Posts tagged with 'public health'
India's road to safety
The road to safety
This article was originally published in The Indian Express. As Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, announces a package of assistance on road safety through Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Global Safety Initiative, here is an ugly truth: India has one ...
Making Turkey's roads safer by design
Urban design for safer roads: Insights from EMBARQ Turkey’s RSLab
More than 1.2 million people worldwide are killed in road traffic crashes every year, and an additional 20 to 50 million are injured. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), if urgent action is not taken, these figures will increase ...
Londrina, Brazil. Photo by Mariana Gil/EMBARQ Brasil.
Transport plays a key role in urban air quality
The city is like an organism, and the swift movement of people and goods is the oxygen that sustains its well-being. When this circulation is inhibited, it significantly compromises the quality of urban life. For example, private cars account for ...
Urban sustainability trends to watch
TheCityFix’s Year in Review: Urban sustainability trends to watch
With urban growth come a number of opportunities to positively transform our cities. And while the unique challenges faced by city leaders are shaped by local contexts and histories, their actions reveal broader trends in how cities worldwide are changing ...
Raahgiri is promoting sustainable, active transport in the capital of India. Photo by Raahgiri Day, New Delhi/Facebook.
TheCityFix’s Year in Review: Momentum builds for the open streets movement
Do the streets in your city belong to people or cars? In more and more cities worldwide, residents are taking back their streets as public spaces. The open streets movement started in the 1970s with “Sunday Ciclovía” in Bogotá, Colombia, ...
Car ownership is on the rise in Indian cities, but Mumbai's new Equal Streets movement will help people take back the streets every Sunday while encouraging community interaction and active lifestyles. Photo by 350.org.
Mumbai is ready For “Equal Streets – A Citizens’ Movement”
Every day, Mumbai residents are being squeezed out of spaces to walk or cycle by the sheer pressure of cars, whose numbers are growing rapidly each year. A recent report by the Munich-based global consultancy Roland Berger Strategy Consultants stated that ...
São Paulo is experiencing a drought so extreme that the city could run out of water, and it is only one of many populous Brazilian cities that face significant risk for drought in future years. Photo by Martha Slivak/Flickr.
Three maps help explain São Paulo, Brazil’s water crisis
The worst drought to grip São Paulo, Brazil and neighboring states in 80 years is wreaking havoc on the local population. As of late October, key reservoirs hold less than two weeks’ worth of drinking water. Schools and health centers are closing early, ...
Employers play an important role in creating the incentives and infrastructure to encourage employees to use sustainable transport. Photo by Dylan Passmore/Flickr.
Seven ways to encourage sustainable commuting in your workplace
Car-oriented cities have a number of costs for citizens’ health and well-being. Up to 75% of urban air pollution is caused by motor vehicle fuel combustion, and in 2012, 3.7 million premature deaths were linked to outdoor air pollution. Numerous studies have ...
Urbanization is a driver of both economic growth and global climate change. Between 2011 and 2030, the urban areas of the world are expected to add 1.4 billion people, including 276 million in China and 218 million in India. Photo by Ken Marshall/Flickr.
How cities can save trillions, curb climate change, and improve public health
No strategy for reducing the impacts of global climate change is complete without addressing the challenge of urbanization. Cities contribute about 70% of energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, despite only accounting for 2% of global land area. Reducing this environmental impact may ...
Japan's shotengais - partly enclosed markets - succeed both because of their proximity to transport and the unique, tightly knit communities they foster. Photo by Michael Vito/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Japan’s shotengais show connectivity and community are key to commercial success
Even as malls are declining as social spaces in the United States, shotengais (商店街) – pedestrianized business districts covered with translucent roofs – remain a part of everyday life in Japanese cities. Shotengais are generally located near transport hubs and ...
Transit-oriented development strategies can help urban areas develop sustainably, uniting land use, transport planning, and urban design to create more people-oriented cities. Pictured: Small businesses and pedestrians at a hub near Mexico City's Metrobús bus rapid transit (BRT) system. Photo by Justin Swan/Flickr.
People-oriented Cities: Demystifying transit-oriented development
The “People-oriented Cities” series – exclusive to TheCityFix and WRI Insights – is an exploration of how cities can grow to become more sustainable and livable through transit-oriented development (TOD). The nine-part series will address different urban design techniques and trends ...
Combining environmental education with cycling helps children make sustainable mobility a life long decision. Photo by Nasos Efstathiadis/Flickr.
Educating the next generation for sustainable mobility
Today’s children are inheriting an environmental crisis – a simultaneous combination of depleting resources and increasing pollution. Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE), launched in 2003 by the European Commission, seeks to find sustainability initiatives around the region that can help Europe’s ...
EMBARQ Brazil released today a new manual to help cities like Rio de Janeiro build safe cycling infrastructure and foster cycling culture for sustainable urban mobility. Photo by Mariana Gil/EMBARQ Brazil.
New manual to catalyze cycling in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas
Cycling is already an important part of daily life many of Brazil’s urban residents. To grow the country’s cycling culture as well as provide better conditions for users, the new “Manual of Projects and Programs for Encouraging Cycling in Communities” ...
Trees bring a multitude of benefits to cities, helping the environment as well as residents' quality of life. Photo by Tristan Higbee/Flickr.
Urban trees boost quality of life for city dwellers around the world
Trees often fade into the background of what people understand as the city, yet they bring immense value – including environmental benefits like filtering water run-off and cleaning the air as well as increasing health and quality of life – ...
Urban design has a large impact on lifestyle, with bike lanes and pedestrian pathways promoting healthy behaviors for city residents across Brazil. Photo by Raul/Flickr.
Creating active cities and healthy citizens through innovative urban design
Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, killing as many as 17 million people each year. Sedentary, inactive lifestyles are a major contributor to this rise in cardiovascular disease – stress, pollution, poor diet, and lack ...
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