Arcaded houses forming porticoes are characteristic of many medieval European towns in Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Czechia, Poland, Silesia and Ukraine. They are a unique feature at the border between public and private space, used for commerce, crafts and communication. Taking the arcaded houses of Silesia as a case-study, this article focuses on the legal and urban contexts in which they were constructed and removed. Comparison with the broader European context suggests that the form and appearance of arcaded houses in Silesia follow similar patterns and chronology to those that have been observed in much better-studied regions.

The Dutch city of Leiden experienced economic and demographic growth from the last quarter of the sixteenth century onwards. This article analyses its effects on the urban private housing market by charting both the ratio of owners to tenants and the spatial patterns of housing wealth. Housing inequality increased in Leiden, reinforcing existing economic disparities and patterns of residential segregation. These dynamics were mainly caused by migration, which created great demand for housing. Gaining an insight into the pre-modern housing market also helps us to understand how inequalities were (re)produced and how they affected the daily lives of urbanites differently.

Scholarship on brewing in early modern London is torn between two irreconcilable stories, one positing stunning growth before 1560 and the other insignificant change until after 1720. Careful attention to company and court records as well as state papers, however, reveals that by 1600 London brewing had boomed, likely making it Europe’s largest brewing centre, led by individual houses operating on scales close to the largest of the mid-eighteenth century. Such breweries were accurately perceived to be large scale and highly profitable, clustered along the Thames in urban industrial zones.

The nineteenth century was an era of rapid urban growth, increasing temporal awareness, and a rising demand for precision. Time measurement and display became particularly important in this context, not just for scientific or military purposes, but also for administrations, businesses and for the general public. There was, however, one significant problem: making all the public clocks show the same and correct time, which led to the development of urban temporal infrastructures as symbols of urban modernity and a source of civic pride. This article presents an account of the origins of two temporal infrastructures in Paris, focusing particularly on the electrical network devised by the scientists of the Paris Observatory.

This article studies public amusement in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Gothenburg, Sweden, and argues that historians of urban and popular culture need to take the hybrid character of modernity more seriously. The case of the small peripheral port city of Gothenburg, more clearly than large metropoles or rapidly growing urban centres, showcases how turn-of-the-century urban culture was negotiated through the confrontation of traditional and innovative forms of popular amusement. Hence, insights from Gothenburg can prompt a more critical, nuanced view of ‘urban modernity’, marked not only by the emergence of commercial mass entertainment but also by the resilience of itinerant performers, for example. The article draws on different types of source material that from different perspectives embrace the co-constitutive character of practices and representations of pleasure through which people in Gothenburg negotiated urban change.

The making of the Passeio Público, Lisbon’s first public garden, is filled with contradictions, advances and setbacks. By looking at the long-term history of this green infrastructure, from its inception in 1764 until the inauguration of the boulevard built on its footprint in 1886, and considering the various technical-scientific, artistic, economic, social and political factors, this article demonstrates that the so-called public garden of the ancién régime was in fact made by the Liberals. Political issues and the Liberals’ narration of events were primarily responsible for the disappearance of the Passeio Público.

In this article, we present an exploration of the social meaning and functions of marketplace sounds – including language, yelling and hailing – in two adjacent, yet very different sites in Copenhagen, Gammel Strand and Højbro Plads. We argue that the marketplace soundscapes played central functions as means of constructing customer-oriented semiotic spaces while negotiating territories and branding and selling products. Language by way of dialectal speech, yelling, street cries, cursing and swearing was an integral part of such processes. The two sites, by virtue of their physical placement in close proximity to each other, reinforced the contrasts between them, hence, co-constructing contrasting sonic territories – a concept which we employ and develop as part of the analysis. Central to our argument is that a sensory approach, including the sound of language, to a semiotic description of the urban marketplace requires a historical contextualization of the marketplace and its functions in the urban space, as well as of the life and culture of the marketplace vendors themselves; that is, the case in point, the female vendors from Amager and Skovshoved.

The article analyses the project to move the Argentinian capital from Buenos Aires to Viedma, a small city located in the south, in 1986. The project enlightens the period as a juncture of both technical and political transitions. In technical terms, the proposal had a hybrid nature, articulating developmentalist planning perspectives with innovative objectives for the time. In political terms, the proposal reflected the contradictions of the period, in which re-foundational illusions and severe economic and political limitations were articulated. Crossing the technical and political dimensions, the initiative is suggestive of the role given to technicians within the democratic transition.

This article examines Coimbra City Council’s role in meat supply from the seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on public–private dynamics, it highlights how private contractors were tasked with providing fresh meat. The article explores how transaction costs and risk influenced contract delegation, revealing the council’s risk-averse preference for indirect supply. While this approach shaped contract decisions, it proved insufficient in limiting rising real meat prices or boosting per capita consumption. Using Coimbra as a case study, the article illustrates broader challenges in municipal supply systems and their limited ability to ensure both the affordability and availability of essential foodstuffs.

The 20th biennial conference of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) was held in Hong Kong, China. Through a comprehensive analysis of the keynote speeches, panel presentations, roundtable discussions, excursions and IPHS awards, this report highlights key insights from the conference that are especially relevant to urban historians. It suggests that planning history not only acts as a tool for informing urban strategies but also offers critical perspectives on socio-political, environmental, and cultural dimensions of urban transformation. The report presents three key insights for urban historians: (1) the entangled planning histories of Hong Kong and Shenzhen reflect broader political, ideological and international ambitions of dominant powers; (2) the evolution of environmental histories when rethinking human–natural relations in urban transition; and (3) the emerging attention to marginalized voices and alternative archives to enrich dominant planning narratives. These together demonstrate how planning history offers a critical historiographical lens for interpreting urban transformation.