Urban equity in development: Cities for life. Medellin, Colombia, 5-11 April 2014

Posted on: 8 May 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: Events presentations

The Seventh Session of the World Urban Forum provided a platform to create new networks and partnerships and strengthen existing ones, with a meaningful impact on equity and development. Participants gained new awareness about the role that cities, countries, international agencies and development partners can play in advancing an equity agenda, sharing knowledge and best practices. Discussions took place on how to implement the “Cities for Life” concept that is both normatively and operationally linked to the notion of equity. The concrete objectives of WUF7 are to take stock of where the world stands with respect to the equity concept, analysing how this concept is perceived and utilised. Conclusions of the plenary sessions are available online. This blog provides a response to the Medellin Declaration.

Find out more online

Integrating health benefits into transport planning and policy: The case of Indore, India

Posted on: 7 May 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

The city of Indore, India, is a pilot city for the creation of a new Health Impact Assessment methodology that will be used to evaluate the potential impacts of transport developments and policies on city residents.

Read more online

Brick by brick: Transforming relations between local government and the urban poor in Zimbabwe

Posted on: 6 May 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

This paper explores how the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation has built a working partnership with the City of Harare that has led to more inclusive, pro-poor, urban development. It considers how precedent-setting initiatives around community-led settlement upgrading and innovative funding mechanisms for upgrading have not only leveraged practical gains, in the form of improved housing and basic service provision, but have also been instrumental in the strengthening of this collaborative partnership. ZHPF have also pursued city-wide profiling and an alternative incremental approach to development in order to achieve strategic gains such as pro-poor policy and legal reforms.

Read more online

Beyond connectivity: The impacts of social media in urban development in Puerto Ayora, Ecuador

Posted on: 29 April 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

This paper explores the effects of social media at a local level, in terms of the interaction between the people and their transforming cities, and between citizens and planning authorities. In attempting to unpack these interactions, this paper analyses how social media, as a tool for collective organisation, sharing and producing information, affects the power relationships around the building of cities. In the final chapter, the example of Puerto Ayora, the Galapagos Islands, the paper analyses some situations where the use of social media has supported social initiatives in achieving their goals. This study suggests that a timely analysis of what is happening, in the digital, as distinct from the physical, spaces where people discuss the city is needed to broaden urban theories and ensure more holistic analysis of what is actually happening.

Read more online

Urban China: Toward efficient, inclusive and sustainable urbanization

Posted on: 28 April 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

This joint report by the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council argues that China needs to build cities that are more dense to cut down on infrastructure costs. The report includes six priority areas for a new model of urbanization.

Read more online

Global Urban Lectures

Posted on: 25 April 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

The Global Urban Lecture series is an online repository of 15-minute video lectures that make available knowledge and experience of world renowned scholars and experts associated with UN-Habitat’s work.  The series is offered as a free resource by UN-Habitat, aimed at universities, urban practitioners, and policy makers, as well as the general public who is interested in cities and sustainable urbanization. Each lecture package consists of a synopsis of the lecture, biography of the speaker, links to associated materials for in-depth study, and the 15 min video. The packages can be applied either for personal use, as additions to ongoing or new university courses, or for screening in public events as introduction to debates on subjects relevant to cities and urban development.

Find out more online

The China Urban Sustainability Index 2013

Posted on: 17 April 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

The China Urban Sustainability Index is an annual research project undertaken by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) and the Urban China Initiative (UCI). UCI is a think tank co-founded by McKinsey & Company, Columbia University, and Tsinghua University in 2010. UCI’s mission is to convene leaders from the public and private sectors to promote sustainable urbanization and economic growth in China. The analysis deploys 23 metrics, which cover four categories: economy, society, resources and environment. It ranks 185 cities, of varying sizes and at different stages of development, by their level of sustainability from 2005 to 2011. The study also benchmarks sample Chinese cities against advanced global cities. The aim is to understand how China’s sustainability drive is evolving, and to provide an international reference for Chinese cities during this process.

Read more online

OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Colombia 2014

Posted on: 16 April 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

This report is the first OECD review of Colombia’s environmental performance. It evaluates progress towards sustainable development and green growth, with a focus on waste and chemicals management and policies that promote more effective and efficient protection and sustainable use of biodiversity.

Read more online

Down under placemaking

Posted on: 11 April 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

For decades, Melbourne has been the hotbed of experimentation and innovation that has attracted new thinking, new leadership, enlightened developers and progressive governance. An Integrated Placemaking approach, which Melbourne-based Village Well has developed and implemented for the past 22 years is explored with specific case studies. The retrofitting of Melbourne Central, a city mall, made it into a real place, creating one of the world’s great markets. The activation of the Melbourne Laneways caused the once lifeless laneways to become the city’s number one tourist attraction, and the development of the Docklands, a vast urban renewal project, doubled the city’s footprint.

Read more online

How Vancouver invented itself

Posted on: 9 April 2014
By: mackene
No Comments »
Filed under: News

In terms of both aesthetics and livability, Vancouver is one of the world’s most widely admired cities, a place where the skyline has been painstakingly designed to preserve striking views of the mountains and harbor, where high-density residential neighborhoods are mixed with green space to create a walking-scale environment in which cars are an afterthought. But while planners and developers elsewhere seek to copy the salient features of what has come to be known as “Vancouverism,” those involved in the shaping of modern Vancouver caution that there is more to it than just view corridors, slim towers juxtaposed with mid-rise development and bike paths, or the breathtaking natural environment. Instead, they say, the real secret of Vancouver’s success has been its deliberative, values-driven evolutionary process, in which local government planners, developers, and the citizenry have labored over the past few decades to form a consensus vision of what their city should be like, and then come up with creative solutions for achieving it. This article outlines this process.

Read more online