Posts in the 'Guest Contributor' category
Two years ago, I participated in the learning roundtable for the first cycle of the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities. I confess that my expectations were rather moderate, but that, to my surprise, I found it truly refreshing and ...
Digital Solutions for the Urban Services Divide: The GSMA Innovation Fund for Digital Urban Services
Last month the GSMA announced the launch of the GSMA Innovation Fund for Digital Urban Services funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The application deadline for the GSMA Innovation Fund for Digital Urban Services is July ...
The circular economy turns linear supply chains into loops so that nothing is wasted. Ideally, there is no more end of the line like a landfill. Practitioners look at all the options across supply chains to use as few resources ...
Crisis often sparks changes to the ways we move. Post-war prosperity made the automobile a household item, and lifestyle. The 1970s global oil and fiscal crisis brought a short-lived bike boom and a retreat of city dollars for public transit. ...
In cities around the world, local officials face multi-dimensional sustainability and resilience challenges and are often responsible for achieving many overlapping mandates. More effective solutions require cross-cutting responses and collaboration across multiple levels of government and sectors. New research reveals ...
In some ways, cities are like households: they must make adjustments in spending based on cash flow. If your income is cut in half, then you may have to dramatically rethink your standard of living. COVID-19 has hit many households ...
Incidents of building collapse are worryingly common in large African cities. One study counted 54 building collapse deaths and 122 injuries in Kampala, Uganda, between 2004 and 2008. Another identified 112 cases in Lagos, Nigeria, from 1978 to 2008. Cities in Ghana and Kenya, ...
In response to the massive challenges confronting cities around the world, more city planners have begun to experiment with quick, high-impact urban design solutions. From pop-up bike lanes and parklets, to sidewalk extensions, to tactical urbanism safety interventions, many cities ...
At one point, in a history that now feels more like a mythical past, grocery, food delivery and online shopping felt like a “nice-to-have” for most people. But in a matter of days, the COVID-19 pandemic turned on-demand delivery services ...
Solid waste workers have been indispensable to protecting cities around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their heroic examples, from India to Vietnam to Latin America, have helped cities keep moving. But a critical alignment of factors is making their ...
COVID-19 has brought many lessons for urban planners, illuminating existing inequalities and flaws as well as introducing new challenges. One such lesson, as people seek open space and tranquility in tumultuous times, is that parks and natural areas are crucial ...
It was a contrast of opportunities and challenges confronting cities around the world highlighted at the Daring Cities forum’s final session on October 28, the culmination of three weeks, 400 speakers and 200 hours of dialogue and knowledge exchange. Mayor ...
Their goal is an ambitious one: make the world more prosperous by transitioning it from a linear economy that only works from inputs to outputs to a circular economy that loops both together. Instead of designing clothing to be cast ...
Create quieter delivery solutions. Declutter the roads and improve safety. Deliver goods more efficiently. Fastrack the development of alternative fuel technologies. Those were just some of the solutions explored at the Daring Cities forum last week during two sessions on sustainable ...
We need to reframe the concept of inclusive cities. That observation made by renowned urbanist Günter Meinert helped set the tone for a deep discussion on more equitable cities during the Daring Cities forum, a free virtual event geared for local ...
