Sana'a, the capital of Yemen and facing one of the most severe water crises of any city in the world, may have an answer in a startlingly simple project to help households reconfigure their onsite water storage systems to collect their own rainwater.
Another shack fire broke out in Cape Town's townships last month, killing one woman and affecting 1,500 residents. Andrew Fleming reports on the City's response and the attitude of residents, and reviews some recent initiatives that may alleviate the problem of shack fires in the short and long terms.
The Government of India has launched a grand housing scheme for a 'slum-free India'. But can grand schemes work when planners and policymakers neither understand the reality of the urban poor nor connect to their aspirations?
The UK government is abolishing Regional Spatial Strategies, giving greater power to local governments. But with many cross-regional issues remaining, will they be able to fulfil their new roles?
It is common knowledge that sub-Saharan Africa is urbanising faster than anywhere else in the world ... but what if we're wrong?!
Future Cities, organised by Economist Conferences, is a major international conference, exploring innovative new approaches to designing, managing and financing Africa’s cities.
The southern Italian city of Naples has offered to host the sixth session of the World Urban Forum.
Lots of 'solutions' get presented at events like the Urban and Housing Development conference in Cape Town, but can a model be sustainable if it excludes large parts of the city?
James Patterson-Waterston revisits Xining and finds that China's plans to bring development to the west are proceeding at such pace that they threaten to marginalise traders and ethnic groups that bring life to the city.
Doha is part of Qatar's push to become an urban exemplar for the region, diversifying away from an oil-based economy by investing in education, enterprise, sport, transport and the quality of the public realm.
A hundred-year-old street market in Bangalore was demolished in the dead of night last month. How much history and local colour is lost by enforcing the law now after so many years?
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.
What happens when a foreign charity introduces an agenda that aligns with local entrepreneurial initiatives? Will locals be seen as like-minded stakeholders or as 'competition'?
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.
