Posts tagged with 'urban planning'
There is no question that for the world to successfully slow and mitigate the effects of climate change, cities will need to transform. Currently, urban areas consume 78% of the world’s energy supply and produce over 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions. By ...
Over the past two decades, Rwanda – the land of a thousand hills – has made remarkable strides: poverty has significantly declined and quality of life has improved. The service, industrial and agricultural sectors have flourished. Even in the aftermath ...
About two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. While cities are hubs of innovation and opportunity, the increasing pace of urbanization also exacerbates inequality, stresses infrastructure, and fuels climate change, air pollution and other environmental problems. The ...
Until just a few years ago, the right riverbank of the Seine in Paris was an urban highway used by over 40,000 vehicles every day. Despite being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the road was either heavily gridlocked during rush ...
Following the launch of Colombia’s first National Roadmap for Net Zero Buildings in June 2022, the cities of Bogotá and Cali are setting the foundation for how to implement the roadmap at the local level. The municipal governments of both cities have ...
Local-level, high-quality data can provide powerful insights for urban planning and lead to better policies on mobility, climate adaptation, gender equity and more. But only if the inputs are good and there’s enough capacity to analyze it effectively. New technologies ...
History shows that when disasters and crises strike, cities often bounce back stronger and more resilient than before. The great Chicago fire famously gave rise to skyscrapers. Infectious disease outbreaks led to public health policies and modern sanitation. The devastation of World War II catalyzed unprecedented ...
To achieve more equitable, resilient, low-carbon societies, cities need big changes to critical infrastructure and systems. But ample research shows they can’t raise the investment needed for those big changes on their own. Municipalities depend on higher levels of government ...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), composed of hundreds of the world’s leading scientists, puts considerable weight on urban climate action in developing pathways towards sustainable futures. The 6th Assessment Report of the IPCC recognizes that urban areas present ...
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. ...
As 2021 closes, most cities around the world continue to grapple with the uncertainty of a pandemic now in its second year. Amid dips and rises in cases, the emergence of new variants, and the ongoing challenge of vaccinating the ...
Infectious disease outbreaks can have enduring influence on urban design and several have irrevocably shaped how modern cities feel and function. For example, parks, wide street design and even the home bathroom are all important legacies of cholera outbreaks; today, ...
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 ...
In 2020 and into 2021, transportation agencies, companies and advocacy groups acted swiftly in the face of the unique public health crisis and disruption caused by COVID-19. They provided solutions that kept frontline workers, groceries, health services and other critical ...
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, ...
