The Global Urbanist

News and analysis of cities around the world

Governance

RSS Feed

Nationally significant infrastructure projects: Another dent in the UK's localism agenda?

James Patterson-Waterston • 14 May 2013

Formed during the boom years, the UK's localism agenda was intended to act as a brake on development. With investment capital scarce after the global financial crisis, the policy is starting to look unaffordable, with campaigns to make all sorts of projects look like "nationally significant infrastructure projects" (NSIPs) to speed up planning delays and attract funding, as James Patterson-Waterston discusses.

Popular Articles

Recent Headlines

Making noise and putting police to work for women in Manila

Faranak Miraftab • 14 March 2013

As part of our series on eliminating violence against women and girls in our cities produced in collaboration with the Huairou Commission, Faranak Miraftab gives the floor to members of DAMPA, a grassroots women's organisation with some rather sound strategies for raising awareness and sensitising police officers.

Violence against poor and marginalised women is violence against humanity

Patricia Chaves and Suzana Maranhão • 7 March 2013

Patricia Chaves and Suzana Maranhão demonstrate how easily institutions can oppress the communities they should be protecting.

Mapping the urban poor: why you should conduct enumerations

Marcus Tudehope • 5 March 2013

Marcus Tudehope sets out twelve reasons why you and the communities you work within should embark upon an enumeration.

Paris: city of suburbs? Restructuring the little city-museum

Kerwin Datu • 18 December 2012

Kerwin Datu reflects on the available options for reuniting Paris with its extensive suburbs.

Jobs

Events

Participatory governance

Delhi: choosing high-rise over consultative planning

Greg Randolph • 21 May 2013

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) continues to shift thriving urban communities into lifeless high-rise residential towers, ignorant of the economic base the existing neighbouroods provide.

Neighbourhood planning brings ethnic tensions to the surface

Kerwin Datu • 23 April 2013

Urban gardens or stop-and-frisk, we must lose the desire to "control" communities

Matt DelSesto • 16 April 2013

For Cairo's street vendors, the revolution is not yet fully won

Does Vandousselaere • 21 March 2013

Property and rights

A tiny step closer to an enforceable right to housing

Kerwin Datu • 12 February 2013

With Uruguay ratifying the Optional Protocol of the ICESCR, ten countries will soon have a right to housing somewhat enforceable under international law.

How China's rural machinery also adapts to urban life

Zach Hyman • 18 January 2013

How democracy is forcing itself onto the global urban agenda

Kerwin Datu and Naik Lashermes • 24 December 2012

Demonstrating the dignity of informal US housing

Martha Bridegam • 18 December 2012

Crime and security

Enlisting authorities against growing violence in Peru

Elizabeth L. Sweet • 18 March 2013

Elizabeth L. Sweet talks to three grassroots leaders in Lima who explain how violence against women is on the rise in Peru, and the techniques they use to address it.

The safety of women taxi drivers: perspectives from behind the wheel

Jacqueline Leavitt • 28 February 2013

A woman's right to enjoy the city

Pallavi Shrivastava • 26 February 2013

A day of global action for safer cities for women and girls

Katie Gillett • 19 February 2013

National governance

Converting London's offices: housing solution or commercial disaster?

Zoe Green • 28 March 2013

The UK Government wants to make it easier to convert offices to residential use, but it runs the risk of turning valuable commercial space into more empty houses.

Questioning India's assumptions about affordable housing

Greg Randolph • 29 January 2013

New Moscow or Medvedev's Folly?

Robert Argenbright • 15 January 2013

City politics

The politics of placing a subway stop in a Buenos Aires slum

Drew Reed • 30 April 2013

A new subway line through an old informal neighbourhood in Buenos Aires is shaping up to be a political battle between social idealism and engineering pragmatism as Drew Reed discovers.

Taking the car out of Corbusier

Henrik Valeur • 9 April 2013

How Detroit's emergency manager is needed to control costs across the US

Isidoros Kyrlangitses • 19 March 2013

Diversity is not enough: a historically-informed call for civic unity

Daniel London • 27 November 2012

City finances

From pancakes to clusters: why Shanghai needs fiscal decentralisation

Sebastian Schulz • 11 December 2012

Sebastian Schulz describes how decentralisation without fiscal powers is encouraging districts to undermine the master plan and overdevelop their territories.

Most Discussed

In Other Topics

Private sector governance: Sistren Theatre Collective: bringing street violence into the spotlight
Development authority
Regional governance
City networks

Hot Cities

Delhi: Delhi: choosing high-rise over consultative planning
London: NSIPs: Another dent in the UK's localism agenda?
New York-Newark: Setting the right price for parking in San Francisco and New York
Seattle: Demonstrating the dignity of informal US housing

Featured Author

James Patterson-Waterston

James Patterson-Waterston is a consultant on strategy, urban planning and development at Happold Consulting, with a particular focus on projects in…

NSIPs: Another dent in the UK's localism agenda?

View all articles

Events

Post an event

Future of Cities Forum 2013: 4 - 7 September 2013

Jobs

Post a job

About

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.

Advertise on this site