Posts tagged with 'Africa'
Electrification is a key step to creating low-carbon cities. Replacing fossil fuel-powered vehicles, stoves, furnaces with electric alternatives reduces emissions and creates a host of other benefits. But not all cities are equally suitable for electrification. In some cases, electrification is ...
When Transforming Transportation (TT) started 16 years ago, the transport landscape looked very different. Ride-hailing services were unheard of. Shared bike systems were exclusive to just a few cities. Smartphones were still years away. No one had heard of Facebook ...
More than 300 new bike-share services were launched worldwide last year. Ride-hailing services such as Uber and Didi Chuxing together provide more than 45 million rides a day. Electric scooters are accounting for more short trips in the places where they’re available and drones and autonomous ...
While most cities around the world struggle with inequality, in Johannesburg, South Africa, the challenge is compounded by the legacy of apartheid. In the apartheid era, black populations were relocated to the poorly serviced areas far away from job opportunities. ...
Urbanization is changing the face of the planet – for better and for worse. City populations, GDP and investment are increasing exponentially. At the same time, carbon emissions are rising, more and more people are living in slums, and air pollution ...
Sustainable economic development in sub-Saharan Africa will only be possible if towns and cities across the region thrive. This column highlights the critical role that national governments need to play in guiding the urban transition. National Urban Policies can help ...
Dadalas, donfos, matatus, trotros, car rapides, minibus-taxis – whatever you call the on-demand minivan services that are so ubiquitous in many African cities, you can’t argue with their dominance. Such paratransit systems, as they are known in the transport world, ...
For decades, Kampala has raced to keep up with its own rapid growth. Set alongside Lake Victoria, the Ugandan capital more than quadrupled in physical footprint between 1991 and 2012 as population doubled to 1.5 million people. One of Kampala’s ...
Bold action on climate change could deliver $26 trillion in cumulative economic benefits by 2030, according to a new report by the New Climate Economy (NCE). Without immediate action to cut emissions, the costs of “runaway” climate change will be severe: ...
This post was originally published in The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018 Report. A few short years ago, the idea of sustainability drew praise as something that ought to be encouraged for its environmental benefits, despite what was then seen ...
This series, supported by the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations, discusses walking and cycling in cities with a special focus on low- and middle-income countries. Walking and cycling are the dominant modes of transport in African cities, and too often it’s ...
Cape Town is running out of water. After three years of intense drought, South Africa’s second-largest city is just a few months away from “Day Zero,” the day when the city government will shut off water taps for most homes and businesses. The impacts ...
Each year, the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award recognizes the most outstanding achievements and innovations to improve road safety and save lives worldwide. On December 12, 2017, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities was named a winner of the Prince Michael Award for ...
Edgar Pieterse, an urban scholar and founding director of the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, says there are two major challenges facing African cities today. First, the majority of urban residents don’t have access to ...
Winner Take All? Richard Florida’s ‘New Urban Crisis’ Part of Growing Global Focus on Unequal Cities
Cities are growing rapidly in more places than ever before, but this growth is not always accompanied by prosperity. The specter of inequality – and fear that it could short-circuit economic development – has been rising in the global urban ...
