Whether through a lack of financial resources or the short-termism induced by democratic politics, governments in many places can exhibit a loss in the basic competencies required for effective urban planning. For cities in the UK and India, some of the slack is picked up by the private and non-profit sectors, with surprising and innovative results.
While there is a strong relationship between increasing urbanisation and increasing prosperity, it cannot be assumed that inequalities such as gender are reduced at the same time.
While many are outraged, it is senseless for city leaders to sow further division and resentment by dismissing young looters, especially when the systemic causes have been hidden in plain sight for decades.
A number of positive civil movements that Haitian authorities could easily engage with to develop a more sustainable and inclusive future for the country.
Rural teenage girls displaced by fighting in northern Pakistan have discovered the possibilities of full education and employment in the city of Peshawar.
It may be little more than a great stonking political ploy to become the architect of whatever new airport London eventually gets, but it's a kind of holistic long-term thinking we rarely see from a national government...
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
