Cities Today December 2012

Posted on: 11 January 2013
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The latest issue of Cities Today has news and articles on global cities.

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Lessons from Germany’s Passivhaus experience

Posted on: 10 January 2013
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This report provides an objective overview of the experience gained to date from Passivhaus in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.  It looks at the achievements and the national context that has helped its popularity in Germany, while conversely discusses some of the differences that may hinder volume uptake in the UK. Register to obtain access to the document.

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Green cities: using city deals to drive low carbon growth

Posted on: 10 January 2013
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The Green Alliance has published a report which examines the degree to which cities can drive low carbon growth and looks in detail at the city deals process as a means of achieving this. ‘City deals’ have been introduced to unlock the economic potential of cities, transferring power, tools and support from central government. So far, deals have been agreed with the eight core cities, known as ‘wave one’, and a further 20 cities, known as ‘wave two’, are in the running to agree deals by November 2013. The report looks at how wave one cities integrated low carbon ambitions into their deals and makes recommendations about how this can be achieved and embedded more consistently among wave two cities, as they agree their deals in the coming year.

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The Brown Review of the Rail Franchising Programme

Posted on: 10 January 2013
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Following the cancellation of the competition to run the InterCity West Coast franchise, the Secretary of State asked Richard Brown, Chairman of Eurostar, to carry out an urgent assessment of the implications of the flaws in the West Coast procurement for the rest of the rail franchising programme. In his independent report, Mr Brown makes a number of recommendations for the future of the rail franchising programme.

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Smart cities of the future

Posted on: 9 January 2013
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This article, which appears in an issue of The European Physical Journal Special Topics (Vol.214, November 2012), outlines the rudiments of what constitutes a smart city which the authors define as a city in which ICT is merged with traditional infrastructures, coordinated and integrated using new digital technologies. The authors first sketch their vision defining seven goals which concern: developing a new understanding of urban problems; effective and feasible ways to coordinate urban technologies; models and methods for using urban data across spatial and temporal scales; developing new technologies for communication and dissemination; developing new forms of urban governance and organisation; defining critical problems relating to cities, transport, and energy; and identifying risk, uncertainty, and hazards in the smart city. They also define six scenarios based on new cities badging themselves as smart, older cities regenerating themselves as smart, the development of science parks, tech cities, and technopoles focused on high technologies, the development of urban services using contemporary ICT, the use of ICT to develop new urban intelligence functions, and the development of online and mobile forms of participation. Finally the authors anticipate the paradigm shifts that will occur in this research and define a series of key demonstrators which we believe are important to progressing a science of smart cities.

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Sustainability and commercial property valuation

Posted on: 9 January 2013
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The draft of RICS Sustainability and commercial property global guidance note is now available for comments. Comments are requested by 5 February 2013.

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Business travel to increase in 2013

Posted on: 9 January 2013
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Business travel is set to increase in 2013 according to New Frequent Business Traveler Survey. A summary of the findings can be found in this article in Frequent Business Traveller.

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VisitBritain: State of the Nation

Posted on: 9 January 2013
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This page contains a monthly video update and headline tables showing the volume and value of inbound tourism to Britain, covering journey purpose, region of world and the most important short-haul and long-haul markets.

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Global Report on Food Tourism

Posted on: 9 January 2013
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In this report, an analysis of the current situation of food tourism is presented, through a survey of Affiliate Members of the World Tourism Organization and the input  of tourism and gastronomy professionals with extensive experience in international organizations, in destination training. The aim was to try to obtain a series of conclusions regarding some of the initiatives that are going on worldwide in food tourism for possible inclusion in the strategic reflection process being carried out by both public sector and businesses about policies for development and promotion in this field.

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Seven steps to being a successful client: A guide for the public sector

Posted on: 9 January 2013
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This report outlines the importance of developing a clear vision at the outset of a project; inspiring the project team; engaging all stakeholders to create an environment of collaboration; understanding risk; adopting good governance; establishing clear performance standards; applying lessons learned – both good and bad; and critically, remaining committed throughout.

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