The 'smart city' concept has existed for several years, but only now, with some trial and error, are we seeing the real fruits of these efforts coming to light. While the ambitions of Masdar City have been scaled back somewhat, Amsterdam is forging ahead, piloting a number of schemes to introduce smart technology to the way energy and other resources are managed within the city.
There is in turn much happiness and much misery to be found amongst the urban poor, as these portraits of three households in the outskirts of Manila testify. The point is not to draw lines between them, but to accept that poverty has several gradations, above and below the proverbial dollar-a-day, all of which require various degrees of assistance.
Andrew Fleming explores the possibilities for the 'affordable' housing market in the inner city, where new financial instruments and governance models are improving access for lower-income families.
A bold future may await rust belt cities in North America and Europe if asset manager Pippa Malmgren's vision of smart manufacturing hubs and recent research on revitalised industrial centres come to fruition.
While Bangalore has a longer history of globalisation than Gurgaon, both are facing major inequality and infrastructure deficits, and both have the human capital to overcome these problems.
The southern Italian city of Naples has offered to host the sixth session of the World Urban Forum.
There is much to be commended, and much to be weeded out, in Foster's vision for a new London airport in the Thames Estuary and the proposal for a new transport, utilities and data spine running the length of the country.
In the first of three articles, Tanya Gallo explores the capitalist redevelopment of downtown Beirut, and how it is threatening to create new segregations between the wealthy and the general public.
Alan Gilbert doesn't believe there is one, but if one must speak of a global urban agenda, he would point to local private sector lobbies as the common force driving similar agendas in cities around the world.
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.
Because so much damage has already been done to the world’s ecosystems, we need to start thinking of regenerative rather than just sustainable urban development.
Slum neighbourhoods are teeming with industry and commerce, yet the policy sphere still tends to treat them as residential spaces alone. What are the consequences of this misconception, and is it time to invoke a right to space, not just of housing?
Andrew Fleming (Twitter: @AndrewSFleming) works as the Senior Researcher at the Cape Town Partnership, a non-profit company dedicated to the…
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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.
