Warming to their theme, Andrew Stevens and Jonas Schorr continue last week's dissection of city network associations by arguing that instead of grandiose schemes like a global senate of mayors, we must concentrate on creating popular democratic demand for city networking, and on giving more power and media visibility to the knowledge exchange efforts that cities already pursue.
Andrew Stevens and Jonas Schorr survey the landscape of city networks and local government associations and call for some serious bureaucratic Darwinism to cull the overduplication of organisations.
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.
...but with the Al Maktoum International Airport, the logistics centre in Jebel Ali, and a flourishing of small-scale economic life, evidence would suggest otherwise, as Michele Acuto observes.
The C40 has pushed through major agreements with the Clinton Foundation and the World Bank. But what are the real purposes of these agreements and where does this put cities on the world stage?
While governments remain focused on economic indicators and the image a city projects, writers who wish to remain egalitarian must discount both of these in favour of the basic needs of all people.
Formally, rhetorically and economically, the 100-mile metropole touted by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisor Jacques Attali stands for a lot less than we would like to imagine.
Michele Acuto is CPD Research Fellow at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School, PhD Candidate at the Australian National University…
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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.
