Urban Planning

Social spaces for social cities

One of the re-emerging questions in urban policy and development concerns whether a 'social' city can be designed, and more importantly what that will look and feel like. Academics have provided a strong basis for understanding the cities social life – questioning what the city is and what it functions to do, to conceptualise the cities' sociability. Within this blog post I would like to synthesise such theories, and secondly, introduce Tanzania House of Hope, a local NGO reviving community capacity within our contemporary age. I would like this blog post to encourage ideas and projects to be shared and supported, but also for us, Urbanists, to start changing our view of cities, urban life, and sociabilities. Read more.

Submitted by Gemma Todd — Mon, 05/12/2014 - 17:15

Event: Biannual Meeting of the Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights of United Cities and Local Governments
15-18 May Gwangju, South Korea

The 1st 2014 Biannual Meeting of the Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), to be held in Gwangju (South Korea) from 15 to 18 May 2014, at the invitation of Mayor of the city, Mr. Kang Un-Tae, during the 4th World Human Rights Cities Forum (WHRCF), which will be celebrated under the topic "Towards a global alliance of human rights cities for all". For more information, click here.

Frontier Cities: Forging Paths for Partnerships and Learning

As the world urbanizes, cities are poised to take the lead on many global issues like climate change, economic development, and poverty reduction. And the world will increasingly look to cities to take the lead. In the face of stagnant international negotiations on climate change, for example, cities are taking the lead through groups like C40, a network of the world's megacities taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Likewise, in an increasingly globalized economy, cities are investing in infrastructure and assets that maintain and attract companies in an effort to keep their competitive edge. Read more.

Submitted by Editor — Fri, 04/04/2014 - 10:18

Smartness in three flavors

Several years ago in Beyond Smart Cities, I wrote about cities on the prowl. By the thousands, cities from around the globe are flying every which way, searching like so many hunters and gatherers to learn and share information. By one estimate, the 1,000 cities on the planet that have more than half a million people are engaged in many thousands of exchanges every year. Why so much prowling? It’s much cheaper and less risky to pick up the secrets of success by examining innovations at close range in other cities, where new practices have been tried out, than to reinvent the wheel back home. Nothing has slowed that pace, but some of the consequences of so much international inter-city exchange is smartness that is now appearing in three flavors. Read more.

Submitted by Editor — Mon, 03/24/2014 - 15:22

Event: World Cities Summit 2014
1–4 June 2014 Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

The World Cities Summit is the exclusive and premier platform for government leaders and industry experts to address liveable and sustainable city challenges, share integrated urban solutions and forge new partnerships. Highlights of the World Cities Summit include the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize, World Cities Summit Mayors Forum, Plenary Sessions, Thematic Tracks, In-Focus Forums, Site Visits, Networking Events and strategic co-located events.

The 4th edition of the biennial World Cities Summit will be held in conjunction with the Singapore International Water Week and CleanEnviro Summit Singapore. This is an integrated platform to deliberate the solutions for a sustainable tomorrow. For more information or to register your interest to attend, click here.

Democracy, Participation, and Public Space

Two architects, P.K. Das from Mumbai and Paul Downton from Adelaide, have recently written about public space on The Nature of Cities. Both essays, from very different angles, are about the fundamental principles around which public spaces should be planned, organized, and motivated in human landscapes such as cities. If a single word suffices, that word must be "democratic". Read more.

Submitted by David Maddox — Thu, 03/20/2014 - 12:11

Innovations in incremental housing finance take hold despite an adverse policy environment

"Housing for All" in India focusing on the poor will remain a key electoral mandate for successive government irrespective of party affiliations. The only expectation with the upcoming national elections in India later this year 2014 is for a change in policy perspective to truly facilitate housing for the poor. There are workable and scalable housing solutions abound and the policy makers need only look at field practices to design policy that is flexible and accommodates these innovations rather than stifling them. Read more.

Submitted by Rakhi Mehra — Thu, 03/20/2014 - 08:22

Segurança Colaborativa

O Brasil está vivendo um delicado momento com o aumento da violência e com uma sensação generalizada de falta de segurança. Manchetes se repetem em todo o país - roubos, assassinatos, violência no trânsito. Se por um lado, temos um Governo ineficiente sem a força necessária para combater essa insegurança; por outro, vemos uma sociedade impaciente e começando a fazer "justiça com as próprias mãos". Leia mais.

Submitted by Carla Link — Mon, 03/17/2014 - 17:18

Urban planning and design: laws, regulations, and the informal city

Urban policy and regulations in São Paulo have historically pushed the city to informality. These laws include complicated building codes that make it impossible for the poor to build legally, and contrasting laws that make "emends" with the existing city through numerous amnesty laws. Read more.

Submitted by Eliana Barbosa — Sun, 03/02/2014 - 09:32

Urban planning and design: laws, regulations, and the informal city

My introduction contains a statement and a question. First, for city governments to truly embrace and innovate around the informal city concept they require a defined measure of discretion to design, plan and regulate. However, they often find themselves "at the bottom of the food chain" when it comes to regulatory authority. For example, South African cities (who work in what is perhaps the most "city friendly" constitutional framework on the continent) are still severely constrained by national and provincial laws and policies. What complicates this is the fact that the African city is often a hot bed of opposition, a place where urban-based opposition movements begin to chip away at the hegemony of the national ruling party/coalition with its rural constituency. Kampala, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Cape Town and Harare are but a few examples of cities where this scenario plays or played itself out. Partly as a result of this phenomenon, there is then the central governments' anxiety with these "oversized" local authorities exercising unfettered planning authority and they are prompted to insist on tight "one size fits all" planning frameworks that stifle city innovation. Read more.

Submitted by Editor — Sun, 03/02/2014 - 08:44

Pages