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Gardens in the Sky

From the street, the old car park looks exactly like any other grey building in the city centre. But if you take the stairs to the top floor, you find something unexpected: rows of tomatoes, beans and lettuces growing in wooden boxes, a small greenhouse and a group of volunteers who are busy watering plants before the sun gets too hot.

The project began five years ago, when a group of neighbours noticed that the top level of the car park was almost always empty. They asked the local council for permission to use it, and after months of meetings they were given a two-year trial. Nobody expected it to last. The soil had to be carried up by hand, there was no water supply at first, and strong winds destroyed the first greenhouse in its second week.

Today, the garden produces enough vegetables to supply a weekly market stall, and the money it raises pays for seeds and tools. However, the organisers insist that food is not the main point. "People come here because they are lonely, or stressed, or simply curious," says Tomás, one of the founders, who used to work as an accountant. "They stay because they feel useful. Some of our volunteers are retired; others are students who have never grown anything in their lives. On the roof, everyone is a beginner at something."

The garden has also become an outdoor classroom. Primary schools bring children to learn where their food comes from, and a nearby university uses the site to study how plants cope with pollution and heat. Researchers have found that the green roof helps to keep the floor below it cooler during the summer, which could be important for cities that are getting hotter every year.

Not everyone is enthusiastic. Some drivers complain that parking spaces have been lost, and a few residents worry about insects and noise. The council has responded by limiting opening hours and asking the volunteers to keep the area tidy.

Despite these tensions, similar projects are appearing in other parts of the city, from school roofs to the flat tops of supermarkets. For Tomás, the lesson is clear: "Cities are full of spaces that we have stopped seeing. Sometimes all you need is to look up."

The Return of the Night Train

For decades, night trains seemed to belong to the past. Low-cost airlines offered tickets that were cheaper than a sandwich, and one by one the old sleeper services across Europe were cancelled. By 2016, even Germany's national rail company had abandoned its overnight routes, claiming that they lost money. Lines that had connected cities for more than a century simply vanished from the timetables, and many old carriages were sold or left to rust in depots. Yet less than ten years later, travellers can once again fall asleep in one European capital and wake up in another.

Several factors explain this comeback. The most obvious is growing concern about climate change: a passenger travelling by train produces only a fraction of the emissions of someone making the same journey by plane. Austrian Railways, which took over several of the routes that Germany had given up, discovered that there was real demand, especially among young people and families. Some governments have also offered subsidies, and France has banned short domestic flights on routes where a train journey of less than two and a half hours exists. Other travellers simply prefer to avoid airports: a night train leaves from the city centre, there are no long security queues and passengers can carry as much luggage as they want. On a journey of around a thousand kilometres, they also save the cost of a hotel night.

Not everyone is convinced, though. Night trains are expensive to run, because each carriage carries far fewer passengers than a normal train and needs staff all night. Tickets can therefore cost more than a flight, and they often sell out months in advance. Delays are another frequent complaint. Rail companies admit that many carriages are old and that new ones take years to build, so the number of beds available is still limited. In some cases, routes have been suspended only a few years after opening because public money disappeared. Still, for many passengers the experience itself is the main attraction. As one regular traveller puts it, "On a plane you are simply transported. On a night train, the journey becomes part of the holiday."

The New Life of Old Clothes

A few years ago, buying second-hand clothes was something many teenagers preferred to keep secret. Today, it is often a reason to boast. Online platforms where people sell the clothes they no longer wear have become extremely popular, and in many cities vintage shops are full of young customers on Saturday mornings.

Several reasons explain this change. The first is money. Second-hand clothes are usually much cheaper than new ones, which matters to students with small budgets. The second is the environment. Producing clothes requires large amounts of water and energy, and many young people have learned at school that the fashion industry is responsible for a considerable share of pollution. Buying a jacket that already exists, they argue, is better than asking a factory to make a new one.

There is also a question of identity. When everyone buys from the same big chains, it is easy to end up dressing like everybody else. A second-hand shop, by contrast, offers unique pieces that nobody else will be wearing. "I like the idea that my coat has a history," says Lucía, a nineteen-year-old design student. "Someone else chose it years ago, and now it's mine. It feels more personal than something from a shopping centre."

However, the trend is not as simple as it seems. Some experts point out that many people who sell their old clothes online use the money to buy even more new clothes, so the total amount of consumption does not necessarily fall. Others warn that popular second-hand platforms are becoming more like ordinary shops, with prices rising as demand grows. In some cases, items that used to be donated to charity are now sold for profit.

Charities themselves have mixed feelings. On the one hand, they welcome the fact that young people no longer see used clothing as embarrassing. On the other hand, they receive fewer good-quality donations, because people prefer to sell their best items rather than give them away.

For many young people, the answer is not to stop buying second-hand, but to change the way they think about clothes in general. Repairing, swapping with friends and simply buying less are becoming part of the same movement. As Lucía puts it, "The most sustainable coat is the one you already have."