Posts tagged with 'urban parks'
The Best Defense Against 'Natural' Disasters Is Nature Itself
The Best Defense Against ‘Natural’ Disasters Is Nature Itself
I’ve watched in horror as Europe burns. Ferocious wildfires have swept through Spain, France and now Greece, scorching towns and forests and spewing toxic smoke. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. Many will have little left to return to. European ...
African Cities Use Nature to Fight Floods and Climate Change
African Cities Use Nature to Fight Floods and Climate Change
When torrential rains hit Kinshasa in April 2025, the city of 20 million came to a standstill. Floodwaters submerged more than half the city as the Ndjili River and smaller streams overflowed, quickly overwhelming the city’s drainage capacity. Lives were ...
Using Spatial Analyses to Help Build Thriving, Resilient Communities in US Cities
Using Spatial Analyses to Help Build Thriving, Resilient Communities in US Cities
Picture this: you wake up on a Sunday morning and hop on a bike with your family or a close friend. Within a few minutes you arrive at a coffee shop, order your drink of choice while listening to the ...
Most Cities Are Getting Hotter. Not All Residents Feel It Equally
Most Cities Are Getting Hotter. Not All Residents Feel It Equally
On a hot day in February 2024, volunteers dispersed across Cape Town, South Africa, with sensors affixed to their cars. Their aim was to measure heat differences across the city. In Cape Town’s dense, highly developed center, they recorded air temperatures ...
Big and Small Steps to Beat the Heat
Big and Small Steps to Beat the Heat
It’s an island no one in their right mind wants to be on, but sadly many of us increasingly find ourselves due to global warming. “Heat islands” are a concept British climatologist Gordon Manley came up with way back in ...
New Data Dashboard Helps Cities Build Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate
New Data Dashboard Helps Cities Build Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate
Climate change is impacting cities and their residents in many profound ways, from poor air quality to flooding to biodiversity loss and extreme heat. Now, with the help of a new tool, select cities can access localized, integrated data to ...
Trees for Cities: Implementing Nature-Based Solutions in India
Trees for Cities: Implementing Nature-Based Solutions in India
Whether one seeks an escape from Delhi’s scorching summer heat or a winter afternoon basking in the sun, Sanjay Van National Park, one of the city’s few surviving urban forests, comes to mind. Mangalavanam in Kochi or Shalimar Bagh in ...
The Power of Multistakeholder Collaboration in Creating More Equitable and Sustainable Cities
The Power of Multistakeholder Collaboration in Creating More Equitable and Sustainable Cities
The latest UN climate conference, COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, was a significant one for cities in many respects. Delegates established a new fund to help vulnerable countries deal with loss and damages from climate impacts, and some of ...
An Innovative Jobs Program in Odisha, India Helped Informal Workers Through COVID-19 and Beyond
An Innovative Jobs Program in Odisha, India Helped Informal Workers Through COVID-19 and Beyond
When India’s federal government announced a public health lockdown on March 24, 2022 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it generated desperate scenes. Economic activity ground to a halt. Millions of migrant workers traveled back to their home states. In ...
Interview: Transforming Pune, One Neighborhood at a Time
Interview: Transforming Pune, One Neighborhood at a Time
Located in the western India state of Maharashtra, the city of Pune has a rich history as a center of higher learning. In recent decades, Pune has transformed into a hub for the country’s software, automobile and electronics industries, leading to exponential ...
In Barranquilla, Colombia, Urban Parks Revitalize a Declining City
In Barranquilla, Colombia, Urban Parks Revitalize a Declining City
Samira Perez, a longtime resident of Barranquilla, Colombia used to spend her time and money on taxis to take her children to local shopping malls after school and on the weekends. There, they would pass the time marveling at upscale ...
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 ...
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 ...
Green Space: An Underestimated Tool to Create More Equal Cities
Green Space: An Underestimated Tool to Create More Equal Cities
As coronavirus restrictions ease around the world, many consider a walk around their neighborhood for some fresh air to be a welcome break from confinement. However, socioeconomic status could greatly affect the landscapes people find on these strolls, particularly in how much ...
Insights from Big Data on How COVID-19 Is Changing Society
Insights from Big Data on How COVID-19 Is Changing Society
Between the 1918 flu pandemic and the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, our ability to understand the effects of infectious diseases has increased exponentially. Networked personal devices and automated sensors are now ubiquitous, not to mention communications technologies like the internet that ...
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