness, addiction and street crime. It examines the City Council's policies, shows conditions on the streets and the impact on local businesses, and explores possible solutions.

ADVChina tours Chinese ghost cities and discusses the housing bubble, with speculative buyers purchasing empty apartments as investments.

A short Atlantic documentary on Cleveland's 1986 Balloonfest, when 1.5 million balloons were released at once and the attempt went badly wrong.

Atrocity Guide covers the 1965 dolphin experiments of Dr. John C. Lilly and Margaret Howe, who tried to teach dolphins English. It traces the bizarre methods and Lilly's later drug-fueled beliefs.

A clip from the BBC series Britain from Above showing UK peak power demand. It shows a grid engineer preparing for the surge as millions put the kettle on when a popular show ends.

A Business Insider investigation into the US boom in AI data centers, mapping where they are, who owns them, and how much power and water they consume. It looks at the costs borne by communities, with a focus on Virginia.

A WIRED Future Cities documentary on Shenzhen, covering its hardware-prototyping culture and shanzhai copycat manufacturing. It looks at how the city's ecosystem evolved and what the rest of the world can learn.

A Bloomberg mini-documentary on how Vienna keeps housing affordable through large-scale public and social housing. It presents the city as a model strategy for others.

Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison visits the chinampas, the floating gardens of Xochimilco in Mexico City. He looks at this ancient Aztec agricultural system and the project restoring it.

Kedi is a feature documentary following seven street cats of Istanbul and the people who care for them. It portrays the relationship between the city and its cats.

Tom Scott visits the USPS Remote Encoding Center in Salt Lake City, where keyers decipher mail images machines cannot read. It shows the lengths taken to decode bad handwriting.

A 1983 behind-the-scenes film about making the HBO 'Feature Presentation' starship logo sequence. It shows the handcrafted miniature city, motion-control cameras and practical effects.

The 1966 film Walt Disney recorded weeks before his death, laying out his plans for the Florida Project and especially EPCOT, a planned city of the future. It uses models, concept art and animation to describe the circular city, monorails and people movers.