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Posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2017
Although urban planning agencies have been around, some of them, for over 50 years, they are relatively unknown. However, their role half-way between the worlds of technology and politics, although atypical, is essential so that informed... Read more
By the year 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be urban. With 1.5 million people moving into cities every week, managing urban growth is one of the most important development challenges facing the world today. In an effort to create a global framework to guide sustainable urbanization for the next twenty years, national governments adopted The New Urban Agenda during The United... Read more
Rapid urban growth; growing food and nutrition insecurity; unbalanced food availability, distribution and access; environmental degradation, resource scarcity and climate change; unsustainable production and consumption patterns, including generation of food waste – all of these have important developmental implications for both urban and rural areas alike. It is increasingly recognised that in... Read more
Since 2002, over 5.6 million Afghans have returned from neighbouring countries and as many as 40% of them have not been able to reintegrate in their original locations. The total number of recorded IDPs in Afghanistan is more than 1.2 million. These returnees together with IDPs, rural-urban migrants and high natural population growth have resulted in an unprecedented expansion of Afghan cities.... Read more
Over the past 30 years, the number, scope and complexity of tools for assessing the environmental impact of buildings has increased dramatically. Examining the emergence of building sustainability assessment and benchmarking as a global phenomenon as well as some of their political and practical barriers can be useful in order to understand their possible role in realizing objectives of the ‘New... Read more
We argue that urbanization has accelerated in the last few decades, and that this largely overlooked phenomenon cannot be explained by existing empirical models of urbanization. Consequently, we explicitly bring forward the role of information in driving urbanization, focusing on information and communication technology (ICT), especially the Internet. For this purpose, we develop a simple two-... Read more
Small towns are an essential but often-neglected element of rural landscapes and food systems. They perform a number of essential functions, from market nodes to providers of services and goods and non-farm employment to their own population as well as that of the wider surrounding region. In demographic terms, they represent about half of the world’s urban population, and are projected to... Read more
2017 holds promise for Africa. Despite the troubles of 2016—political turmoil in the Gambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, continuing violence in South Sudan and Nigeria, drought in southern Africa, low commodity prices, and lowered growth outlooks—I enter 2017 with a positive attitude. So many of these serious challenges are those which Africa has weathered before and come out... Read more
The urbanization process in Europe took place rapidly since 1950, but in the 90s it moderated its pace and it will likely be slower during the next ten years. European cities have become in important hubs for education, innovation and knowledge-based economies. Digitalization has been fundamental to increase competitiveness. Source: bbvaresearch.com This article is culled from daily press... Read more
PwC is heavily involved in helping governments to build future-ready, urbanised economies that are sustainable and resilient for the long term. Through our Building Better Cities report, we’re mapping out the current and future role of 28 cities in all 21 members of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). In this study, which focuses on the role urban centres play in the context of APEC’s... Read more
Cities are a driving force of the 21st century, through bringing large numbers of people into close proximity, they spark economic growth, foster innovation, and generate prosperity. But they face the pressing challenges of creating a livable environment for their residents, enabling economic activity that benefits all citizens, and fostering urban development that is environmentally... Read more