Posts in the 'Urban Development' category
Strategic City Planning with Nature? Assessing Urban Biodiversity in San José, Costa Rica
Strategic City Planning with Nature? Assessing Urban Biodiversity in San José, Costa Rica
Costa Rica is world-renowned for its biodiversity, and eco-tourism is a large contributor to the national economy and local livelihoods. Many visitors may catch only a glimpse of Costa Rica’s cities through a car window while being whisked between the ...
How 3 Cities Can Turn Downed Trees Into Revenue
How 3 Cities Can Turn Downed Trees Into Revenue
Imagine two trucks passing on a city street. One is a delivery truck carrying new wood flooring and furniture to stores and homes in the city. The other is carrying a fallen city tree damaged by a recent storm, taking ...
5 Ways China’s Cities Can Drive Equitable and Sustainable Urbanization
5 Ways China’s Cities Can Drive Equitable and Sustainable Urbanization
China is experiencing the largest city-ward movement of people in human history. 700 million people have moved to the nation’s cities since the beginning of economic reforms in 1978. In that same time, the urbanization rate rose from less than a fifth to close ...
5 Priorities for Cities After COP26
5 Priorities for Cities After COP26
Without getting cities right, we cannot solve the climate crisis. Contributing to 75% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, it is impossible to overstate their central role. Cities’ choices influence and can drive change in every system that needs to be decarbonized ...
More Equal Cities Can Help Bring Global Climate Goals Within Reach
More Equal Cities Can Help Bring Global Climate Goals Within Reach
While negotiations rage on, many world leaders have already left COP26 in Glasgow having said their piece about a low-carbon future for their country. No one can accuse them of being short on vision. But one thing is increasingly clear ...
7 Major Transformations to Solve Urban Inequality
7 Major Transformations to Solve Urban Inequality
Owusu lives with his wife and four children in the Tantra Hills neighborhood of Accra, Ghana, where he shares his residence with five other tenants and their families. The house has a toilet and electricity, but the costs for both ...
How More Equal Cities Can Be Climate and Development Solutions [PODCAST]
How More Equal Cities Can Be Climate and Development Solutions [PODCAST]
Cities are places of opportunity — and inequality. They are where more than half the world’s population will experience the impacts of climate change. They’re also part of the solution. This podcast highlights Seven Transformations for More Equitable and Sustainable ...
Cities Are Surprising Leaders in Forest Conservation
Cities Are Surprising Leaders in Forest Conservation
The world’s forests face a dire threat. Each year, 6 to 9 million hectares (15 to 22 million acres, an area roughly the size of Denmark) of forests are permanently cleared and many millions more are degraded. But many decisions affecting forests ...
The City Is the Solution: Celebrating Jaime Lerner
The City Is the Solution: Celebrating Jaime Lerner
Jaime Lerner passed away on May 27, 2021. A world-renowned Brazilian urbanist, he was three times mayor of Curitiba and two times governor of the southern state of Paraná. Besides his great ideas, he was a very kind person and ...
Overcoming Risk Aversion to Accelerate Green Investments: Lessons from Mexico, Brazil and India
Overcoming Risk Aversion to Accelerate Green Investments: Lessons from Mexico, Brazil and India
By 2030, cities will house approximately 60% of the world’s population and already more than one in three urban dwellers lack access to at least one core service like reliable energy, clean water or affordable housing. Green, sustainable infrastructure, including ...
New Land Use Mapping Paints a Clearer Picture of Urban Life
New Land Use Mapping Paints a Clearer Picture of Urban Life
Remote sensing has revolutionized how we measure and understand the Earth. We can now track deforestation across the globe, predict end-of-season crop yields and identify wildfires in near real-time. But exploration into its possibilities for urban areas has only just begun. ...
Developing Cities Need Cash. Land Value Capture Can Help
Developing Cities Need Cash. Land Value Capture Can Help
Some of the fastest growing cities in developing countries like India, Brazil and Ethiopia are strapped for cash. These cities often struggle to provide basic infrastructure and services for a growing population, leading to widespread inequalities. Up to 70% of residents in developing ...
How Bogotá Is Turning 7,000 Citizen Proposals into a Real Plan to Redesign a Major Thoroughfare
How Bogotá Is Turning 7,000 Citizen Proposals into a Real Plan to Redesign a Major Thoroughfare
Just before she took office in January 2020, Mayor Claudia López committed to redesigning a major artery of Bogotá into a “green corridor” for sustainable, active mobility. She also committed to a comprehensive participatory planning process – a potentially daunting ...
Urban Sanitation Is a Climate and Economic Issue Too
Urban Sanitation Is a Climate and Economic Issue Too
Along the Ngong River in Mukuru, one of Nairobi’s slum neighborhoods and home to more than 100,000 people, residents face a dual threat when the rains come. First, the river rises, flooding into streets and houses. Then the water reaches ...
Polluted Air and Water Is a Racial Justice Issue. Let’s Fight it that Way.
Polluted Air and Water Is a Racial Justice Issue. Let’s Fight it that Way.
Around the world, communities of color and marginalized groups disproportionately feel the effects of pollution and other environmental impacts. Whether it’s residents living along the polluted Cooum River in Chennai, India; Louisiana’s petrochemical-dense Cancer Alley; Thailand’s toxic hot spot Map Ta Phut Industrial ...
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