City links: the best of the web

1. The slums of the world's most overcrowded city

Dhaka has a population of more than 15 million crammed into 134 square miles, a density of about 115,000 people per square mile and an infrastructure that hasn't kept up with an incessant growth. The Bangladeshi capital is also home to ubiquitous slums, which attracted and overwhelmed photographer Sebastian Keitel from his first visit.

This Wired piece collects a gallery of Keitel's photos of Dhaka's slums taken over two and a half months and interviews the photographer, who "isn't romanticising poverty, or making poverty porn". Instead, his tactic was to "draw viewers in with visually stimulating photos, and offer them a chance to ask questions about what they’re seeing", writes Doug Bierend. "People’s whole lives are compressed here to about 3×3 meters — I just wanted to show this, because there is a beauty in it as well," said Keitel.

2. A frozen New York, from above

It has snowed in New York this winter. A lot. Frankly, we're a bit sick of hearing about it. But repetition brings opportunity, and photographer George Steinmetz, he of Hurricane Sandy fame and one of the world's pre-eminent aerial photographers, took to the sky to photograph the snowbound city – subway yards, cemeteries, and athletic fields below – from the seat of a two-person, piston-powered helicopter for this impressive New Yorker gallery.

3. Ten lessons in citizen engagement

Modern cities face many increasingly complicated issues: demands for affordable housing and public transit, tensions around gentrification and density or connecting the dots between city planning and climate change. But at the same time, local governments face the challenge of involving as many and as diverse as possible local community voices to help come up with solutions. With this in mind, two Vancouver urbanists, Brent Toderian and Jillian Glover, have studied what cities in their region are doing well, according to them, to boost civic participation. Among the good practices are: bringing city hall to the community (physically and online), allowing access to city services through smartphones, embracing storytelling in communications as a way to attract citizen interest or mapping community assets.

4. Love letter to Sao Paulo

"'Não existe amor em SP', sings Criolo in that beautiful song of his. I must admit, I was inclined to agree with him when my Paulistano wife and I first moved to São Paulo from London just over two years ago. During my first few months here the city felt like an impenetrable and ugly concrete jungle whose dense canopy consisted solely of bland high-rises. And, of course, there was the bumper-to-bumper traffic, smelly rivers and turnstiles on buses, which even now still baffle me." So begins Andrew Martin's blog post about his gradual love for his adoptive city of Sao Paulo, published originally on the Huffington Post. An eloquent account of a progressive change – from disdain to defensiveness, followed by fondness – that many have experienced as an integral part of moving to a new city.

5. New Springfield transit map

It looks like the fictional Springfield's transit system has had a complete overhaul – if the map that appeared on this week's episode of Season 25 of The Simpsons is anything to go by... As you can see in this Transit Maps blog post, there's quite a big difference from its previous (nonsensical, of course) look.

6. Best wishes

Best Wishes Magazine is an online publication that describes itself as a collection of creative city chapters. Its creator, Jessica Jungbauer, explains that living in Berlin, she wondered what people loved about the German capital and how city life inspired their work. The result is a sleek selection of nibbles about lifestyle, cafes and interesting shops – but it also offers insights about the experience of moving between cities and being a newcomer. For instance, they interviewed Paul Sullivan, writer, photographer and founder of Slow Travel Berlin, who reflected: "Aside from the obvious, well-documented things – abundant space, a spirit of tolerance, a relatively low population, an excellent cycling network and public transport links, easy access to a countryside dominated by forests and lakes, a largely independent/DIY infrastructure – there are more complex and nuanced attractions. The hidden stories and eccentric characters, the dark, twisted history and the unexpected delights of the city’s interzones and edgelands." They also have chapters dedicated to Oslo, Amsterdam and, from this week, London.

Thanks for all of your suggestions via email last week. Share your links in the comments section, by email at marta.bausells@theguardian.com or tell us on Twitter at @guardiancities