Posts in the 'Guest Contributor' category
Community participation has become a checklist item for any major urban development project. But what does community participation actually mean? What would it look like if we flipped the responsibility of engagement from citizens to designers? What if, instead of ...
Municipal leaders face hundreds of difficult choices every day. With so many needs and worthy programs, how does one choose where to invest limited funding? In the face of pressing human needs, cities too often decide that funding for environmental ...
Would you spend $8 per year to see your community reduce rates of obesity, heart disease, anxiety and asthma? Still not convinced? What if that investment also reduced energy costs and increased property values? Urban trees can transform city neighborhoods, ...
Can nature help cities address the twin problems of air that is too dirty or too hot? Based on a new report released by The Nature Conservancy – in collaboration with C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group – the answer appears ...
Does urban living threaten our sanity and happiness? Popular culture is rife with stories which suggest that living in a city increases loneliness and unhappiness, and some scientific studies indicate that urbanization increases mental illness and depression. Are these claims credible? How can communities ...
Bogotá, Colombia was recently named the least safe transit system for women, largely due to an epidemic of sexual assault (defined here as any type of unwanted sexual touching). According to a survey, conducted in Colombia and Bolivia as part ...
Milton Bevington is Senior Advisor to the City of Boston under the City Energy Project. He guest-authored this post on the City of Boston’s work on sustainable infrastructure finance. The potential threat which climate change presents to the economy, public ...
Global leaders in city finance met in Rio de Janeiro on 5 April 2016 for the first-of-its-kind global forum to accelerate the financing of climate action in cities. The C40 Financing Sustainable Cities Forum brought together over 130 representatives from ...
For some building owners, renovations—including retrofitting heating, cooling, and lighting systems—can be a way to attract tenants. For homeowners, improving insulation can make for more comfortable as well as energy efficient homes. For industry, more efficient equipment means expanding production ...
With massive population growth in store for cities across the Global South, the fact that many cities struggle to provide effective waste collection to serve the current population levels is worrying. Poor waste collection practices — such as the indiscriminate ...