Verge Detours

A Danish company is building a $335 million seawall around New York

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy destroyed homes, wasted businesses, flooded tunnels, and submerged subways. The storm brought tens of thousands of lives to a halt, and revealed New York City’s vulnerabilities to severe climate conditions and rising waters.

Finally, a fire hydrant for the 21st century

A retired New York firefighter invents a safer, smarter, and sturdier hydrant

Can crowdfunding help San Francisco's homeless?

HandUp connects donors with those in need

Put a wing on it: how one company's smart wing could change San Francisco's ferries

Ride the wind

Doctor turns to 3D printers in a race to save a toddler's mind

On a Tuesday last summer, Erin Mandeville was at a CVS buying medicine for her five-month-old baby, Gabriel. Close to 4PM, she noticed her infant’s eyes roll back in quick succession. It was the first of Gabriel’s many episodes of infantile spasms th

How to feed the cities of the future

One MIT scientist hopes to farm without soil for city life

The Verge Detours season 2 returns August 27th

Solving America's problems in unconventional ways

The camera next door: how neighbors watch neighbors in New Orleans

Ordinary people are installing security cameras in high-crime cities to help police, but is it working?

Where cats glow green: weird feline science in New Orleans

How the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species plans to save endangered wildcats

The sinkhole that swallowed a swamp

A 25-acre pit won't stop growing — and it's threatening a Louisiana town

Robot city: how the machines are driving Pittsburgh's future

Cleaning up one of America's most polluted cities

A Pittsburgh-area steel town fights for clear skies

How Disney is helping plants find their voice

A sensor from Dr. Ivan Poupyrev makes musical instruments out of everything

A city in flames: inside Detroit's war on arson

Understaffed and with few resources, Detroit-area firefighters battle a plague of abandoned, burning buildings

The joy of mind-controlled flamethrowers

i3 Detroit is building a community of Motor City makers

Shinola is bringing watchmaking to Detroit

In a city blighted by unemployment, a dwindling population, and a dysfunctional government, one company hopes for a renaissance

Broadband gap: Google Fiber isn't the only revolution in Kansas City

Sorry for your loss: Hallmark struggles to update its card empire

Meat lovers: AgLocal thinks it can take ethical farms mainstream

A Kansas City startup offers an alternative to factory farming