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, where every community member has a right to two or more spaces within a city: a residential space, an employment space, an educational space, etc.?
In the first of three articles on the remaking of Martyrs' Square, an intensely political space in downtown Beirut, Tanya Gallo explores the capitalist redevelopment of the city centre, and how it is threatening to create new segregations between the wealthy and the general public in the city's public spaces.
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.
Despite its hilly topography and a legal injunction that prevented it from developing its bicycle network for four years, cycle use in San Francisco has grown to set the standard for US cities.
A year after the introduction of the Boris bikes and the Cycle Superhighways, Joe Peach reevaluates their impact on Greater London, finding them wanting due to their emphasis on the city centre over suburban areas.
Seminar series funded by the Urban Studies Foundation and the Urban Studies Journal Seminar Series Competition
Seminar series funded by the Urban Studies Foundation and the Urban Studies Journal Seminar Series Competition
There is no better time to witness the shortsightedness of governments than around elections. With municipal elections just around the corner in Mumbai, a whole raft of new promises are being made to certain slum dwellers...
Yusaf Samiullah OBE argues for the complexity of urban environments, stating that this is what international development organisations must apprehend and address if they are to improve the quality of urban livelihoods.
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.
...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.
Sheila Ochugboju sees much to admire in Mumbai's Dial 1298 for Ambulance but fears the middle class is too small in her own Accra for the model to be replicable there.
WaterAid's Timeyin Uwejamomere calls on lead agencies to reprioritise their water and sanitation expenditure on informal settlements to prevent slum conditions from spreading as urbanisation intensifies.
A freelance writer, researcher and consultant on contemporary urbanism, with specific research interests including public space and the public realm…
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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.
