Posts tagged with 'green space'
How Vitoria-Gasteiz Has Optimized Land Use and Mobility to Save Lives and Fight Climate Change
How Vitoria-Gasteiz Has Optimized Land Use and Mobility to Save Lives and Fight Climate Change
Like many European cities in the 20th century, Vitoria-Gasteiz, capital of the Basque Country in Spain, experienced rapid population growth, followed by increased motorization and urban sprawl. What makes Vitoria-Gasteiz stand out is the coordinated action its leaders and community ...
How to Scale Up Nature-based Solutions for Adaptation
How to Scale Up Nature-based Solutions for Adaptation
The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report highlights the enormous potential of nature to reduce the risks of climate change and build resilience. Political momentum is building for this approach. For example, 137 countries committed in 2021 to collectively end forest loss and land ...
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 ...
Curitiba Is Evolving But Remains a Model for Urban Sustainability
Curitiba Is Evolving But Remains a Model for Urban Sustainability
I recently had the pleasure of re-visiting Curitiba, Brazil, thanks to an invitation from the Smart Cities Expo. I made my first pilgrimage in 2000, when Bogotá was implementing its bus rapid transit system, Transmilenio, and returned twice after that. ...
What Are We Learning About Urban Wellbeing During COVID-19?
What Are We Learning About Urban Wellbeing During COVID-19?
In recent years, many cities have launched new efforts to build healthier urban environments – happier, safer and cleaner places to work and play. Then, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. But in many ways, it laid bare the ...
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 ...
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 ...
Rosario, Argentina Uses Urban Farming to Tackle Economic and Climate Crises
Rosario, Argentina Uses Urban Farming to Tackle Economic and Climate Crises
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sustainable Food Production for a Resilient Rosario won the 2020-2021 Prize for Cities on June 29, 2021. Learn more here. (June 29, 2021) The residents of Rosario, Argentina’s third-largest city, are no strangers to crises. When the country’s economy ...
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 ...
The Case for Formal Urban Experiments
The Case for Formal Urban Experiments
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 ...
Building Political Will to Act on Road Safety
Building Political Will to Act on Road Safety
Since its beginning in Sweden in the 1990s, Vision Zero has become a global movement to prevent road fatalities and serious injuries by undertaking a Safe System approach to road safety. But despite the documented successes of the approach in ...
5 Big Ideas to Address the Climate Crisis and Inequality in Cities
5 Big Ideas to Address the Climate Crisis and Inequality in Cities
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sustainable Food Production for a Resilient Rosario won the 2020-2021 Prize for Cities on June 29, 2021. Learn more here. (June 29, 2021) City life can be deeply unfair. This was true before the COVID-19 pandemic exposed just how ...
Not All Green Space is Created Equal – or Equally Accessible to All
Not All Green Space is Created Equal – or Equally Accessible to All
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 ...
Daring Cities’ Final Session Balances Inspiring Examples with Challenges Ahead
Daring Cities’ Final Session Balances Inspiring Examples with Challenges Ahead
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 ...
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