Posts tagged with 'Thomas Abbot'
Thinking “Incrementally”: Addressing the Global Housing Deficit by Engaging the Poor
Thinking “Incrementally”: Addressing the Global Housing Deficit by Engaging the Poor
Surprising many in the architectural community, this year’s prestigious Pritzker Prize went to Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena. Though the award—often regarded as the Nobel Prize of architecture—prompts images of iconic skyscrapers or cultural centers, Aravena initially achieved fame for his firm’s ...
Lima’s Villa El Salvador: A Story of Structured Informal Development
Lima’s Villa El Salvador: A Story of Structured Informal Development
Although Lima’s Villa El Salvador neighborhood was just a dusty plain called the Tablada de Lurín in 1971, it would soon become home to some of the city’s poorest residents. At the time, there were no electricity lines, no wells, ...
The Kumbh Mela
Friday Fun: Lessons and Innovations from India’s Temporary City, the Kumbh Mela
In January, 2013, a city emerged on the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in Allahabad, India. Temporary bamboo and fabric structures appeared on a floodplain that had been underwater just weeks before. Metal plates were laid down for ...
Urban Expansion in Sao Paulo, Brazil
Why Planning for Expansion Helps Build Sustainable, Equitable cities
Consensus is building around the many benefits of compact cities. Overall, compact cities use fewer resources, produce fewer carbon emissions, and provide better quality of life for their inhabitants than their sprawled counterparts. In rapidly urbanizing countries in the global ...
Governments can improve the livelihoods of female street vendors by creating safe public spaces and supporting member-based groups of informal workers. Photo by Jeff DeMaria/Flickr.
Recognizing the role of gender in the informal urban economy
The informal economy is often referred to as the “shadow economy,” a glaring indicator of its absence from the eyes of policymakers. As discussed on TheCityFix, street vendors are frequently ignored in surveys of jobs and economic productivity, despite their ...
Caption: Cities can dramatically improve street vendors’ livelihoods by providing sufficient space and infrastructure for vending. Photo by Prasanth Chandran/Flickr.
Making space for street vendors: Towards equitable urban development
As previously discussed on TheCityFix, informal street vendors in cities around the world experience daily challenges to their economic livelihoods. For example, street vendors are perceived to be detrimental to city life, unhygienic, noisy, and to obstruct smooth flow of ...
Governments must create inclusive spaces for dialogue with street vendors and craft policy to support their livelihoods and economic mobility. Photo by Carlos Penalba/Flickr.
Bridging the divide between vendors and local governments for more inclusive cities
As previously discussed on TheCityFix, many cities worldwide are facing a series of challenges around informal economic activity. As they begin to modernize and transform public spaces, street vendors are often left behind or swept away. Yet, these efforts at ...
The people in Bogota's informal sector and the city government have clashing visions of how informal commerce should play out on public transport and in public spaces. Photo by Nathan Gibbs/Flickr.
Public transport and the informal sector: Competing visions of Bogotá’s future
There is an entire ecosystem of informal commerce along Bogotá, Colombia’s streets. Some vendors sit at traffic signals or bus stops, waiting for a bus that’s not too full and not too empty. When they spot a good candidate, they ...
Istanbul, Turkey, like many cities in Europe and Asia are turning towards water transport to combat congestion in growing urban areas. Photo by Axeltriple/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Three cities explore water-based transport to improve urban mobility
Rapidly developing cities worldwide, while diverse, have a number of factors in common. Issues that seem nearly universal are congestion and enormous traffic jams, which have, in some extreme cases, stretched the typical commute into a weeklong sojourn. While cities ...
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