sari-sari store The Sari-Sari Store: How a Front-Room Window Became the Philippines' Real Retail Network Long before GCash or 7-Eleven, the sari-sari store had retail figured out: sell in single pieces, extend credit through memory, never close. Here is how 1.3 million Filipino corner stores are adapting to barcode scanners and discount chains.
Taipei Dadaocheng: How Taipei's Herbal Medicine District Became a Coffee-and-Linen Neighbourhood Without Losing Its Dried Goods In Taipei's Dadaocheng, century-old herbal medicine shops and dried seafood wholesalers now sit beside single-origin coffee bars and linen boutiques — and neither side is pretending the other doesn't exist.
urban lifestyle Run Clubs Have Become Asia's New Urban Social Network Free, weeknight and built around a group chat rather than a gym membership — run clubs have quietly become the social infrastructure Asia's cities didn't plan for.
co-living Asia's Co-Living Boom: How Shared Housing Is Reshaping Young Professionals' Budgets From Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City, co-living operators are undercutting traditional leases on price and flexibility, but the trade-offs on space, contracts and community rarely make it into the brochure.
Tokyo Tokyo Just Cracked the World's Top 10 Most Liveable Cities. Osaka Still Beats It. Tokyo entered the EIU's world top 10 most liveable cities for the first time in 2026, but Osaka still outranks it. Here's what the numbers actually mean on the ground.
urban farming Someone Has to Carry the Soil Up: The Real Work Behind Asia's Rooftop Farming Boom The rooftop farming trend swept through Asian cities fast. What decides whether a garden survives its second year has less to do with vegetables and more to do with load limits, water schedules, and who actually shows up to weed.
urban lifestyle The Room That Isn't a Room: How Japan's Internet Cafés Quietly Became an Emergency Housing System Cheap, deposit-free, and open all night, Japan's internet cafés became something the chains never intended: a housing safety net for workers the rental market shuts out.
urban lifestyle The Convenience Store Is Asia's Real Third Place Cafes get the credit, but from Tokyo to Seoul the 24-hour convenience store is where Asia's cities actually live between midnight and dawn.
rooftops The Rooftop Came Alive: How Asian Cities Are Reclaiming the Last Empty Floor Across Bangkok, Seoul, Singapore and Hong Kong, the once-locked rooftop is becoming a garden, a cafe or a farm. It is also a quiet measure of how little space these dense cities have left.
