Kostas Kourounis
I am a Greek urban and spatial planner, civil engineer and photographer with more than four decades of professional experience.
Most of my working life has been spent trying to understand how places are created.
That includes cities and settlements, land use, housing, infrastructure, development, planning regulation and the relationship between what is drawn on a plan and what is eventually built.
Cities Under the Sun grew out of that experience.
Why I started this site
Urban environments are full of things that people see every day without necessarily asking why they are there.
Why is this street so narrow?
Why are the buildings this height?
Why are there balconies everywhere?
Why is there no shade?
Why did tourism transform one town but leave another relatively unchanged?
Why can two neighbourhoods in the same city feel completely different?
These questions often have answers.
Sometimes the answer is historical. Sometimes it is economic, climatic, legal or technical. Usually it is a combination of several things.
I created Cities Under the Sun because I wanted to explain those relationships to people who are interested in places but do not necessarily have professional training in urban planning or engineering.
How I look at places
My professional background affects the way I observe a city.
A street is not only an image.
It has a width, orientation, gradient, building height, traffic pattern, land use, microclimate and regulatory history.
A building is not only architecture.
It is also the result of land ownership, construction economics, planning rules, technology and the needs of the people who built and used it.
A tourist destination is not simply somewhere people visit.
It is also a settlement with permanent residents, housing demand, infrastructure, water consumption, transport needs and limited land.
I am interested in bringing those layers together.
From technical research to plain English
A large part of the material behind Cities Under the Sun comes from scientific research, planning documents, official data and technical studies.
I am comfortable reading specialist material involving urban planning, engineering, GIS, spatial analysis and quantitative methods.
But the reader should not need the same background.
My job is to understand the technical material first and then explain what actually matters.
That usually means asking three questions:
What did the researchers or data actually show?
How reliable is that conclusion?
What does it mean for the place and for the people who live there?
The result should remain accurate enough for a specialist while being understandable to anyone with a serious interest in the subject.
Photography
Photography has been part of the way I observe places for many years.
For this project, photographs are not simply decoration.
They can document relationships that are difficult to describe: scale, density, shade, street life, building form, public space and the small physical details that influence how a place feels and functions.
Whenever possible, I use my own photography.
When an article concerns a place I have not photographed myself, other properly sourced visual material may be used.
Greece and the wider Mediterranean
Greece is the country I know best.
I know it both as someone who lives here and through decades of professional work involving its planning system and built environment.
That gives me a different level of familiarity with Greek examples.
When I write about other Mediterranean places, I do not pretend to have the same direct experience.
Instead, I rely on research, official information, maps, data and other clearly identified sources.
I consider that distinction important.
First-hand knowledge and researched knowledge can both be valuable, but they are not the same thing.
Independence
Cities Under the Sun is an independent project.
Unless an article says otherwise, the analysis and interpretation are my own.
I do not accept payment in exchange for favourable editorial coverage.
If I ever write about a subject in which I have a professional, financial or other relevant connection, that relationship will be disclosed.
My aim is straightforward: Τo look carefully, check the evidence and explain what I find as clearly as I can.
