Urban Themes

Ben Lambert, a 34-year-old who manages fundraising efforts for a number of nonprofits, lives in one of Denver’s densest residential neighborhoods: Capitol Hill. The area surrounds Colorado’s capitol building and is home to museums, concert venues and restaurants. The housing stock consists mostly of apartment buildings and tightly packed homes.
Ben’s apartment building has a small off-street... Read more

Every city in the U.S. has a chief elected leader. Many cities have a chief technology officer. Several cities have a chief resilience officer. But, how many cities have a chief scientist?
In an era of climate change and limited resources, isn’t this an idea whose time has come?
I suggested this idea at the recent CitiesIPCC 2018 Conference in Edmonton, Canada before a friendly audience of mayors... Read more

Notably, no U.S. cities featured in the top 10
LONDON, March 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Singapore remains the world's most expensive city for the fifth consecutive year, with Paris, Zurich and Hong Kong following closely behind, according to the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey published on Thursday.
Low inflation meant Tokyo - the most expensive city until 2013 - dropped out of the top 10... Read more

Authors:
Franz Gatzweiler, Executive director of the URBAN HEALTH AND WELLBEING: A SYSTEMS APPROACH Programme of the International Council for Science (ICSU), Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China Email: gatzweiler02@gmail.com
Jieling Liu, PhD candidate in Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon,... Read more


Authors:
Franz Gatzweiler, Executive director of the URBAN HEALTH AND WELLBEING: A SYSTEMS APPROACH Programme of the International Council for Science (ICSU), Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China Email: gatzweiler02@gmail.com
Jieling Liu, PhD candidate in Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon,... Read more

The San Francisco Bay Area’s flood risk maps, produced by FEMA, use satellite radar to calculate city-by-city threats. One thing they don’t take into account, however: Bay-side cities aren’t just vulnerable to melting ice caps. They’re also sinking — sometimes at a rate of about a half-inch per year.
That’s the alarming conclusion from researchers at UC Berkeley and Arizona State University.... Read more

According to the World Bank’s recent report, over half of the world’s population is unable to access basic health services. This is a stark reminder of the persistent inequity that exists across the globe, and reiterates the urgency of accelerating progress toward universal health coverage (UHC) as a key driver of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
No doubt, there have been... Read more

It's been over a year now since all 193 countries of the United Nations adopted by acclamation the "New Urban Agenda," the outcome document of the Habitat III conference held in October 2016. The historic nature of that achievement is hard to over-state: for the first time, we have a world-wide agreement embracing walkable mixed use, mixed transportation modes, polycentric regions, diversity and... Read more

Last summer, the 100 Resilient Cities network of resilience practitioners, partners and experts gathered in New York at our Global Summit to assess the state of urban resilience, and our progress toward helping cities adapt and evolve in the face of 21st Century challenges. During our opening program, I invited Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, Senior Director for the World Bank Group’s Social, Urban, Rural,... Read more