A huge challenge for growing cities is provision of core services and infrastructure. Every time a new neighborhood crops up, services like roads, water and sanitation, education, and health centers must be extended to cover new residents. In practice, cities ...
In the 1990s, New York City needed a new water filtration system to serve its nearly 8 million people. But the prospect of spending $6-10 billion on a new water treatment plant, and another $100 million on annual operating costs, ...
8 Years Watching and Influencing Urban Transformation: Reflections From a Foundation Program Officer
Can innovative work be achieved by a program officer in a philanthropic organization? I remember asking this question when I started at the Hewlett Foundation in 2010. In my time there, I learned that program staff at philanthropies get to ...
This is an excerpt reposted courtesy of CityLab, written by WRI Board Member Robin Chase. City streets are a scarce resource, and they can get very congested. During peak times, we want to move as many people through these corridors ...
Most people now live in cities and cities are growing rapidly. We are living in the midst of the urbanization age, an age that started in earnest at the beginning of the 19th century, when people first decided en masse ...
Like many Indian cities, Pune’s population exploded over the last three decades. Between 1981 and 2011 it more than doubled as thousands came to work in manufacturing and IT. And like other cities, Pune expanded, eventually engulfing 23 previously separate ...
Cities across the world have pledged to take action on climate change, including planning for more sustainable forms of transportation. Many cities, however, lack the data and information necessary to track and monitor their progress. This data provides valuable examples of transportation ...
With ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft continuing to gain popularity and drawing attention for their impact on congestion and other urban ills, cities from Washington to São Paolo are moving to the seemingly inevitable next step: special taxes. This is unsurprising. ...
Bike sharing has experienced astonishing growth since its first major breakthrough 20 years ago. Following the rise of dockless bike sharing, more than 1,000 cities worldwide now offer bike-sharing services. Around 300 cities implemented new systems in 2017 alone. Bike ...
The WRI Ross Prize for Cities seeks to answer the question every city wants to know: How do you achieve lasting, large-scale, positive change in your city? This week, applications for the inaugural $250,000 WRI Ross Prize closed and the ...
